Is your LMS enabling your vision for education?

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What if we could transform education, blending timeless wisdom with cutting-edge technology? Discover how the right LMS can revolutionise classroom learning and empower teachers to focus on what truly matters: their students

“WHAT SHOULD ideal education look like?” It’s a question any educator can answer intuitively. Education should be personalised, enquiry-based, experiential and designed to pique students’ interests. We’ve given this vision different names over the years, but its core principles trace all the way back to historical philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato. So, if we’ve long agreed on what ideal education should look like, the natural follow-up becomes, “How do we implement this vision in practice?”, and that’s where the rubber hits the road. The heroes behind bringing this vision into practice – our teachers – face a different reality. A recent study by McKinsey revealed that teachers work over 50 hours per week, but less than half of this time is spent with students. The rest goes into tackling a staggering workload involving designing lesson plans, completing administrative tasks,

This article was written by Deepanshu Arora, founder and CEO of Toddle. Launched in 2019, Toddle is used by 2,000+ progressive schools across 100+ countries and is widely regarded as the most modern LMS in the world. Arora is a passionate educator who set up a network of international schools and preschools before founding Toddle.

“A recent study by McKinsey revealed that teachers work over 50 hours per week, but less than half of this time is spent with students. The rest goes into tackling a staggering workload”

Deepanshu Arora, Toddle

communicating with families, and managing projects, attendance, student data and a lot more. All this on top of four to six hours of teaching classes every day. This is where we believe technology, especially AI, can play a crucial role. Purposefully built technology can go a long way in helping teachers reclaim their time to focus on what matters most – their students. What does this purposefully built technology look like? And what does the ‘ideal LMS’ needed for ideal education look like?

A typical progressive school has an impressive array of tech tools, but they work in silos and often cause more problems than they solve. The curriculum is housed in one platform, the day-to-day teaching and learning is on an LMS, evidence of learning is on a portfolio tool, teachers enter grades in the gradebook and generate progress reports in an SIS, and communication with parents is on a different tool. Imagine implementing holistic, child-centric learning with technology that’s so fragmented. The ideal LMS should integrate all aspects of teaching and learning in one place. From whole-school curriculum planning

to unit planning, to lesson planning, to designing and delivering assessments, to recording feedback and giving grades, to analysing performance, to adding artefacts of learning to student portfolios at a single click, to communicating meaningfully with families, to using all of this information to manage student wellbeing – all brought together seamlessly on one platform.

As educators, we’ve got the natural ability to adapt to change, but the tech platforms we rely on have not kept pace. Many of the LMS systems currently in use are built on outdated technology and often struggle to adapt to AI and other innovations quickly transforming our classrooms. The ideal LMS should be built on modern, flexible frameworks that allow it to constantly evolve and improve. It should prioritise innovation and continuously bring cutting-edge technology to our teachers’ fingertips. For example, how is your current LMS responding to the AI revolution? Can it seamlessly integrate AI capabilities into every aspect of a teacher’s work, from lesson planning to reporting? Can it automatically surface AI-powered analytics

The edtech space is exploding with specialised tools to enhance every aspect of teaching and learning. The ideal LMS needs to be an open, flexible platform that can seamlessly integrate with this increasingly crowded landscape. Imagine a teacher being able to access their preferred video creation tool and their student information system – all from within the LMS interface. Or a school being able to gain comprehensive insights on each student’s academic, emotional and physical needs all in one place by automatically pulling data from SISes, portfolio tools and more. This level of seamless integration is what separates the ideal LMS from the fragmented, siloed systems that exist today.

We’re closer than you think. Imagine a world where every child receives a personalised learning experience tailored to their unique strengths, interests and needs. Where teachers have the tools to create immersive, interactive lessons that bring subjects to life. Where students are encouraged to explore, create and discover every day in the classroom. At Toddle, this is the world we’re striving to create, and we’re making giant strides towards this goal. We’re former educators ourselves, and we’re building a platform that puts teachers and students at the heart of everything we do. From differentiated lesson planning to authentic assessment, from student portfolios to family communication, we’re rethinking every aspect of education to make it more meaningful for everyone involved. But we can’t do this alone. Transforming education takes a village – a global community of educators, learners and innovators who share our passion for making a difference. So, whether you’re a teacher looking to simplify your workflow, a student eager to take control of your learning journey, or a parent who wants the best for your child, we’d love to welcome you to Toddle.

1. It should be an end-to-end platform.

4. It should work seamlessly with your other systems.

Published 13 May 2024

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“Imagine a world where every child receives a personalised learning experience tailored to their unique strengths, interests and needs. Where teachers have the tools to create immersive, interactive lessons that bring subjects to life”

Deepanshu Arora, Toddle

The ideal LMS should go beyond just simplifying teachers’ administrative tasks. It should be a tool that actively enhances their pedagogical practices. It should provide teachers with the creative freedom to design the curriculum and assessments in flexible, personalised ways while still offering structure to ensure alignment and generate meaningful analytics. It should support a range of modern assessment tools, rubrics and checklists, and support peer and self-evaluation so every assessment becomes a learning opportunity. It should capture student work beyond traditional formats and build a rich, continuous portfolio of their learning journey. It should transform progress reports into engaging, evidence-based documents that seamlessly integrate photos and videos of student work and provide forward-looking feedback. In essence, the ideal LMS should be a vehicle for pedagogy, actively enhancing teachers’ practices and helping them better support students’ learning.

2. It should be a vehicle of pedagogy.

3. It should evolve with time.

instruction and engagement

16.5 hours

evaluation and feedback

6.5 hours

coaching and advice

4.5 hours

preparatory work

10.5 hours

administrative tasks

5 hours

professional development

3 hours

student behaviour; social and emotional skill development

3.5 hours

How teachers spend their working week

Source: The McKinsey Global Teacher and Student Survey (2024)

Only 49% of time is spent directly in front of students

Admin, preparation, evaluation and other tasks account for 51% of teachers’ time

Time teachers spend with students vs working on other tasks

across all school operations for administrators? These are questions worth asking your current LMS provider.

Here are my two cents:

Source: The McKinsey Global Teacher and Student Survey (2024)