Tag Archives: supporting teachers

The Importance of User Experience in an All-in-One School System

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The success of your Student Information System (SIS) can largely hinge upon user experience (UX), which can greatly impact the quality of education and the educator support that your school is capable of providing. Positive UX can lead to increased engagement, retention, and overall satisfaction with the teaching and learning process. With the user experience, then, being key to the success of your all-in-one school system, what should you look for when striving to obtain the best possible system for your school?

Your All-One-System Should Be Easy to Navigate

One of the most important aspects of UX when considering an all-in-one system is navigation. Educators and students should be able to easily find the content they need without wasting an inordinate amount of time. Providing logical categories and clear and concise menus can help. The system should also be intuitive and easy to use, even for users who are not tech-savvy.

The All-in-One System Should Allow for Personalization

The all-in-one system you choose for your school should allow for personalization and customization at the district, school, and user level. Content should be tailored to the individual’s needs; data analytics should be integrated into the system so that the school can learn about the users as they endeavor to achieve their goals.

Continual Improvement Should Be an Ongoing Commitment

Your all-in-one system should continually be improved upon based on user testing and feedback. By understanding where the pain points are in the design of the system, improvements can be made to make the system more efficient and increase user satisfaction.

Why Choose Lumen™ Touch All-in-One Learning System?

Lumen Touch prides itself on providing school districts with an all-in-one solution that can be accessed anywhere, any time, on any device. We strive to connect all students to opportunities, and this means that our system has to be accommodating of the latest technological advances. As a result, our system is web-based, in order to serve as many students as possible on a number of devices. Our team is readily available to assist with training, implementation, and customizations that make the system work the way in which each individual district requires.

Lumen Touch was established in 2000 and has been diligently listening to its customers and building an all-in-one solution that is unparalleled in the education arena. You can experience a seamless technological solution that will save you time and money and allow your students and teachers to focus on improving their wellbeing. We focus on improving the learning opportunities for children with measurable outcomes. Request more information by emailing us at sales@lumentouch.com.

Winter Break – Ideas for Educators to Recharge

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Educators are under more pressure than ever with overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages, and so many more additional responsibilities. By the time winter break rolls around, you might feel as if there’s no time to really catch your breath before the chaos of the second half of the year begins. It’s more important than ever, teachers, to make winter break about focusing on you and about recharging your batteries. How? We’re glad you asked!

Let It Snow and Let It Go

You are good at what you do, but it’s okay to let go of the worry, stress, and concern you feel during the school week and just enjoy the break. Curl up with a good book, enjoy a spa day, putter in the garage, catch a game, bake cookies, go for long walks. And sleep in!

Pleasure before Pedagogy

Instead of reading student papers or the latest pedagogical research, pick up that mystery or horror novel you were reading last summer. Let your mind get completely sucked into a world of fiction. Disconnect. Make some hot cocoa or a cup of tea and get lost.

Coffee and Connect

How long has it been since you and your best friend have grabbed coffee or lunch or spent time together? Don’t let the break go without scheduling a little time to reconnect. During the holidays, people may be in town who you rarely have the chance to see; so, make the most of it.

Skip the Holiday Hustle

Find ways to simplify your holidays so that you have time to enjoy them, too. Don’t spend every moment cleaning and cooking only to be exhausted at the end of the winter break. Enlist help if you’re hosting the holiday meal; don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ to extra requests when you’d rather have the downtime.

Doing Nothing Is an Important Thing to Do

As a teacher, you’re always on the go, with barely enough time for bathroom breaks and a lunch break during the school day. Even though the holiday season can create its own unique style of chaotic pressure, it’s okay – and recommended – to make sure you set aside time in which you don’t have to do anything. Whether it’s sleeping in and spending a day in your pajamas or skipping the long lines at the stores and having stuff delivered, take an actual break.

Winter break is an opportunity for educators to recharge. It’s good for you and good for your students.

Education Does Not Occur in a Silo

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When we consider how to best educate K-12 students, it’s necessary to look at the whole child and not just follow an age-based curriculum. In order to provide students with the best education possible, we need to also be able to address their health needs, socio-economic challenges, emotional needs, and those unique needs that place students at a disadvantage based on systemic disparities. This may be easy enough to acknowledge when considering an individual student, but when you’re a school district responsible for thousands to tens of thousands of students, with each student bringing their own singular needs to the classroom, teaching can become overwhelming for educators and administrators alike.

You Can’t Attend to the Whole Student If You Can’t See the Student’s Needs

If you’re only perceiving a fragment of each student, you can’t effectively support the whole student. For example, if the health office knows about a student’s allergy and does not share this information, someone or something in the classroom environment may inadvertently trigger an allergic reaction in that student. If the school counselor is aware of a traumatic event that is affecting a student on a psychological or emotional level, it may be difficult for the necessary support to extend to the classroom if the teacher is oblivious to the suppressed anxiety. Without compromising student data privacy, however, schools can provide support to the whole student in order to facilitate better engagement and improved outcomes.

How Lumen Touch Can Help

Lumen™ Touch Bright SUITE is a comprehensive learning management system that helps districts and educators better serve each individual student holistically. School faculty and administrators can better manage and track their students’ educational accomplishments. And with the ability to integrate with local health services and Medicaid billing, districts can better manage their students’ health and wellbeing, while ensuring superior student data privacy and cybersecurity.

Lumen Touch has everything a school needs to deliver a better educational experience from start to finish.

From what a student eats to disciplinary actions to health data, Lumen Touch provides an easy-to-read dashboard with all the data you need to have a full picture of the student. 

Being able to see trend data on student grades, attendance, and behavior along with actual instant data around all of those points including health and wellness really helps show a bigger picture.

Improve Student Engagement AND Parent Engagement

Lumen Touch includes a parent portal so that the parent or legal guardian of the student can log in and access information about the student, from having the ability to retrieve grades and class schedules to paying for registration fees and lunches. Students are also able to log in and use the Lumen Touch system to complete assignments, take exams, work on projects, and track their own educational goals.

The Future Is BRIGHT with Lumen Touch

Lumen Touch is committed to providing best-in-class solutions to schools and school districts, making it easier to support teachers, students, families, and communities. We never stop innovating new ways to revolutionize K-12 education. Bright SUITE is a one-stop-shop for schools, incorporating everything a district needs, from a learning management system to student information systems to health-and-safety monitoring and reporting. With special modules for special education, a full library, and modules for teacher professional development, Bright SUITE is an all-in-one enterprise management solution that not only allows districts to save money, it also creates a secure and connected school district. Real-time data lets educators make the best decisions for all students. Learn more.

The Future of Teaching

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Every day, we see stories about teachers who are hanging on by a thread, and we hear stories from teachers who can confirm the same and who are, worse yet, actively seeking other opportunities and will leave their careers in education. It’s not that they don’t want to be teachers, but the challenges of these past few years – on top of the many other pressures teachers face in the classrooms – have become insurmountable for some. We need to look at both how to better support educators and reduce attrition as well as look at how the education system can change to accommodate the drop in availability.

Teacher Shortages Are Growing

Throughout the country, the number of people entering the teaching profession is dropping significantly. According to the National Center for Education, education majors accounted for more than 10% of the degree candidates in 1990-1991. That number fell to 4.2% in the 2018-2019 school year. The pandemic has reduced those numbers even further. According to the U.S. Department of Education, there are teacher shortages in nearly every state for nearly every subject. A quickly generated report on general math resulted in a nine page list of teacher shortages from Wyoming to Puerto Rico.

Supporting Teachers More Effectively

Teacher turnover is damaging to students. According to research by Eric A. Hanushek, Steven G. Rivkin, and Jeffrey C. Schiman, the following impacts occur:

  • Teacher turnover negatively affects achievement despite adverse selection of leavers.
  • Experience loss and grade reassignment account for the negative turnover effects.
  • Negative turnover effects are concentrated in lower-achievement schools.

Reducing teacher attrition, then, has a direct impact on student success.

There are a number of ways we can support our teachers more effectively:

Invest in educators. Increase salaries and offer additional pay when they’re forced to manage both in-class and online students. Pay off their student loans. Cover the costs of all of their supplies; don’t make them beg the internet community to “clear the lists.”

Listen to educators. Listen to your teachers – at the school level, the district level, the state level, and the federal level. Put teachers on the committees that make decisions about policy, health, safety, and, yes, curriculum.

Provide tools for educators. Invest in technology that makes it easier for teachers to do their jobs. This means that at the state and national levels, governments need to free their budgets to invest in equity – broadband for every household, for example. At the district level, districts need to invest in smart technology that makes it easier for teachers to manage not just their teaching responsibilities but all of the other tasks they have, such as SPED reporting and SEL.

Addressing the Tech Skills Gap

There’s a huge tech skills gap. Our partners at Global Grid for Learning have identified some of the risks of not addressing this gap and the threat it represents to our economic stability:

  • Our ability to compete globally could be threatened.
  • Ransomware and phishing attacks are growing more sophisticated, resulting in the need for technically capable workers to thwart the threats to our schools, infrastructures, and businesses.
  • As AI, AR, and VR become commonplace in retail, education, healthcare, and other industries, the demand for technically proficient workers will continue to grow.

Radically Alter the Education System

It’s time for an academic overhaul. We’ve been using the same basic education system for more than a century, and we’re not keeping up. Larry Ferlazzo explores this in his two-part series on Futures Thinking. We need to change how we assess, what we teach, and how we prepare students for the workforce of the future. Lumen™ Touch is at the forefront of the education revolution. What do you want to see for the future of teaching?

How to Support Teachers as We Return to the Classroom

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July has come to an end, and in August virtually all educators begin thinking about the coming school year as they develop lesson plans and prepare their classrooms. This school year in particular, there are many challenges facing teachers, not the least of which is a teacher shortage in many areas. Given these challenges, what can we do to make returning to the classroom easier?

How Administrators Can Support Teachers

Obviously, one of the best ways to better support teachers is to increase salaries wherever possible. When educators are not burdened with financial stress, they are better able to focus on the most important job they hold. But beyond allotting bigger salaries, administrators can demonstrate support by:

  • Providing teachers with the tools and technology they need in the classroom
  • Listening seriously to their ideas about how to improve education, safety, and the learning environment – and implementing any ideas you can
  • Ensuring they have a safe workplace
  • Saving teachers time by giving them a powerful learning management system that manages curriculum, instruction, assessment, and grading

How School IT Leaders Can Support Teachers

Most schools were already integrating more technology into the curriculum, but that certainly escalated during the height of the pandemic. IT leaders were responsible for making sure students had the equipment they needed, and for providing tech support for students, parents, and teachers throughout the school year.

For most districts, going into the new school year, the focus will shift toward ensuring that classrooms are ready for teachers and students. As more schools convert to smart classrooms, technology – and the experts who make sure the IT infrastructure stays up and running – become more crucial, to ensure the best possible educational experience. As SEL (social-emotional learning) becomes more prevalent in every school, IT leaders can play a much more important role.

How Parents Can Support Teachers

Aaron Cardwell, who was a teacher at Rocketship Public Schools and recently started a position as Assistant Principal at Success Academy Charter Schools, shared advice that went viral on Facebook about how parents of kindergarten and first-grade students can help, as their children begin the school year. He emphasized the focus on practical skills. Read his post here. Parents can also support teachers by:

  • Providing the requested supplies – and sending extra if possible
  • Filling out and returning all forms (a lot of this can now be done online through a parent portal)
  • Responding to and communicating with teachers when parental involvement is needed
  • Supporting their efforts in the classroom by ensuring that their children do their homework each day and come to school prepared to learn
  • Being active in the PTA and in the community, advocating for education equity and support

How the Community Can Support Teachers

There are so many ways the community can support teachers, including getting involved in the school board, attending school district meetings, advocating for the changes that teachers need, and voting “yes” on budget increases in those communities where voter approval is necessary for district funding. However, we know that teachers often spend far more each year on school supplies than their tax-deductible $250, so one thing we can all do to support teachers is to #clearthelist. This is a movement started on social media to help teachers obtain the supplies they need for their classrooms. Another organization, Donors Choose, connects communities and corporate donors with teachers who need project funding. It’s a great way to support education.

A well-educated society is the backbone of an economically strong, socially engaged country – and teachers are a pillar of that society. Our teachers have always been heroes but in most cases have gone unrecognized. The pandemic focused a spotlight on the education system and the value of the teacher versus the institution. It is our hope that everyone will support teachers more fervently going forward.

Are Teachers Unsung Heroes? Who Is Listening?

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In the medical world, we have been giving a tremendous amount of praise and recognition to the doctors and nurses who have been combating the coronavirus. We are providing them with pandemic protection equipment, we are developing safety protocols, and we are paying them more to come into areas where additional help is needed.

Can we truly say we are doing the same for teachers and school staff or are we demanding they return to a work environment that will compromise their health? What are the challenges associated with going back to school? Here’s what teachers are asking about:

Many teachers are challenged with metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity; respiratory diseases, such as asthma; cardiovascular diseases, such as mild heart failure; and autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis. As well, some teachers are immunocompromised patients recovering from cancer treatment or organ transplants. Do these teachers get more robust protection equipment and special assignments to reduce their risk?

So, when we go into this new world of learning, we will still be in the fog as leadership is clearly lacking when it comes to providing direction that responds to these concerns, and decision makers have different vested interests. Moreover, we have compounded the medical crisis with a social enlightening, drawing attention to mutual equity and equal education.

Our teachers have always been heroes but in most cases have gone unrecognized.

This crisis has focused a spotlight on the education system and the value of the teacher versus the institution. And guess what? The spotlight is only going to get brighter as we move into a whole new dimension of learning and unmask the travesties of our existing school systems. And this is not the time to add additional technology to fix the crisis but rather to look at what schools are trying to deliver by way of learning and realizing that their technology is not suited for the crisis and the future.

Is it reasonable to consider online-only instruction for most students?

As COVID-19 cases continue to climb in 32 states, health experts predict that schools will not truly be able to return to some semblance of normal until May or June of 2021. Knowing that, we can begin now to address the challenges of maintaining a distance-learning environment. While there were a number of hiccups in getting started with distance learning last spring, most teachers were able to overcome the challenges – as were most students. With better support to infrastructure, addressing the inequity of Wi-Fi and device access, many students can continue with distance learning. By facilitating distance learning for as many students as possible, those who really cannot remain home, whether because of financial reasons or because of special needs that require in-person therapy and guidance, can have enough space within the school facilities to be accommodated.

Lumen Touch Is Here for You – Start with our No-Cost Audit

We don’t have all the answers, but we continuously monitor the learning space and add more capability to our platform, such as integrated video and computer-based interactivity, and Covid-19 monitoring and tracking with parent, teacher, and student portals to keep everyone informed every moment of their day.

We also have a seasoned audit team that will help you find means to pay for extra costs when your budgets are being cut. This audit is at NO COST to you and has saved some districts hundreds of thousands of dollars. Get in touch to learn more.

Bright SPED: Addressing ALL Student Needs During Uncertain Times

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We know that many of you are busy making plans to support all students during these uncertain times in our community and want you to know that we are here for you! We have been diligently following both federal and state updates as they are being released and will be making any adjustments to reporting requirements if necessary.

Special Students Still Need Support

Your Bright SPED system will continue to support communication with staff and student teams, progress reports, and IEP forms and documentation. Bright SPED is a multi-user system, allowing your team to work together on an individual record at the same time (but not on the same field).  Lumen Messenger and Case Notes create a space to have constant communication between team members. Since Bright SPED is a true, data driven system, all information is updated in real time. Electronic signatures within the system can be very helpful for the signing of your forms and for your participants meeting virtually.  Access to your site is available on any device, anywhere.

If you would like to know more on how your system can help you during these ‘virtual’ times, please feel free to register for an overview here.

We are also busy making updates to include a Bright SPED Parent Portal for districts to share with their parents.  This will allow for documentation to be shared and signed virtually, to ease virtual meetings and document processing.  Be on the lookout for these features in the next week.

We will be closely monitoring all updates and notifications from both federal and state officials.  If you have any questions or need any assistance, please never hesitate to reach out to us at help@lumentouch.com.

Decreasing Teacher Attrition with Bright Learning

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Admittedly, the path for teachers has never been an easy one. And with tight budgets and larger class sizes, teacher attrition is at an all-time high. Losing talented teachers places an enormous burden on those school districts that are forced to cobble together enough staff to meet the needs of the students. At Lumen Touch, we believe that the right technology can help districts retain talented teachers by giving them tools that allow them to meet instructional mandates without losing touch with what got them into teaching in the first place: having a positive impact in the lives of children.

The Problem

Over the last decade, as budgets have tightened, teacher pay in many schools has stagnated. At the same time, new mandates are now in place that require teachers to spend more time working. This has resulted in the highest number of teachers quitting since the Department of Labor started measuring the sector in 2001.

The Solution

A multi-pronged approach to solving the teacher shortage is required. Clearly, states must prioritize education in their budgets, but that has been and will continue to be an ongoing fight. In the interim, districts must do what they can to minimize the impact on teachers. One way to do this is by finding ways to stretch their school budgets – through grants and strong community volunteer programs, for example. Another way to help is by integrating technology that reduces the workload for teachers. For most teachers, stress and long hours are as much the cause for them leaving the profession as is the pay lag.

Bright Learning™ Empowers Teachers

Bright Learning is a powerful resource that puts teachers back in control of meeting standards, by aligning student achievement and standards-based grading. The system gives teachers a “command center” from which they can map standards to curriculum, assess students, and evaluate progress easily and simply. With an integrated gradebook and lesson planner, teachers save time, aggravation, and stress while better meeting mandates – and having more class time to truly engage with students on a more personal level.

At Lumen Touch, we know that there are no simple answers to solving the big challenges that face educators. But there are changes that can make a difference. Bright Learning is one such change. To learn more, get in touch.

Your Teachers Have EdTech – Now What?

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With so many schools moving to incorporate technology into the classroom, whether by desire or state mandate, districts are searching for ways to support their teachers as they learn to utilize the technology. Supporting teachers requires a comprehensive approach – you can’t just buy software, install it on a teacher’s computer, and say go. Using a model can help teachers gain insight into how they can successfully incorporate the technology into their instruction. One widely used model is SAMR, which stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. While this model helps teachers integrate technology, it also allows for a student-first thought process. Another model that is commonly used is called technological pedagogical content knowledge or TPACK. 

Supporting Teachers

Beyond providing a framework through which teachers can learn to incorporate technology, school administrators must also address the time and resources needed to fully understand and engage with the technology. Technology should be a tool and not another to-do for teachers. Teachers should not merely be a part of the team choosing those EdTech resources that will be beneficial. Administrators should support teachers with professional development, an IT support team, and in-school support, such as a designated mentor or onsite IT coach.

Benefits of EdTech for Teachers

The benefits of EdTech for teachers in the classroom are numerous. One of the benefits is the ability to use technology to help differentiate instruction for students. The ability to collect and analyze data about student performance also helps teachers more readily support individual students. Engaging students is often easier with technology, especially in this age of digital natives. The rise of students who need a classroom that is flexible and more engaging means that students are better able to use their learning capabilities to accomplish new things. 

Students today are surrounded by technology almost from the day they are born. Utilizing it in the classroom is essential. School administrators can support teachers by choosing technology that provides the support, training, and tools that make technology lift the burden on teachers, not add to it.

The Lumen Touch Difference

We like to position ourselves as members of a school district’s team rather than purveyors of technology. We offer an all-in-one EdTech solution that saves time and money while improving efficiency and collaboration. We provide comprehensive training and train-the-trainer training to ensure every school has onsite support. We are committed to our schools and districts and can work with schools to assist with planning, grant writing, organization improvement, instruction design, leadership development, technology planning, and more. We provide ongoing support to teachers and schools using any or all of our modules, and we are very strongly focused on customer loyalty.

At Lumen Touch, we are proud of our team that is driving excellence in education. Please get in touch if you are interested in learning more.