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Thrively
Pros: Who doesn't love a personality test? Students will jump at the chance to answer self-reflective questions and find out their strengths.
Cons: In-person activities may be costly and out of reach for some students; digital content is uneven in quality.
Bottom Line: A great starting point for conversations about students' strengths; skip some of the digital content.
Consider using the assessment as a way to start or end the school year and see students' progress over time or focus on skills needed for life after school. You might use the results as the subject of a teacher-student advising conversation or as the centerpiece of a parent-teacher conference. You may wish to share this with your school counselor or professional who works on college and career-ready planning. The built-in portfolio tool can be a little clunky, but it has merit, too: If your school isn't already invested heavily in another content-sharing tool (such as Google Drive or Dropbox), it could be a great collaborative space for teachers and students alike.
Thrively doesn't contain racy content or images; kids' experience on the site should be safe. However, it frequently links to external sites that provide additional information on programs or events the site suggests. Sending kids away from the closed environment the site provides should be considered when teachers plan their independent learning time.
Founded by a tech entrepreneur, Thrively is a website that helps kids find online and local activities that fit their particular interests. Thrively was created with input from pediatric neuropsychologists, and the site bursts with teacher-contributed lesson plans and ideas. Once a teacher sets up a class, kids take an assessment that identifies 23 potential strengths. The site then suggests activities tailored to kids' interests and strengths; Thrively says it has more than 100,000 on file and has recently created new content related to projects, videos, journaling, and career pathway maps. Kids can click on a "Done It" button when they've completed an activity, and progress can be viewed using site dashboards. Users can also share activity boards with other members of their social circle.
For students you're just getting to know, or for those who may need a little help articulating their interests, Thrively is an interesting tool to help them consider how they'd act in different situations and then get a strengths-based assessment. While there are some traditionally academic questions (identify the Colosseum, solve a visual logic problem), there are other questions about navigating social situations, demonstrating sporting behavior, and even creative interests. The broad range of question topics normalizes that there are lots of ways to be smart and lots of things that kids can potentially like and be good at.
That aspirational tone would be even stronger if there were a better sense of how to sort through the resources. It's not clear where they all came from, and it's even harder to search them strategically. Also, not all of these resources are for all kids: While some activities are free in-person events (like field trips to a local museum) or accessible online activities, others are pay-to-play affairs. It's pretty slick that you view activities instantly curated by your ZIP code; having similarly sophisticated search capabilities would make this a one-stop shop for kids. As it is, this is an engaging starting point for an encouraging conversation about individual students' abilities and what kinds of learning activities might engage them next.
Learning Rating
Awesomeness
It is versatile as it addresses many needs our school has:
• identifies top five strengths, as well as interests and aspirations.
• suggests careers based on their strengths and interests.
• has careers videos about suggested careers
• Hope Index inventory identifies those with low hope: (Has goals + knows how to get there).
• Wellness Check shows how students are doing from week to week.
• Digital portfolio to show off students' best work.
• has other inventories such as MIDAS, Habits of Mind, Thrively Interest Profiler.
• video playlists to develop their strengths, explore occupations, grow social emotional wellness.
• allows parents to see their childrens' work
• I believe it breaks down race and ethnic barriers between me and students.
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