Student Information System
Training
Team
For ten years, I led a 2-3 person support team in Arkansas' largest high school, providing troubleshooting and training for 250+ users of our student information system.
During that time, I participated in the planning and deployment of two new system roll-outs and updated training content for numerous minor version upgrades.
Overview
Client: Bentonville High School
Problem: Between 2007 and 2017, Bentonville High School used three different student information system (SIS) platforms. New system deployments and intermediate version updates compounded existing issues of unintuitive software and poor user compliance with mission-critical procedures that happened only twice per year.
Goal: Improve record-keeping accuracy and communication timeliness by providing on-demand one-on-one training, creating just-in-time guides ahead of reporting deadlines, and facilitating group training for over 250 instructors and administrative staff.
Tools: PowerPoint, Screencast-O-Matic, Pinnacle Gradebook, eSchool+, PowerSchool
Deliverables:
On-demand one-on-one training
Just-in-time process guides ahead of reporting deadlines
Group training for over 250 instructors and administrative staff
Change-management planning during new deployment events
Job Aides:
Reminders & References
Reminders & References
Log-In Format Reminder
Problem: Non-standard logins, summer vacations, and the practice of saving credentials in the browser contributed to a surge in support calls twice a year during the mandatory password reset periods and users had forgotten how to type their credentials.
Solution: This simple guide was posted and distributed to help visually identify the three most common errors entering usernames that were difficult for the support team to communicate verbally over the phone.
SIS Configuration FAQ
Problem: The software process for submitting grades was confusing and required repetitive action on many screens. A gruelingly complicated administrative policy for determining student eligibility to exempt final exams was introduced concurrently to the already cumbersome reporting process.
Solution: This guide to finalizing end of the semester grade reports was distributed in PowerPoint format so that staff could use the hyperlinked table of contents to navigate directly to any topic.
It was accompanied by the video walk-through below.
Today, this would more likely be distributed as a link hosted web resource.
Video Software Demonstrations
EoY Reporting for Staff
This video walk-through for instructors modeled the decision tree for end-of-year grade reporting and determining student eligibility for final exam exemptions.
It accompanied a detailed email to the staff and the self-guided step-by-step presentation above, and addressed some of the common reporting errors from previous reporting cycles.
Instructor-Led Training Decks
Annual Staff Training Slidedecks
These are sample slide decks that I developed for my team when facilitating annual in-person orientation training workshops for 15-25 staff members at a time.
Note: There were two embedded screen recordings hosted on YouTube that are tied to an account that no longer exists.
Topic: New SIS Platform - Configuration Lab
Audience: 250+ Instructors & Staff
Session Length: 50 Mins
Session Size: 12-15 per rotation
Change is hard. Asking teachers to be the field-test guinea pigs for a new Student Information System is downright dangerous.
The training for this software deployment employed personal touches and dark humor consistent with the workplace culture so soften the impact. Despite wide-spread dread among the staff about changes to their most used workplace tool, they adapted well and quarterly reporting accuracy improved dramatically.
The slide template was chosen for one particular Trekkie on the staff, and the meme graphic was a running joke throughout several workshops during the week. The rest was up to the sterling personalities of my facilitators.
Presentation was casual and facilitators were intimately familiar with their content. Presentation notes are in the presentation.
Topic: SIS New Feature Updates
Audience: 250+ Instructors & Staff
Session Length: 25 Mins
Session Size: 18-25 per rotation
Celebrate the wins! This version upgrade introduced several new features instructors had been asking for. Facilitators opted to rely on more live demos to share the good news, as users now had two years of experience navigating the software and facilitators wanted more flexibility to respond to questions.
