Gary Heidt, a veteran English and Entrepreneurship teacher at Perkiomen Valley High School (PVHS), sought to deepen student engagement and authentic learning within his innovative NOVA Lab program and English classes.
Operating within a learner-centered, self-determined model since 2017 and moving away from traditional grades presented unique challenges:
Authentic Progress Tracking: Traditional methods failed to capture the nuanced learning journeys of students engaged in self-directed projects, often filtering progress solely through the teacher's lens.
Documenting Process: Effectively documenting the iterative process of writing (English) and the "slow burn" of long-term project development (Entrepreneurship) was difficult with existing tools.
Scalable Feedback & Dialogue: Providing timely, meaningful feedback and fostering rich dialogue with numerous students working independently proved logistically challenging.
Fostering Reflection & Community: A need existed for a tool that encouraged in-the-moment reflection, peer-to-peer interaction, and a shared understanding of diverse projects within the class.
Empowering Student Narratives: Gary needed a way for students to own and articulate their learning stories, focusing on growth rather than grade justification.
Goals
To address these challenges and enhance his gradeless, student-centered approach, Gary aimed to:
Enable students to authentically document their learning processes, successes, and challenges in their own voice using multimedia evidence.
Make student learning journeys visible and transparent, fostering a community of peer support and feedback.
Implement a system for tracking individual student growth effectively over time, especially for long-term projects.
Streamline the process for providing timely, targeted feedback without relying solely on synchronous conferencing.
Empower students to take ownership of their learning narratives and build meaningful portfolios of their work.
Implementation
Gary began implementing Unrulr in his English and NOVA Lab classes in May 2021:
Regular Student Documentation: Students capture "Moments" twice weekly, using text and multimedia to document specific instances of work, insights, or obstacles related to their "Purpose Projects" and other assignments.
Structured Reflection (Journeys): Every two weeks, students curate their Moments into "Journeys," creating a narrative synthesis of their learning progression over that period.
COGS Alignment: Moments are tagged with specific Concepts, Outcomes, Goals, and Skills (COGS) aligned with class values: Growth, Effort, Depth, Empathy, and Impact. Students justify their COG choices, promoting metacognition.
Teacher & Peer Engagement: Gary actively comments on posts, providing resources, asking probing questions, and connecting students. Students view each other's posts, fostering peer understanding and a developing culture of commenting (with dedicated time needed for deeper processing).
Authentic Assessment: Unrulr evidence (Moments and Journeys) serves as primary documentation for collaborative grading conferences, replacing traditional grade reporting with richer, narrative-based assessments.
Gary’s Guide for Posting in Unrulr
Outcomes, in their words
It's a community builder. It's a progress check. It's a storytelling thing. I mean, it's everything that teachers want grades to be, but grades could never be... An 'A' is not gonna tell me a story of what's behind that student's success, and an 'F' is not gonna tell me a story of what's behind that student's failure to thrive. Only Unrulr is gonna be able to do that for me.
— Gary Heidt
The Story, through COGS
Gary’s Most Tagged COGS:
Doing – Abstrudo Dimensions of Learning – 6990
Absorbing – Abstrudo Dimensions of Learning – 3226
Creating – 16 Habits of Mind – 1330
Growth – Grade-less Core Values – 1291
Effort – Grade-less Core Values – 1193
Depth – Grade-less Core Values – 1029
Struggling – Abstrudo Dimensions of Learning – 831
Thinking Flexibly – 16 Habits of Mind – 731
A Focus on Process and Resilience
This data tells a powerful story: Gary’s classes at Perkiomen, whether in the NOVA Lab entrepreneurship program or his English classes, are deeply rooted in active learning and a profound embrace of the process. The overwhelming lead of "Doing" and the high rank of "Creating" demonstrate that students are hands-on, actively engaged in projects, and generating original work. This isn't about passive consumption; it's about dynamic application.
Perhaps most telling is the prominence of "Struggling," along with "Growth," "Effort," and "Depth." These tags reveal a culture where students are encouraged to lean into challenges, understanding that setbacks are an integral part of the learning journey. They aren't just achieving outcomes; they're navigating complexities, reflecting deeply on their progress, and recognizing the value of the effort they put in. This fosters remarkable resilience and a strong growth mindset, crucial for success in entrepreneurship and beyond.
Learning to Learn (and Adapt)
The frequent tagging of "Absorbing" (both generally and specifically for "Soft Skills") alongside "Thinking Flexibly" highlights another critical dimension of Gary's program. Students are not only taking in new information but are also actively developing crucial interpersonal and adaptive skills. They're learning to pivot, consider multiple perspectives, and apply diverse strategies to overcome obstacles. This signals a program that’s building highly adaptable learners—students who are documenting not just what they've accomplished, but how they're learning to navigate complex situations and who they're becoming as resourceful individuals.
Together, these tags illuminate a program that's building reflective, resilient, and resourceful learners. In Gary's classes, students are proving that truly valuable learning happens when you're doing, creating, struggling, and growing—all while knowing that these often-invisible traits are now visible, trackable, and celebrated thanks to Unrulr.
Gary’s Grade-less Core Values
Key Programs
Gary implemented Unrulr primarily within two contexts:
English Classes ("Purpose Projects"): Students pursue self-directed research and creation projects (e.g., building instruments, composing music, writing extended pieces). Unrulr captures the authentic, often non-linear, learning process, enabling timely teacher feedback and providing visibility for peer engagement. Specific skills, like Socratic Seminar participation (listening, responding, empathy), are also documented and reflected upon using Unrulr.
NOVA Lab (Entrepreneurship): Students manage long-term entrepreneurial projects, developing skills in project management, resource allocation, and sustained effort. Unrulr serves as a crucial tool for documenting incremental progress, reflecting on overcome obstacles, managing the "slow burn" of passion projects, and making thinking visible.
Why Gary Chose Unrulr
Gary recognized Unrulr’s unique potential to meet his specific pedagogical needs:
Authentic Documentation: Multimedia posts offered a richer, more genuine reflection of student progress and process than traditional methods.
Efficient Feedback: The platform allows Gary to provide specific, actionable feedback asynchronously, saving time and cognitive load compared to managing notes or relying solely on conferences.
Community Building: Built-in visibility and commenting features facilitate peer interaction and understanding across diverse projects.
Narrative-Friendly Structure: Moments and Journeys provide natural building blocks for students to craft and share cohesive stories of their learning.
Future-Ready Portfolio Evidence: Unrulr provides a robust platform for students to collect and curate evidence of learning for authentic assessment and future reference.
The Impact of Unrulr
Unrulr has significantly enhanced how learning is documented, understood, and assessed in Gary’s classrooms:
Authentic Student Narratives: Provides rich, qualitative evidence of the learning journey, moving beyond grades to capture the story of growth.
Empowered Learners: Students gain ownership of their learning path, develop metacognitive skills, and build confidence through self-documentation and reflection.
Enhanced Community & Engagement: Increased visibility into peer work fosters connections, mutual learning, and a supportive classroom culture.
Streamlined, Actionable Feedback: Simplifies the feedback loop, enabling more timely, targeted, and impactful guidance from the teacher.
Robust Portfolio Foundation: Creates a readily accessible repository of evidence that students use for reflection, conferences, and showcasing their work.
What’s Next?
Gary continues to integrate Unrulr as a core component of his teaching practice, focusing on deepening the culture of peer feedback and refining how students use COGS for reflection. He is particularly excited about leveraging Unrulr’s upcoming native portfolio features to further streamline authentic assessment and empower student storytelling.
Perkiomen Valley High School’s journey with Unrulr illustrates how innovative educators can utilize the platform not just to document tasks, but to fundamentally transform how student learning is captured, understood, assessed, and celebrated within dynamic, student-centered environments.
