Frequently Asked Questions: Cultivate

Why use Cultivate?

Research shows that in educational spaces, learning conditions—structures, norms, and practices—shape students' belief and have significant impacts on their learning and well-being. The Cultivate System—survey, framework, tools, and resources—can support educators as they work to understand and improve the daily experiences of students in their classrooms.

Cultivate was designed to provide a safe space for teachers to get feedback from their students on how their instructional efforts are being received and, ultimately, its primary purpose is to help support the creation of a true partnership between educator and students as they work to together to improve classroom learning environments.
 

What are the components of your Cultivate Report?

• Learning Conditions: The aspect of a classroom that shape students' daily experiences, learning beliefs, academic success, and well-being.
• Learning Beliefs: The lens through which youth make meaning of their experiences at school.
• Response Rate & Impact Question: The number of eligible students who participated and the percentage of student who said they believe their answers will actually be used to improve their learning experiences. 
• Resources: Reports also include access to several aligned resources, including learning condition guides with research and recommendations, participatory data analysis protocols, observation checklists, teacher self-reflections, and downloadable PDFs.
   

Who takes the Cultivate Survey?

The Cultivate Survey is designed for students in grades 5-12. 
 

What classrooms are students answering questions about?

The Cultivate for Schools survey randomly assigns students to answer questions about one of their core classes (math, science, social studies, and English). Teachers who are in a coaching support program that uses Cultivate for Coaches administer the survey to all of their students regardless of the subject they teach. 

How many times a year is the Cultivate Survey administered?

Cultivate is administered twice a year—once in the fall and once in the spring.

How are Cultivate Survey results disaggregated?

Results from the Cultivate for Schools survey can be disaggregated by grade level, subject area, or a combination of both. This allows grade level or subject area teams to use this information to identify patterns and better understand how learning environments differ across different groups of classrooms. Results from the Cultivate for Coaches survey, administered in the context of a coaching support program, can be disaggregated by the different class periods teachers teach. Both reports can also be disaggregated by student demographics.

What will Cultivate tell us about our students?

Cultivate gives students the opportunity to provide feedback on the nine Learning Conditions that matter for their development. 

• Affirming Identities: Recognition and affirmation of student identities
• Classroom Community: Sense of community and mutual support among classmates
• Feedback for Growth: Nature and quality of teacher feedback to improve student work
• Learning Goals: Accessibility and connectedness of instructional goals
• Meaningful Work: Interest and relevance of classroom learning for students
• Student Voice: Opportunities for and responsiveness to student ideas and input
• Supportive Teaching:  Breadth and quality of teacher’s instructional support for learning
• Teacher Caring: Strength and quality of teacher’s one-on-one relationships with students
• Well-Organized Classroom: Clarity and helpfulness of classroom systems and routines

The survey also asks students to share what they believe about themselves as learners in that same class. Are they able to report:

• I am valued
• I am empowered
• I am capable
• I can grow
• I find class purposeful

After each survey administration, educators receive a report that shows the distribution of students' responses to the items contained within the nine Learning Conditions and allows them to disaggregate overall scores by both classroom characteristics and student demographics. It also shows how the Learning Conditions are connected to the five Learning Beliefs, which educators are able to explore in the Learning Belief appendix.
 

Are Cultivate survey results designed to evaluate teacher practice?

Cultivate results are not designed to be an accountability tool or evaluative of teacher practice. Cultivate is a measure of students’ perceptions of what teachers do in their classrooms and the results are designed to help teachers adjust and refine their practices in ways that foster strong Learning Beliefs and, in turn, better academic performance for students, as well as a stronger sense of identity and well-being.
 

How is this approach different from other approaches to improving students’ grades?

A common approach to improving student grades is imparting more content knowledge or implementing entirely new curricula. Instead, Cultivate equips educators with the information they need to adjust their practice and the learning environments they create in ways that help students thrive in their learning and well-being through existing curricula.
 

How doe Cultivate fit in with what we're already doing in my classroom/school?

Teachers are working to improve their classrooms in many ways—like implementing new organizational systems or strengthening the sense of community among students. Cultivate provides teachers with another data point they can use to guide their continuous improvement efforts—a data point from students, the people best positioned to weight in on how classroom improvement efforts are going.

Schools using both 5Essentials and Cultivate are able to access both a broad and deep understanding of students' classroom experiences, and thus identify different levers to help improve conditions at both the school and classroom levels.

• The 5Essentials measures five elements that comprise school organization and climate, covering everything from academics, to workplace culture, to the engagement of families and community.
• Cultivate digs in deeply to one subset of the 5Essentials ecosystem, "Supportive Environment."
• Check out this two-page 5Essentials & Cultivate overview for more details. (Ver aquí para Español.)