how districts use enterprise- level learning management...

How Districts Use Enterprise-Level Learning Management Systems to Improve Efficiency

An enterprise-level LMS facilitates district-wide efficiency while also helping schools to save money, manage standards-based curriculum, implement modern pedagogical methods, and engage students in 21st-century learning.

eBOOK

Introduction

In a perfect world, all school districts would operate at maximum efficiency, achieving the highest level of productivity for the lowest inputof cost, time, and human resources. But challenged by budget cuts, the new demands of standards-aligned curriculum and assessment, and the need to deliver more personalized learning experiences, districts often miss the efficiency mark. Today’s districts are being asked to do a lot more with much fewer resources. The race is on to offset this reality and to find ways to create efficiencies across all systems and schools for the benefit of all teachers and students.

Video: Shedding Light on District EfficiencySurvey Results from Tech & Learning Magazine, Plus Houston ISD’s Perspective

2 How Districts Use enterprise-LeveL Learning ManageMent systeMs to iMprove efficiency

https://vimeo.com/172129871

Efficiency, the ability to do or produce something without wasting materials, time, or energy,1 enables districts to achieve more with less manpower and fewer dollars. It also allows teachers to focus on student achievement instead of, say, juggling multiple log-ins, dealing with disparate technology systems, or spending an inordinate amount of time developing standards-aligned curriculum and managing grades. Put simply, inefficient systems result in inefficient districts where too many resources (e.g., time, money, manpower) are allocated to sustaining systems and strategies that don’t produce the desired results.

Achieving an efficient operation in the business world isn’t always easy. The same rules apply in the K–12 space, where creating an operation that runs smoothly and works at peak performance levels hasn’t always been a key focus for principals, administrators, teachers, and information technology teams. The Information Age may have put more resources, tools, and platforms into districts’ hands,

but it has also created complications that consume precious time and resources. This, in turn, has led to high levels of district inefficiency.

To operate at a high level of efficiency, districts must implement solutions that help them streamline their operations and also free up valuable time for teachers and administrators. The most efficient of these solutions produce standards-aligned curriculum across all classes and subject areas and provide a central “hub” for teachers, students, and parents to use. Districts with such a system in place can effectively improve student engagement, reduce teacher turnover, free up their IT departments to focus on core tasks, and administer embedded professional development.

In addition, most importantly, a single, integrated learning management system (LMS) platform with a single log-in for content, curriculum, professional development, instruction, communication, collaboration, and assessment makes it easier for districts to personalize instruction for 21st-century learners.

In this ebook, we’ll explain the value of using an enterprise-level LMS to facilitate efficiency in the K–12 space and hear the stories of four different school districts that have used the itslearning platform to save money, develop standards-aligned curriculum, increase collaboration, implement modern pedagogical methods, and improve student engagement.

1. Merriam-Webster Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/efficiency


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/efficiency

Solving the Inefficiency Problem with an Enterprise-Level LMSThe term “efficiency” isn’t always easy to define, nor does it look the same across all districts, schools, and classrooms. However, there are some clear distinctions between inefficient versus efficient districts. They are:

Inefficient districts have: Efficient districts have:

1. Multiple, disparate learning and digital content tools

2. Multiple log-ins for content, curriculum, professional development, instruction, communication, collaboration, and assessment platforms

3. Low user adoption

4. An inability to implement new pedagogy or instructional strategies

5. Higher costs (full time equivalent spent on updating, rostering, and distributing curriculum; as well as the costs associated with purchasing and maintaining disparate systems)

6. The challenges associated with more time spent on curriculum and lesson planning and less time spent on instruction

7. Higher teacher turnover

8. No consistent way for teachers to measure mastery of standards

1. One district-wide, end-to-end digital platform

2. One log-in for content, curriculum, professional development, instruction, communication, collaboration, and assessment

3. High user adoption

4. An ability to integrate different systems and platforms

5. Lower costs (full time equivalent spent on updating, rostering, and distributing curriculum; reduction in the number of tools and systems)

6. Teachers who are able to spend more time on instruction and less time on curriculum and lesson planning

7. Less teacher turnover (i.e., teachers are more satisfied with their careers and with their roles in the educational process)

8. Actionable data for teachers to measure mastery of standards

9. An ability to modernize pedagogical methods (e.g., Universal Design for Learning [UDL], Personal Learning, 1:1 technology implementations, and become Every Student Succeeds Act [ESSA] Ready)


Creating a clear path to a more efficient district involves consolidating multiple, independent tools and content and streamlining instruction—enabling teachers to spend less time managing systems and manual processes and freeing them instead to focus on instruction and student achievement. This efficiency, in turn, can lower teacher turnover, increase student engagement, improve user adoption, and lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for the district.

But not all learning management systems are created equal and there are some clear differences among the three different delivery options that districts currently have available to them. These three options are:

Free LMS: Free software options like Google Apps for Education can help teachers organize student files and manage the assignment hand-in/hand-out process, but they lack important features like rubrics, the ability to centralize curriculum across the district, a central learning objects repository, and district-wide reporting and analysis. Issues like data privacy, multiple log-ins, and advertising served up to students also arise when districts opt for a free LMS over an enterprise-wide solution.

Hybrid (freemium) LMS: With freemium, districts get a “stripped down” version of the LMS to use indefinitely, but in order to access the product’s full features districts have to buy a district-wide license. Like the free LMS, this option doesn’t allow districts to leverage the important efficiencies that an enterprise-wide LMS offers, and it exposes users to all of the challenges listed above. Instructors, for example, still have to function as “islands,” without access to integrated content aligned to standards, consolidated resources, or district-wide professional development.

Enterprise-wide LMS: By using an enterprise-level LMS that all teachers, students, parents, and administrators can rely on, districts can save money and time, improve teacher retention, enhance overall efficiency, and create and manage standards-aligned curriculum on a single, centralized platform.

As you’ll see on the next page, districts that have already implemented next-generation, enterprise-wide learning platforms that go beyond the traditional LMS also benefit from: having an integrated resource where teachers can share and collaborate; improved student engagement; more effective professional development; better communication tools; and improved instructor efficiency and retention.


About two years ago, Houston Independent School District (HISD), a district with 283 schools and 215,000 students, went in search of an LMS that would help teachers create and use coursework that was both digital and aligned to Texas state standards (the state doesn’t use Common Core). “We wanted a solution that included curriculum and content management on a single platform,” says L. Beatriz Arnillas, Director of Education Technology for the district.

Houston ISD wanted to be able to link learning objectives (e.g., those stored in its digital libraries) to specific standards and create a system that teachers could use to determine the subject mastery and proficiency of individual students. The district chose itslearning because it enables districts to meta-tag learning objectives within their libraries and create assessment data that tells teachers whether or not a student has gained proficiency.

“ Our teachers can review the assessment results and figure out who is and isn’t mastering the standards,” says Arnillas, “and then get a list of LMS-generated recommended objectives that can be used to re-teach the standards that weren’t mastered.” These resources help teachers provide a very personalized learning experience.2

By adopting an end-to-end LMS, HISD became more efficient. The district:

Consolidated standards-aligned curriculum on a single platform

Increased the teachers’ usage, knowledge, and understanding of the LMS

Realized a three-year cost savings of $1.29 million over what the district paid for its previous learning management system

Reduced the number of log-ins so all users have only one log-in to access content, curriculum, professional development, instruction, communication and collaboration platforms, and assessment

Is now able to modernize pedagogical methods and provide personalized learning

Now has one district-wide, central repository for content for teachers, students, and parents.

Houston Independent School DistrictSaving Money and Developing Standards Aligned Content with Ease

2. Bridget McCrea, “3 LMS Adoptions that Go Way Beyond the Basics,” eSchoolNews, February 24, 2016.

Video: HISD has launched PowerUp, a districtwide initiative aimed at trans-forming teaching and learning - powered by itslearning.


Known as “the HUB,” Houston ISD’s end-to-end enterprise platform serves as the center of collaboration, personalization, curriculum, instruction, and communication for all staff, students, and parents. On the efficiency front, the HUB helps teachers do more in less time while personalizing instruction for students. Students can access the HUB 24/7/365 from any device and get their instructional material, coursework, and digital textbooks.

“One of the main challenges we face is that digital content providers deliver material in their own platforms,” Arnillas explains. “Users have to remember many log-in/password sets, and student scores and user data remain in each of these platforms, encoded in proprietary formats.” This severely limits what districts can do with data. By consolidating its standards-aligned curriculum on a single platform, the district has eliminated the need for multiple log-ins and passwords and put high-quality digital content (provided by multiple vendors) in one place.

In addition to making access easier by eliminating multiple log-ins, HISD created a number of conditions on the system that enable personalized learning. When users employ meta-tags, for example, to search for content, the library produces a large list of content chunks from several different providers for each topic. For example, the HUB might include content for a given Social Sciences topic from ABC Clio, Knovation, NBC Learn, and various publishers. “Teachers can enter keywords, or the number for one of the Texas Learning Standards (TEKS), and the library will display

“ One of the main challenges we face is that digital content providers deliver material in their own platforms, Users have to remember many log-in/password sets, and student scores and user data remain in each of these platforms, encoded in proprietary formats.”

a list of digital objects that match the topic or standard,” says Arnillas. “This kind of environment provides learners with options among a variety of pedagogical models and learning styles.”

At the end of the day, the HUB allows HISD to enable personalized learning as well as to cut costs—money that can be very useful elsewhere in the district. “With the assistance of the itslearning implementation team, we now have aggregated over one million learning objects from various publishers in our district’s library,” says Arnillas. “itslearning is now the central repository for content and resources used by teachers and students and allows parents to share information and collaborate in the education process.”

“

Beatriz Arnillas, Director of Education, Houston Independent School District


Like many school districts around the nation, Harford County (MD) Public Schools (HCPS) is being asked to do more with less these days. School budgets are tighter than ever and human resources are dwindling, yet districts must continually improve student performance, follow dozens of different standards, and support a more personalized, customized learning experience across all grade levels.

HCPS had the chance to improve its efficiency as a district a few years ago while concurrently moving to a more digitalized curriculum. In order to achieve these goals, the district needed a way to blend traditional instructional practices with today’s digital resources and enhance instruction using a digital platform. It also wanted to reduce the total cost of ownership and provide a single access point for teaching resources, collaboration, communication, and professional development. Finally, HCPS wanted to help parents gain a deeper understanding of their children’s educational experience by

providing access to information on their behavior and academic progress, in addition to details about upcoming assignments and tests.

To meet all of these needs, HCPS decided to integrate all of its learning resources into a single portal that supports student learning. The 37,800-student district selected itslearning for its “all-in-one” platform and now develops its digital curriculum within a framework that incorporates standards, model lessons, and digital resources for teachers. Teachers have these resources at their fingertips and can easily share them with students.

Harford County Public SchoolsManaging Content in the Information Age

Video: Learn more about Harford’s approach to curriculum management

8 How Districts Use enterprise-LeveL Learning ManageMent systeMs to iMprove efficiency8 How Districts Use enterprise-LeveL Learning ManageMent systeMs to iMprove efficiency


By adopting an end-to-end LMS, HCPS gained these efficiencies:

One district-wide, end-to-end digital platform that requires a single log-in

High user adoption

More time for instructors to spend on instruction instead of on curriculum and lesson planning

Actionable data for teachers to measure standards mastery

A centralized platform for teachers and parents to track student progress.

“We’re finding that technology is automatically transferring our classroom environment from teacher-centered to student-centered,” says Martha Barwick, Coordinator of Instructional Technology. “itslearning helps students ask questions and come up with problems that they want to solve on their own. The platform provides wonderful ways to embed resources, which give students a greater sense of voice and choice and provides relevant, real-life examples—making them more engaged.”

Today, HCPS has a curriculum management system that teachers use to access curriculum and learning units via a built-in learning sequence. And because students can also access the content, the district no longer needs multiple platforms or log-ins. “The

“ We’re finding that technology is automatically transferring our classroom environment from teacher-centered to student-centered. itslearning helps students ask questions and come up with problems that they want to solve on their own. The platform provides wonderful ways to embed resources, which give students a greater sense of voice and choice and provides relevant, real-life examples—making them more engaged.”

“

Martha Barwick, Coordinator of Instructional Technology, Harford County (MD) Public Schools

LMS saves our instructors time and allows them to focus on more important tasks—like teaching their classes instead of searching for and/or creating digital content to support curriculum,” says Barwick. “We’ve created a strong link among curriculum, assessment, and standards and connected learning to our pupils’ personal goals, aspirations, and interests.”

These benefits translate into a more efficient district overall. Teachers are more efficient because they can stay on a single platform, get content pushed out to them by the curriculum department, use a single log-in, and manage learning—all in itslearning. “And while a significant amount of work (and time) goes into building curriculum before it is pushed out to the teachers,” Barwick adds, “if you could put a price on time, we’d all become wealthy by using this type of system.”


Bartholomew Consolidated School CorporationAchieving Its Universal Design for Learning Goals

3. Chrissy Winske, “Using Technology to Create a Flexible Learning Environment,” K–12 Tech Decisions, October 29, 2014.

Up until last year, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation (BCSC) in Columbus, Indiana, was juggling myriad LMSs across grades K–12 and was unable to maximize synergies across those solutions or achieve its Universal Design for Learning (UDL) goals. UDL provides a framework for educators who want to shape individual learning paths to the interest and talents of students. A concept for designing and delivering curriculum, UDL provides a map for creating flexible assignments and instructional goals.3

By adopting an end-to-end LMS, BCSC gained these efficiencies:

A single, district-wide, end-to-end digital LMS platform

Each user has a single log-in, replacing numerous systems and log-ins

High user adoption, with a 98 percent adoption rate in just over a year among more than 11,000 active users

The ability to use modern pedagogical methods such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Intent on supporting every method of learning, BCSC held a strategic planning session that involved school leaders, IT staff, and instructors. “One of the pieces that immediately fell out was the need for a consistent LMS,” says Mike Jamerson, Director of Technology. “We had teachers running on Moodle, some using My Big Campus, and others using the proprietary Echo system, but what we really needed was a single solution to serve all students in K–12.”

To find that solution, the district compared and tested more than a dozen different LMSs against its own list of must-haves. At the top of that list was the requirement that the solution support Universal Design for Learning. In addition, BCSC wanted an LMS that could be universally applied across all grades and that wasn’t focused solely on the elementary or the high-school classroom. They eliminated several products based on these criteria.


“They were one-dimensional,” says Jamerson, “and either lacked visual capabilities or otherwise didn’t appeal to our universal design framework.”

Throughout this process of elimination, itslearning stood out as one of BCSC’s top choices. One of the solution’s biggest attractions, for example, was the way it allows students to demonstrate mastery via videos, blogs, chats, and multiple other formats (outside of traditional testing). “This is a place where itslearning certainly excels,” says Jamerson, “and supports our universal design goals.”

The BCSC technology team, committed to using a proprietary LMS product, was all in favor of the new implementation. “It’s a pretty demanding team that has the most experience using LMS,” says Jamerson, “and it made the audacious decision to go with itslearning for the entire district.”

Today, about 98 percent of teachers and students are using the new LMS, including second-grade teacher Delaney Lego. Using learning stations, Lego maximizes learning time for her students by allowing them to perform designated learning tasks. Lego often makes some of the stations technology driven, using mobile devices, laptops, or desktop computers. Using itslearning, Lego’s students can more effectively complete their tasks and gain ownership over their own learning. Multiply these benefits across BCSC’s 17 schools and 11,500 students, and the result is a more efficient district that’s focused on, and achieving, its UDL goals.

“ One of the pieces that immediately fell out was the need for a consistent LMS, we had teachers running on Moodle, some using My Big Campus, and others using the proprietary Echo system, but what we really needed was a single solution to serve all students in K–12.”

“

Mike Jamerson, Director of Technology, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation

Video: Learn more from Mike Jamerson about the Every Student Succeeds Act and Universal Design for Learning



Forsyth County SchoolsGetting Students Engaged in Learning

4. Janelle Cox, “Implementing Differentiated Instruction Strategies,” TeachHub.com.

To help students achieve their fullest potential and engage more effectively with their learning, Forsyth County (GA) Schools (FCS) has made a commitment to differentiated instruction. These educational techniques accommodate each student’s learning style, readiness, and interest and employ a variety of educational methods to teach students the same information. The overall goal of differentiated instruction strategies is to ensure that all students are engaged in the learning process by providing tasks that match each individual’s needs.4

By adopting an end-to-end LMS that supports the district’s differentiated learning goals, FCS gained these efficiencies:

A single log-in to access a wide variety of secondary math and ELA resources via the itslearning content library

The ability for instructors to collaborate with students and with one another via the district-wide LMS

A centralized professional development hub that gives all teachers training in how to use the resources and content library

More time for teachers to spend on instruction instead of curriculum and lesson planning.

The district was also looking for a way to efficiently consolidate massive volumes of content and curriculum. Over the years, it had accumulated “silos of data,” according to Dawn Phipps, Assistant Principal at South Forsyth High School, with teachers using one system for grade books, another for content, and yet another for student communications. “We were looking for one place where we could combine everything,” says Phipps. “We wanted to tear down the silos and have a more unified system that would serve as a one-stop shop for teachers. There, they could access resources and other applications with a single sign-on.”

Knowing that some teachers instantly pick up new technology tools and start using them, and that others would need more training and professional development, Forsyth County Schools sought out an enterprise-wide LMS that would help it achieve its differentiated learning goals in the most efficient manner possible. Phipps remarks that itslearning was the right choice because it “really lends itself to an individual approach and gives students the ability to embrace their learning based on their strengths.”


http://www.teachhub.com

For teachers, itslearning provides a centralized hub for professional development. Using the LMS, teachers meet in “groups” to access uploaded materials and take part in regular training sessions, two of which are designated for technology training. “Once a month we do LMS training where we bring in learning leaders from the county office to train the teachers,” says Phipps.

Forsyth County Schools also populates the itslearning platform with third-party content (instead of using only in-house resources created by the district). “This is critical as we move into using all-digital learning objects,” says Phipps, “and no longer relying on textbooks and other classroom tools.”

Happy to be able to move away from traditional classroom materials and printed handouts, Brian DeRose, a marketing teacher at Lambert High School, uses itslearning in his classes every day. “Through

itslearning, I’m able to deliver the assignments, all of the resources that go along with the assignments, and then I’m able to have the students submit the final products back to me through the platform,” says DeRose, who also uses the platform to “double check” that he’s taught the necessary standards-aligned assignments and to make sure students are on task with their classroom rubrics.

“I used to give my students rubric instructions on paper, which often got lost or thrown away before he or she got home,” recalls DeRose. Now, everything is in itslearning and easily accessible 24/7. “They can’t lose it; it’s not going anywhere.” More importantly, those students come to class the next day ready and willing to participate. “They’re immediately engaged with the warm-up, the discussion, and the assignments,” says DeRose. “itslearning gives every student a voice, which is wonderful.”

“ We were looking for one place where we could combine everything, we wanted to tear down the silos and have a more unified system that would serve as a one-stop shop for teachers. There, they could access resources and other applications with a single sign-on.”

“

Dawn Phipps, Assistant Principal, South Forsyth High School

Video: Forsyth Central High School administrators and IT specialists discuss how itslearning seamlessly in-tegrates third party content using LTI, and acts as a hub for communication and collaboration.



As the stories from these different districts have shown, the efficiencies that come with implementing an end-to-end LMS that serves as a district hub are many and varied. Due to individual goals and challenges, not every district achieves exactly the same results, but there are commonalities shared across the success stories in this ebook. They include:

• Improved student outcomes like grades, test scores, and standards mastery. Using its LMS, for example, teachers at Houston ISD can create and use coursework that is both digital and aligned to Texas state standards.

• An IT team that spends less time juggling myriad systems. In a recent report on the state of education technology, 54 percent of district IT leaders indicated they don’t have enough staff to maintain classroom applications, and 35 percent say their time is spent reacting to technical problems as opposed to working in a proactive mode.5

• Better engagement and accountability for teachers, students, and parents. As Forsyth County Schools’ Brian DeRose points out, getting all three on the same page—and eliminating the need for paper and handouts—has significantly enhanced classroom engagement.

• Savings of money and time. All of the districts featured in this ebook have realized some level of cost and time savings as a result of implementing an end-to-end LMS that helps them work smarter, better, and faster.

• Improved standards alignment. itslearning’s proprietary standards mastery and recommendation engine facilitate remediation, acceleration, and review by automating the recommendation of resources and activities based on standards mastery assessments.

Reaping the Rewards of an End-to-End District “Hub”

• Better teacher morale and retention. Because they no longer have to spend so much time creating and managing curriculum across platforms, teachers are happier in their positions and more likely to stay in place instead of looking for new opportunities.

By incorporating a platform like itslearning, districts can achieve their current and future efficiency goals without having to take on additional IT burdens, disrupt existing processes, or push lengthy training requirements on users. To date, more than seven million educators, students, and parents worldwide use itslearning’s media-rich platform to share instructional resources, assignments, activities, and assessments with students and parents via personalized dashboards. Better still, all student users have the power to decide how they learn as the solution automatically adapts to support learning styles that offer the best opportunities for success.

5. Education Dive and Sprint, “2015 Annual Survey Report,” http://app.assetdl.com/landingpage/state-education-technology-2015/


http://app.assetdl.com/landingpage/state-education-technology-2015/

About itslearningDesigned specifically for the K–12 sector, itslearning is a leading, cloud-based learning management system that helps teachers make education more inspiring and valuable for today’s students anytime, anywhere, and on any device. As a student-centered learning environment, itslearning gives teachers, students, and parents access, as appropriate, to course materials, assignments, communities for collaboration, professional development tools, and student progress reports. The platform’s personalized dashboards give teachers a way to quickly and easily share instructional resources, assignments, activities, and assessments with students and parents.

T: 1-888-853-2761 www.itslearning.net [email protected] US16909 © 2016

How Districts Use Enterprise-Level Learning Management Systems to Improve Efficiency

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