What is an LMS in Education?

Young people in the 21st century are born surrounded by technology, so by the time they’re of learning age, they can easily navigate a range of platforms. This dramatic shift in how children and teenagers interact with the world has driven significant changes in the education system. A growing range of digital solutions and platforms, such as eLearning LMSs, now help course leaders support students in developing new skills

At Instinct Resourcing, we specialise in IT online learning recruitment, helping your company build tailor-made eLearning solutions for your workforce by bringing you face-to-face with the candidates who can help to elevate your operations. We can help you fulfil a wide range of eLearning roles, from instructional designers to LMS specialists, providing a fast and efficient boutique solution to help you get the candidates that you need.

Confident we can help? Submit a vacancy now and discover a range of professionals at your very fingertips. But before you explore what we can do for you, let’s delve into the benefits of using an LMS in education.

 

What is an LMS?

First off, what is an LMS? LMS stands for Learning Management System and describes a platform that allows its users to track learning data and access allocated courses. For both learning leaders and students, an LMS provides a central digital hub for learning and development, with progress being clearly outlined. An LMS differs from an eLearning platform in that it enables detailed progress tracking and reporting, with course leaders using this data to adjust course content and delivery as needed.    

What is the Function of an LMS in Education?

It can sometimes be difficult to untangle an LMS from an eLearning platform and establish why the former is so necessary for learning leaders. An LMS is a type of eLearning platform that simply collects data and allows users to access that data to enhance the future of their learning. Able to provide institutions with several functions, a learning management system in education can provide the following:

• Course management options: Allowing learning leaders to create lesson plans and assign tasks and modules to specific students. 
• Track performance: Giving learning leaders an easy visualisation of a student’s progress so that lessons can be adapted where appropriate. 
• A central learning hub: Where assessments can be submitted and grading can be provided back to the students.

Examples of LMS Available for Educational Institutions

There are many LMS options in the education sector for course leaders that differ from the simplicity of eLearning platforms. Where eLearning platforms simply deliver courses, an LMS will host lessons and collect data on the progress of students, which both users and teachers can access. With various types of learning management systems for schools available, your choice will depend on what each platform specialises in. Some of the best and most celebrated LMS platforms for educational institutions include: 

 

• Blackboard Learn: Use complex analytics to empower students, plan continuous learning and centralise digital learning for students in higher education. 

 

• Canvas: Working directly with celebrated institutions of higher learning, including the University of Liverpool and the City of Glasgow College, Canvas provides a simple LMS that makes tracking learning effortless.  

 

• Google Classroom: This free LMS from the popular search engine offers all the basics, including customisation options, but isn’t as rich in features in comparison to its competitors.  

 

• Moodle: Save time by managing courses, assessment and reporting with effortless simplicity. Recent AI integration makes this popular platform even more intuitive. 

 

• Open edX: When looking for an LMS education solution, edX will come up time and time again. Developed by Harvard and MIT, this open-source LMS is ideal for higher education institutions. 

 

• Pupil Progress: Ideal for secondary school-aged students, Pupil Progress provides real-time tracking and monitoring. 

Five Reasons Why an LMS is Essential for Educational Institutions

Education of every tier is steadily embracing the benefits that digital learning can offer, with the following five advantages giving more control to teachers and students to create more engaging learning experiences. 

 

Distribute Essential Resources

In the traditional classroom environment, resources had to be distributed by the teacher, and students had to bring in large textbooks that would be used to guide learning. This can be changed with a centralised LMS that is used to distribute resources, activities and useful extra texts. You can even still use textbooks to guide learning, but now they are digitalised so can be easily updated with new information or syllabus changes. 

This doesn’t just help the accessibility of resources for your students, but it will also help your organisation to redistribute money to the places that matter. Indeed, a study by Brandon Hall Group showed that companies could save at least 50% of what they would spend on traditional instructor-based training when adopting a digital solution. The resources that are no longer needed for physical sessions could be better used elsewhere, improving the total learning experience of students. 

 

Implement Diverse Assessment Options

Using an LMS opens the door to a whole range of assessment options. Engage your students with different types of eLearning options that give them entirely new ways of taking on essential information. Incorporate short quizzes, videos, and gamified assessments to help students engage with learning in new ways, using intuitive delivery methods that improve information retention.

A study conducted by TalentLMS found that 89% of employees felt more productive in a gamified space, with the dynamic form of learning also boosting engagement and retention rates. In the modern world of young digital natives, it should feel natural to use the sheer diversity of learning options available on an LMS to educate students, with both teachers and users seeing the benefits. 

 

Customise The Experience of Your Students 

In a large traditional classroom, it’s difficult (if not impossible) to give all your time to one student and personalise their learning experience. But, thanks to the data provided by an LMS, learning leaders can use this information to influence their decision making when tracking performance, organising interventions and providing a tailor-made learning experience that takes into account the strengths and weaknesses of the individual student. 

By interpreting intuitive tracking information and detailed reports, educators can quickly identify those who might be falling behind and change their teaching methods accordingly. This could be achieved through a variety of methods, for example, if data suggests multiple students are struggling with a module, you could pivot to a blended learning experience where face-to-face teaching is used alongside essential online resources. Struggling students could also receive extra aid, with communication in the form of messaging services and video calls coming in useful.  

In the contemporary learning environment, blended learning is emerging as a leading technique, with EdTech reporting that 73% of educators believe blended learning improves student engagement. 

 

Provide Simple, Transparent Feedback

As we’ve previously discussed, giving simple, transparent one-to-one feedback to students is difficult when you’re running a large classroom. Using a learning management system for schools makes this instantly far simpler, with the teacher being able to provide tailored feedback directly to the learner effortlessly, thanks to communication options such as live chat, forums and more. 

By centralising feedback into one place, not only is this useful for the teacher, allowing them to see the progress of students, but it also helps students recognise mistakes and track their own progress. Foster a mindset of constant growth by providing a robust feedback system, done either manually or automatically with AI tools. This is particularly important when you consider that a literature review found that 65% of studies “demonstrate that automatic feedback increases student performance in activities”.

 

Give Agency to Students

One distinct advantage of eLearning is the agency it gives back to the student, allowing them to take responsibility for their own learning, upending the dynamic of traditional teaching where the teacher is in full control. Helping students by better preparing them for the future of work, using an LMS solution enhances student organisation, forcing them to consider how they use their time to complete tasks and assessments for a certain due date. 

Many LMS platforms can also be accessed remotely, with mobile eLearning giving students further agency to educate themselves wherever and whenever they please. By providing accessible resources for further learning to each and every student, they can also take charge of their learning, selecting which modules they engage more time and thinking into. The best thing is, this interest can be tracked by teachers on an LMS.

 

10 Key Features to Look for in Your Next LMS

From content management tools that will help you curate, design and deliver your eLearning content to gamification and mobile learning options that could put your platform on the cutting edge of education, here are the key features you can prioritise when choosing your next LMS. 

 

• Content Creation and Organisation: Every good LMS will let you upload various types of learning material seamlessly, but the best LMSs will make accessing these resources even easier. Seek a platform that allows you to structure content into modules and units, utilising tools like tagging that will allow for simple navigation for users. 

• Multimedia Support: Digital learning courses come in all shapes and sizes, but in the modern world, where multiple media formats like images and video can be easily implemented into content, you should prioritise these engaging tools. 

• SCORM Compatibility: Standing for (Sharable Content Object Reference Model), SCORM is the easiest and most popular way to upload learning content into your LMS. Knowing that your LMS is SCORM compatible is essential and should be one of many deciding factors when making your choice.  

• Assessment and Certification: Digital learning should be just as versatile as physical face-to-face education, offering teachers a range of tools and methods for assessing performance. These can include polls, surveys, quizzes and traditional assessments, with this variety helping user engagement. Certificates, typically in PDF form, are a useful feature upon course completion, providing clear proof of knowledge for the user and teacher. 

• Customisable Reports: While customisable reports are an expectation of every LMS, the extent to which these reports can be tailored will vary. A robust LMS will allow you to create a report based on the logins of users, the time spent on each unit of content, assessment scores and more. 

 

• Data Export: If you want to conduct ongoing, in-depth analysis on your students, data exports for regular reports can be useful and can be set up to run automatically. 

• Discussion Boards: Having an online space where learners can educate each other, ask questions and delve deeper into topics is essential, particularly for an online learning environment that might lack the social benefits of a physical classroom. 

• Mobile Compatibility: Offer your students the option of learning wherever they please by choosing an LMS that has a mobile app, giving them the autonomy that will help them become better future students. 

• API Integration: Standing for (Application Programming Interface), an API is a software that permits different applications to communicate and exchange data, allowing you to easily integrate your HR and CRM platforms.

•  AI Integration: AI is here to stay, so leveraging its capabilities should be essential when finding and setting up an LMS. Beyond this, an AI virtual assistant could also be considered that supports learners with a real-time chatbot guiding students through their learning experience. 

 

But, the implementation of these features will only work with an expert team of eLearning professionals who have the skills to create a robust LMS solution. To find such experts, work with Instinct Resourcing, a specialist digital learning recruitment agency, working in several sectors, including the NHS and financial services, to place the right specialists in the right places.  

Working with pace and efficiency, we can take care of your entire recruitment process, helping you to elevate your eLearning offerings as quickly as possible!

Contact us today!