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Implementation Overview - Start here!
Implementation Overview - Start here!

Discussing the high level steps to getting HEADRUSH set up and going.

Mike Hourahine avatar
Written by Mike Hourahine
Updated over 2 weeks ago

So you've done it.  You made the decision to bring HEADRUSH to your organization.  Congrats!

Before you can roll HEADRUSH out to your organization, there are a few things to consider to both tailor Headrush for your needs as well as ensure a successful launch.  Remember, we're in this together so if you have any questions or need assistance along the way, don't hesitate to reach out!

Below are the main things you'll need to think through in order to get going with HEADRUSH.  

Follow the link to details on each one:

  1. Setup and Configure Headrush for your organization

  2. Map out and experiment with your learning scenarios

  3. Familiarize yourself and your team with Headrush features

  4. Align/Incorporate your related non-Headrush professional development and or culture building

  5. Select (or Determine) Your Reports

  6. Codify your launch

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1. Setup and Configure Headrush for your organization

Setting up Headrush is a process that is often revisited as you work with your team and trainer to triangulate the platform to your needs. Most things in Headrush can be easily managed by your organization via anyone with an Admin role, including these important starting steps:

  1. Creating student and teacher user accounts

  2. Creating advisory groups

  3. Deciding on and importing your school's learning targets

  4. Understanding and setting up Credits and or Target Plans

  5. Setting up school information and academic years

Related Link: What all can be configured in Headrush?

2. Map out and experiment with your learning scenarios

Ironically, the best thing one can do to begin their learning journey is start with understanding how you do what you want to do and how your organization wants to do things (i.e.- learning scenarios). Unraveling how you do (or want to do) what you do will help ensure common language exists within your organization as well as maximize how you utilize Headrush day to day.

3. Familiarize yourself and your team with Headrush features

The best way to learn Headrush is to play, experiment, and explore in Headrush. Here are some ideas to independently explore Headrush as well as training activities that can be used to support a more collective training and implementation:

Training Activities for Initial Training

  1. Review the Knowledge base Tutorials

  2. Create a Module/Project from scratch

  3. Run an already designed Module/Project

  4. Do a Scavenger Hunt

  5. Mock up example student(s)

  6. Backfill your Warehouse with preexisting projects/units/seminars/classes

*** Please note, your site MAY NOT have all of the example data referenced in the Scavenger Hunt. Feel free to modify accordingly or contact us to get that sorted out, if you are doing this on your own.

4. Align/Incorporate your related non-Headrush prof. development and or culture building

The best implementations of Headrush seamlessly incorporate related training that:

  • Reinforces best practice teaching, learning, and meta-cognition

  • Clarifies consistency across a group of professionals

  • Nurtures an organization’s vision and culture

This means that intertwined with learning the Headrush platform, other such topics are related, linked, and co-mingled. The result is you become more effective in your day to day as well as Headrush becomes easier to learn/use.

Some specific examples include:

  • Advisory

  • Cross-curricular collaboration

  • Formative assessment best practice

  • Daily Schedule

  • Personal Learning Plans

  • Graduating a Four Dimensional Learner

  • Career Exploration

  • STEM / STEAM

A great way to help commingle these practices along with your learning Headrush is to create a module within Headrush, making your colleagues the only learners on the respective Module and using Headrush to manage your process.

5. Select (or Determine) Your Reports

Headrush provides a number of built-in reports, transcripts, and exports that help externally summarize learning/progress, inform decision making, and or enable data entry into other systems. That said, any of those can be tailored to your school's unique needs by Headrush staff and or Headrush can work with you for custom formats. Very often, starting with the end in mind can clarify the best way to collect data, while minimizing effort required from advisors and students.

Initial Report Questions

  1. Who do you report to and what do they expect?

  2. How is how you track learning different than what you peridocially report?

  3. What makes your organization better/different and how is that reflected in what/how your reports say?

  4. What stats/summaries do you need/want across multiple students in one report?

6. Codify your launch

  • Articulate and reherse your first 15 moves of the launch across your group

  • Build in reflection on the process early and often after launching

  • Share resources and celebrate good examples

  • Plan how you will orient/train students and determine how this be differentiated for different groups of students.

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