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Tag: propel
Johnston County (NC) Students Pilot Updated Version of Propel
Our thanks to a class of 9th grade students at Johnston County (North Carolina) Public Schools for piloting the latest version of our Propel email etiquette tool for Gmail.
We provided the students with an upgraded version of Propel on Monday, April 21 and gained feedback on Monday, April 28.
The overall takeaways:
– The students like the new Propel version and how it gives more tailored examples for the email message.
– The students also like the new scoring system and how the score improves when the student uses a green light bulb to correct an issue.
– Technical issues we need to work through:
1. Improve how a student moves from section to section in the email and not get the cursor stuck in a single spot.
2. Make sure the floating boxes with email writing samples don’t infringe on the email writing area.
You can see the newest version of Propel here.
We hope to roll out the newest version of Propel to all Rubin customers in fall 2025.
In the latest version of Propel, students begin the email by selecting the recipient and type of message. From there, Propel provides a tailored email example for the student to follow. Listening hard to the feedback.
Rubin Partners with Miami-Dade, Nation’s 3rd Largest School District
Rubin Partners with Miami Dade, Nation’s 3rd Largest School District
In the photo: Rubin founder Danny Rubin (left) stands with Miami-Dade students and their teacher Shnae Wallace. The students use Rubin’s Emerge employability skills curriculum to help with email etiquette, job interview prep and more.
Rubin, the leader in online curriculum for employability skills, has partnered with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to provide high school students with lessons that focus on college and career readiness.
Miami-Dade, one of the largest school divisions in the country, has a robust internship program that sends thousands of high school students into the South Florida business community each spring.
In the 23-24 academic year, Rubin products proved themselves as supplemental curriculum for the internship program. During the classroom portion of the internship program, 3,000 Miami-Dade students spent more than 250,000 minutes in Rubin’s Emerge employability skills curriculum on topics like resume writing, email etiquette and job interview prep.
In the 25-26 academic year, Rubin has expanded further into Miami-Dade through career-based pathways like health science, business and agriculture. Rubin will also now provide its Aspire career exploration video platform and Propel email etiquette teaching tool.
All Rubin products integrate to Schoology, Miami-Dade’s learning management system, via LTI 1.3. That means students and teachers access Rubin content in Schoology seamlessly and without a traditional sign-in process.
“We are honored to work with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, one of the nation’s leading school districts,” said Danny Rubin, founder of Rubin. “Already we have made an impact on several thousand students, and we’re excited at the chance to make a deeper impression in the school years to come.”
We reach South Florida.
Irvine USD Creates “Light Bulb Challenge” with Rubin Propel
When learning becomes a game, the teachers win and so do their students.
At Irvine (California) Unified School District, a longtime Rubin partner, students practice their email etiquette through a competition.
Our Propel tool provides feedback on a student’s email in the form of lightbulbs next to the words that need correction (ex: capitalize a lowercase word if it begins a sentence).
Special education students in a class called Directed Studies now vie to see who can write an email with the fewest light bulbs (mistakes). The students, all in grades 10-12, have fun while improving their professional skills.
“We weren’t sure how the students would respond to Propel,” said Career Link Supervisor Renee Melton. “Right away, they found the tool engaging. Plus, Propel helped their emails improve.”
We love to see how educators incorporate Propel into their instruction. The tool is a simple resource that can be modified in dozens of ways. As long as students strengthen how they communicate with teachers, employers and other adults, we are satisfied!
Work turns into play in California.
In First Two Months, Rubin Propel Gives Email Etiquette Advice 30,000 Times
In January 2024, we launched our Propel email etiquette tool for Gmail and Outlook.
Immediately, the tool went to work helping students nationwide become more professional with their messages to teachers and employers.
See how Propel works — 1 minute video!
Quick stats:
Number of school districts participating: 37
Number of students who have Propel as an email extension: 936
Number of emails written with the help of Propel: 5,449
Number of Propel rules shared with the students: 30,019
Let’s break down the data
Propel guides a student to structure an email (ex: include a greeting and closing) and then analyzes the message to offer further suggestions for grammar and soft skills.
Propel offers advice, but students must make the changes. No AI, no ChatGPT. Pure learning.
Among the 30,019 times Propel offered advice:
- Include a greeting (ex: Good morning): 3,357 times
- Add a period at the end of the sentence: 2,415
- Address the person with a proper title (ex: Ms. Smith): 2,351
- Don’t write the email as one “blocky” paragraph: 544
- Be sure to capitalize the first word of a sentence: 460
- Remember to sign your name at the end: 397
- Don’t use a lowercase “i” to describe yourself: 250
What’s more, 99% of students who use Propel write a subject line as a cogent summary of the message. The #1 complaint our team hears from educators about student emails is that students write the entire email in the subject line.
Propel has solved the subject line problem.
“The Propel tool was easy to use and helped my students so much,” said Shelley Roberts, a teacher in Johnston County, North Carolina. “It is disappointing that many students have no idea what the correct format of a letter/email should be. Propel reintroduced terms like body and greeting. The students love the easy, ‘fill in the blank’ process.”
The bigger picture
Propel is an optional extension in a student’s email, which means the initial batch of pilot students choose to use Propel. They want the guidance.
“When a student fixes a small mistake like not capitalizing the first word of a sentence, instantly the message becomes more professional,” said Danny Rubin, founder of Rubin. “The student will then be taken more seriously in the business community, and opportunities can happen more quickly.”
Rubin added: “In that way, Propel is a tool for equity and eliminating bias in the marketplace.”
Click here to request a trial!
Launch and scale.
Rubin Propel Transforms Email Writing for Johnston County MS and HS Students
Subject line: [blank]
Email message: turned in
That is an email composed by a 9th grader in Johnston County, North Carolina during the spring 2024 semester.
The trend to write emails like text messages is not unique to Johnston County, of course. In our digital era, students nationwide often don’t understand how to draft a professionally-written email.
That’s why Johnston County piloted Rubin’s new Propel email etiquette tool in the spring semester for middle and high school students.
Propel is a teaching tool for Gmail and Outlook that guides a student to compose a high-quality email. Propel does not use AI, and the tool requires students to do all the writing and critical thinking.
See a 1-minute demonstration of Propel here.
Let’s return to the email written by the 9th grader:
Subject line: [blank]
Email message: turned in
With the help of Propel, here’s what the email became:
Subject line: Completed work
Email message:
Good afternoon, Mrs. Roberts.
I hope you are doing well.
I wanted to let you know that I have completed my interview and turned it in.
Thank you,
– Alyssa
Now observe the growth among 6th graders too.
Here’s an example of a 6th grade email before Propel:
Subject line: why i have 72 grade
Email message: [blank]
And here’s an email in which the student used Propel:
Subject line: What I think the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland means
Email message:
Mrs. Woll,
Good morning. This is Evy from second block.
This is my answer for the journal prompt.
I think the rabbit hole represents part of Alice’s personality, such as the unfocused part, or distracted or curious.
Thank you for your time and effort for reading my answer for the journal prompt.
– Evy
Johnston County 9th grade teacher Shelley Roberts:
“The Propel tool was easy to use and helped my students so much! It is disappointing that many of them have no idea what the correct format of a letter/email should be. This tool reintroduced terms like body and greeting. The students loved how easy the ‘fill in the blank’ process was.”
Night and day difference.
Powerful Data: With Propel, Students No Longer Write Entire Email in Subject Line
Raise your hand if you receive emails from students in which the entire message is in the subject line.
…You can put your hands down now.
Propel, Rubin’s revolutionary email etiquette tool for Gmail and Outlook, eliminates the poor habit and instead teaches students to write compact, professional subject lines.
After six weeks of pilot programs across the country, students have used Propel to assist with emails 4,254 times.
Of the 4,254 emails, only four had a subject line longer than eight words. Four.
That means 99.9% of students who use Propel have learned to use the subject line as a summary and not the full conversation.
Want to see your students stop treating emails like text messages? Install Propel to students’ email accounts.
“We are thrilled with the early data on Propel in the classroom,” said Rubin founder Danny Rubin. “The #1 complaint we hear from educators about communication is that students write the entire message in the subject line. Propel has solved the problem with the initial crop of pilot students, and we hope to roll out the tool to many more schools in the months to come.”
When students compose a new email, they are prompted with a pop-up screen that guides them to write all the part of an email, including a subject line with an example to follow. A subject line is more than a summary of the email. It is a first impression as a student communicates with teachers, employers and the broader community.
A sloppy subject line could prevent the student from receiving a response. A professional subject line allows the student to open new doors and conversations.
Propel, then, is a tool for equity and opportunity that all students deserve.
Problem? Solved.
HS Student Uses Propel to Write Powerful Email, Stay Eligible for Basketball Season
Rubin Propel, our company’s newest product that teaches young people to write professional emails, has the chance to impact outcomes nationwide.
Not one week into our Early Access initiative where select teachers and students pilot the tool, we already have proof of what Propel can do as a Chrome extension or Outlook add-in.
See brief demonstration of Propel here.
In early November 2023, we provided Propel to teacher Tracy Turney-Smith at Butler Tech, a technical high school in Ohio. A day later, a student of Turney-Smith came into her classroom on the verge of tears.
The young man said an issue over a grade in another class threatened his chances of being eligible for the school’s basketball team. He now needed to write a courteous, professional email to the teacher in question to demonstrate he deserves a second chance.
Turney-Smith knew what to do. She had the student use Propel in Gmail to craft the essential parts of an email (ex: subject line, introductory line) and refine the message (ex: capitalize the first word of each sentence, limit exclamation marks and ALL CAPS).
Thanks to Propel, the student’s email was “fabulous” and “changed the teacher’s mind about the grade” said Turney-Smith.
Now the student is able to rejoin the basketball team this winter. And who knows? Perhaps the student can then seek a scholarship for basketball, attend college, graduate college and embark on a career.
Anything is possible because of the use of Propel on November 2, 2023.
We are excited at the potential of Propel to impact and uplift students everywhere. Request your free pilot of Propel today!
One tool. Endless possibilities.