Just as with other forms of learning technology, the pandemic experience has brought about a great increase in the use of learning management system (LMS) technology. But the use of this powerful technology has not necessarily brought about more effective learning for our students. And, in some cases, it has made the lives of our teachers more difficult.

We can do better. What are some best practices in the use of LMS systems we can adopt to bring about both better learning for our students and greater productivity for our teachers?

LMS systems  were introduced back in the 1990s at the college level. The original driver for the LMS technology was to enable the new idea of online programs and courses.

This worked very well, and the use of online programs and courses in college has grown tremendously. But interestingly, the LMS technology was also embraced by college instructors teaching traditional courses. These instructors used the LMS systems to make what otherwise would have been paper readings available online in electronic form. They also posted other resources such their syllabi and Internet links.

The LMS systems at the college level also allowed students to submit their papers and other assignments electronically using the drop box technology. The professors were then out of the business of collecting large piles of papers and other written assignments, grading them in a paper form, and handing back the paper. Everything was electronic now.

It’s easy to see why making use of this technology had such appeal. Even so, K-12 districts and schools were somewhat slow to implement the LMS technology.

In recent years, however, two events greatly accelerated the use of LMS systems in K-12.

One event was the introduction of the Google Classroom product. Two things about Google Classroom made it appealing. One of course was that it was free. The other was that Classroom could be implemented in a bottom-up way by individual teachers or groups of teachers—the district did not necessarily have to adopt it.

The second event that accelerated the use of LMS technology in K-12 was the Covid-19 pandemic. Teachers suddenly needed to be able to do their work electronically, and the LMS technology was a great help.

The LMS technology obviously has great productivity benefits for learners and teachers at any level. But its use provides a bit of a two-edged sword.

The benefits LMS systems provide are increased productivity plus also enabling new learning experiences such as the ability to participate in online discussions. However, a challenge of the LMS technology at the K-12 level is it can require substantial time for the teacher to become familiar with the technology and configure it. And so, it can contribute to a problem we’re seeing across K-12 in the wake of the pandemic, what has been called technology fatigue for teachers.

There must be a way to put this powerful technology to work so that it helps both teachers and students! What are some practices districts and schools can adopt that will help achieve the benefits from learning management systems while minimizing technology fatigue and other downsides? Here are some ideas.

1.     Make the use of LMS system part of the district-wide vision and planning to transform learning. The goal of the LMS system should not be to just layer on more cool technology. The goal should be to use LMS technology to help teachers teach more effectively and help students learn much more effectively.

2.     Engage teachers in a bottom-up way. As decisions are made on which LMS product to use and how to use the product, it’s important that teachers be heavily involved. For example, the district may employ workgroups to allow teachers to work on how the LMS system is to be used.

3.     Pick one or possibly two standard LMS products to use across the district. The reason we say two products is that some districts have found it’s wise to use a paid commercial product such as Schoology or Canvas at the high school level, and then use the Google Classroom product at the K8 level.

4.     Optimize LMS, SIS, and gradebook use. The learning management system duplicates some of the functions in the SIS gradebook. It’s important that the district give some thought to how it wants to present these two products to students and parents. The district needs to decide which of the duplicative features between the two products it should emphasize or possibly turn off.

For example, as a teacher enters grades, should they be entered into the learning management system or into the SIS gradebook?

5.     Provide interfaces to ensure teachers need not reenter data. A best practice in the use of any data system is that data should only need to be entered one time. For example, data on students and class rosters has already been entered once in the SIS. It should not have to be entered again into the learning management system. Forcing teachers to do this creates extra unnecessary work for the teachers and can be a contributor to technology fatigue.

Instead, the district needs to work in a top-down way so that when student and class data is entered into the SIS it is then interfaced to the LMS system and does not need to be rekeyed by the teachers.

A second need for interfaces has to do with grades. Teachers may be encouraged to enter assignment grades into the learning management system rather than the SIS grade book. But the grade data may also need to reside in the gradebook, partly because the gradebook may be connected to the parent portal, and the parents need to be able to see these grades. To make this happen, an interface is required to copy the grade data from the LMS system into the SIS gradebook.

6.     Load a single table of standards. Grading presents a special problem when using standards-based grading grades. Ideally the LMS system can maintain a table of all the standards and their levels of achievement. Then as teachers provide a standards-based grade they can simply select the related standard and achievement.

7.     Coordinate loading curriculum materials to the LMS in a unified way. One giant benefit of the LMS system is to have it act as a warehouse for all the curriculum materials used across all the grades.

A big contribution to technology fatigue is to call on each teacher to individually load all their curriculum materials into the LMS system. Instead, the district should work in a top-down way to load curriculum resources into the LMS system for common access.

For example, some fifth-grade teachers and a district curriculum specialist can determine what the best fifth grade social studies resources are. They can then load the resources to the LMS system so they can be accessed by all the fifth-grade teachers across the district. Teachers can then go into the LMS system, and all their materials will already be there.

8.     Dedicate staff to support the use of the LMS. The district needs to dedicate staff to support the LMS product. At least on a part-time basis there needs to be an administrator with some technical ability who gets to know the product and maintains the interfaces that we’ve talked about. The district also needs staff people to provide professional development and support for the use of the system. These are people who get out in the field and act as evangelists and helpers for the teachers in their use of the product.

9.     Use the LMS system to support district professional development. Once the LMS system is in place, it would be wise to have it do double-duty to also support the district’s professional development and communication among staff.

10.   Use the LMS technology to enable new ways of learning. We have been somewhat successful in using LMS technology to automate traditional ways of learning. For example, LMS systems are great in distributing what otherwise would have been paper readings and collecting what otherwise would have been paper assignment submissions. But what are some new and improved ways of learning that would not have been possible without LMS technology?

11.   Continue to look for ways to facilitate human interaction. And although we want to use automation to improve how we learn, our pandemic experience has taught us that in some ways automation can make things worse, not better. A big problem is reducing human interaction. But can LMS systems help increase human interaction? For example, can the LMS system prescribe an assignment which says, “gather with some classmates in a face-to-face setting and…?”

But what do you think? Please comment below. Or, send me an e-mail. It would be great to publish a new and improved list of these best practice ideas that incorporates your input.