Overview

Teachers of grades 3-6 at Keene Mill Elementary School use the Schoology learning management system (LMS) to post content for their courses. Students all have full-time access to their own laptop computer and use the LMS daily for classwork and homework. There is no existing training for teachers in how to organize content within the LMS, which has left teachers to their own devices to organize their courses as they see fit. As a result, courses are often difficult to navigate and inconsistently organized, content is difficult to locate, and there is significant variation from course to course. Consequences include missing and late assignments and class time wasted trying to navigate students within courses, as well as frustration from both students and teachers with the user experience of the LMS.

The goal of instruction in the proposed training is for teachers to redesign their Schoology courses to be more organized and easily navigable. The learners are a group of 24 teachers of grades 3-6. Teaching experience varies with the group from one to over thirty years, and technological proficiency varies from basic to advanced, though all teachers are familiar with the LMS. Teachers will complete an asynchronous, digital, scenario-based training to understand and apply strategies for course organization and will then redesign their Schoology courses to use with students. Evaluation will occur in three parts: students will take surveys prior to the redesign and following the redesign, and feedback will be compared. Learners will take quizzes during the training. The school’s Schoology implementation team will also evaluate redesigned courses based on a rubric.

Process

Needs Analysis

Teachers of upper elementary students (grades 3-6) are being asked to change their organization of Schoology courses. The need for change was identified by the client (school administration) based on feedback at the monthly faculty/staff advisory council meetings. Attitudes surrounding the LMS were negative and leading to an increase in frustration from students and teachers. Students often mentioned their discontent with the LMS in class, and teachers submitted complaints about the tedious nature of Schoology.

The requested change is ultimately a skills change because while teachers are well-versed in how to organize classroom materials, plan lessons, and sequence their curriculum, they lack the specific technical skills for how to do this in Schoology. Currently, there are no consistent guidelines or trainings within the school for organizing a course in Schoology. Teachers are free to organize their course content however they like, leading to significant inconsistencies and variation. Some teachers have their courses organized with folders or modules based on subject, week, or quarter.  Others have looser categories, with all content simply posted in reverse chronological order.

Multiple stakeholders will benefit from the requested change. The learners (teachers) will experience less teaching time wasted and higher success rates from students on assignments. The students will experience less stress when using the LMS and higher grades from completed assignments. The client (administration) will experience less complaints from staff and more positive attitudes during class time. An increase in completed assignments and less time wasted will also leave more room for instruction, review, and formative assessment, which will lead to higher standardized test scores.

Information for this analysis was collected from multiple sources. Administrators (client) were interviewed to understand their expectations for results, the grade levels that use the LMS most often, and the time allotted for training. The Information Technology department and Schoology implementation team were interviewed to understand the teachers’ baseline knowledge of the LMS. Students were interviewed in grades 4 and 6. Students explained their current experiences with Schoology, including their frustrations and what they wish their teachers would change to make courses more organized. A focus group of seven teachers at the elementary school ranging from grades 3-6 was held. These teachers represent a variety of experience levels, with between three and 30 years of teaching experience. Discussion in the focus group centered around the current rationale for course organization and where teachers felt they needed additional training. The consensus of the group was frustration with the LMS and the desire for help in making it more navigable. Existing courses were analyzed from one each of third, fourth, and sixth grade teachers to support the teachers’ complaints and to confirm that course organization was extremely varied. District-wide job aids and training materials were analyzed; these showed that teachers were taught basics of how to create courses and upload content, but the responsibility for organization was left up to the individual. The final source of data was an interview with the subject matter expert (SME) (see below). The data collected support the need for an instructional intervention and highlight the current gaps and desired change.

The SME is a fourth-grade teacher at Keene Mill Elementary with four years of experience teaching with classroom technology and designing digital courses for students in a 1:1 technology environment. The SME was selected to be on the Schoology implementation team at Keene Mill, which included training other teachers in how to create courses and begin using the LMS, in collaboration with the IT team. The SME highlighted potential reasons for the current problem, the largest skills gaps, and recommendations for important skills to teach.

According to the SME, the staff has experienced repeated changes in their LMS for the past four years. In 2018-19, the school used Blackboard as its LMS, and expectations for digital content were loose. Teachers were not required to post daily lessons or homework on the LMS, and students interacted with it infrequently. The following year, the school was transitioning to Google Classroom as its LMS, so teachers could choose to use either Blackboard, Google, or a combination of both. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the school abruptly switched exclusively to Google Classroom mid-year and required teachers to post all content and assignments on the LMS daily. Basic training was provided in Google Classroom, and teachers found the LMS to be intuitive enough to organize on their own. The district then announced that it would switch exclusively to Schoology beginning in 2021. By that point, teachers were overwhelmed with the frequent changes and found Schoology to be significantly less intuitive than Google. Additionally, little training was provided in course organization because the school was also going through dramatic and constant shifting from in-person to virtual to hybrid to in-person instruction. The teachers and the IT team were juggling many responsibilities and tasks, so Schoology ended up a low priority, forcing teachers to figure it out as they went.

The SME identified the largest skills gap in course organization as the use of categorization and subcategorization. Many teachers had an idea of digital course organization, but were used to the simple visuals of Google Classroom, which automatically created headings and sorted content in reverse chronological order. Schoology requires manual creation of folders and subfolders, and is initially harder to navigate unless it is manipulated with categories and color coding.

The SME’s main recommendation for the training was to teach the learners to organize their course in a way that makes it the most easily navigable for both them and their students. This could depend on developmental level, teaching style, or a combination of both. Once teachers have mastered the basic methods for organization, they can get more complex with subcategorization.

Storyboard

This course is designed with goals of informing learners, supporting procedural knowledge, and supporting principle-based knowledge. The largest emphasis falls on the latter two. As such, graphics support a combination of screen captures of relevant technology, as well as problem-based scenarios for learners to make decisions that model their job (Lyons & Clark, 2010). Words and graphics are used to support the conclusions of the multimedia principle and make learning as active as possible. Many of the graphics in the training will be used as lesson interfaces, because they set the backdrop for a scenario based experience and help learners understand context (Clark & Mayer, 2016). 

Visuals

To create the visuals, I decided to customize vector graphics using Adobe Illustrator because I wanted a cohesive animated visual look to the project. I modified character expressions and poses to reflect both positive and negative experiences with the teacher characters.

My favorite part of the graphic design was the coloring. I chose a bright earth toned color scheme to reduce distracting visual elements.

Development

Development happened in Articulate Storyline 360, using input from the storyboard and style guide. Multiple iterations of each module were published and tested for user experience.

Working on these slides in Storyline was both challenging and rewarding because I learned how to work with the complex functions of the software and input them in a timely manner. I enjoyed using the community’s tutorials and advice to troubleshoot on my own along the way. The use of variables, conditions, triggers, and animations was the most time-consuming aspect of the project, but ultimately gave me the results I wanted.

Takeaways

The project was well received, and the most common feedback I got was that the visuals were cohesive and engaging, the scenarios were fun, and the goal of the training was clear. Using this project to push my knowledge of Storyline increased my confidence in the field and provided me with invaluable instructional design skills.