Mark Schneider is the Director of Learning Technology and formerly an instructor of mathematics at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), a polytechnic located in western Canada. In 2023, NAIT selected D2L Brightspace to replace Moodle as their new learning management system (LMS). In the third of a four-part series on transitioning from Moodle to Brightspace, Mark shares the comprehensive training plan that was implemented to ensure a smooth transition for faculty, staff and students. You can catch up on part one here and part two here.
Planning for Diverse Training Needs
As a polytechnic, NAIT is very diverse. We’ve got courses ranging from a few hours to several years in length. There’s no set time where all instructors and staff have downtime simultaneously. This variety made it challenging to schedule training sessions that would suit everyone. We couldn’t say ‘Everybody’s going to take their training on these days.’
Surveying Staff for Training Needs
To address the above challenge, we sent out a survey in December 2023 to gather information on training needs and availability. In it, we asked faculty, instructors and staff about their preferred training times, the types of training they wanted, and their anticipated needs.
Based on the survey results, we decided to run four blocks of training over the next few months. We scheduled these in January, February and March. We also scheduled two back-to-back sessions in late-April and early-May to accommodate the bulk of the requests. The spring months tend to be lighter for many instructional staff, so they could fit in the training more easily at this time. And we wanted to do our best to accommodate that.
A Mix of Modalities
Our standard training program was a synchronous online training program provided by D2L’s Training Services. We worked with Jackie Nelles, who delivered an overview of the nuts and bolts of D2L Brightspace.
We paired this with drop-in support sessions from our local NAIT team, who had a better understanding of Moodle (our old LMS) and our specific program needs. These sessions were offered both virtually and in-person, with some hybrid options as well.
Communicating the Training Plan
Communicating that plan to our target audience was the next step. To do this effectively, we used a two-stage communication approach to inform everyone about our offerings.
First, we sent a template email to associate deans, asking them to reiterate the information to their teams. Second, we posted the training details on our internal staff intranet and professional development training catalog. This allowed staff to subscribe to the training sessions and helped us manage attendance and support needs.
You can prepare as much as you’d like but you also have to be prepared to pivot in real-time.Mark Schneider Director of Learning Technology, NAIT
Handling Oversubscribed Training Cohorts
Despite our planning, we had a much larger group of people wanting to take training in April and May. There were over 400 participants in our May session, compared to 115 in January.
Some folks felt discouraged by the audience size, but we understood why they waited to take the training. Many of our staff, especially instructors, struggle to take on extra training during the academic term. They prefer to focus on students and classes.
To handle this better, we could have encouraged asynchronous training more consistently. A more regular push for training might have helped.
I’m sharing this for any institution looking to do something similar because I think it shows that you can prepare as much as you’d like but you also have to be prepared to pivot in real-time.
That surge in individuals attending the June session was challenging, but we managed it by encouraging asynchronous training options and maintaining a regular cadence of reminders.
How Student Training Differed From Staff Training
We approached training our students on Brightspace differently to staff. For students, we built an asynchronous course called Basics for Student Success. It’s an asynchronous course that teaches NAIT students the key functionalities of Brightspace; how to find grades, how to submit assignments, etc. Every student account created in Brightspace was automatically enrolled in this course, allowing students to learn at their own pace. That worked really well.
I’ve had people tell me that they put a post up onto the D2L Community and 15 minutes later they’ve got somebody from another organization that’s responding with a perfect answer.Mark Schneider Director of Learning Technology, NAIT
Using D2L Resources
We made extensive use of the breadth of D2L’s resources, including their end-user support services and the D2L Community. We’ve got folks in the D2L Champions program that are happy about how quick of a response they get from the D2L Community. It is amazing. I’ve had people tell me that they put a post up onto the D2L Community and 15 minutes later they’ve got somebody from another organization that’s responding with a perfect answer.
We also subscribed to D2L end-user support services, which has been so helpful. The tickets that come in help us determine what we need to focus on in terms of training and support. It helped us tailor our training materials to address common issues.
Faculty Response to Brightspace
The faculty’s response to Brightspace was generally positive. The January training cohort, which was the first group through, reported a 95% satisfaction rate with the training provided by Jackie Nelles from D2L Training Services. This feedback reassured us that we were on the right track and provided valuable insights for future training initiatives.
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