Tulsa Tech is a public career and technical education school district with six campus locations across the greater Tulsa, OK area that offers free education for public, private, and home-schooled high school students, as well as low-cost education for adult learners. Part of the nationally acclaimed statewide Oklahoma CareerTech system, Tulsa Tech’s mission is educating people for success in the workplace by providing learners of all ages with quality career preparation and upskilling opportunities. Its programs include training in disciplines such as health sciences, manufacturing, pre-engineering, and information technology, among others.
The Challenge
Driving Better Student Outcomes by Empowering Instructors Through Training and Professional Development
As a school district and technology center, Tulsa Tech has different needs when it comes to educating both their students and training their instructors. The institution uses Blackboard® LMS as its learning management system (LMS), and it is always looking for new ways to help instructors deepen their expertise with the platform, ensuring learners receive the highest-quality educational experience—especially when many of their instructors, as industry professionals, often do not have a formal background in pedagogy. “We always say that we want the best for our students, which means we want the best for our instructors,” said Johni Edsel, instructional coordinator at Tulsa Tech. “A lot of our teachers, since we’re a technology center, come straight from the industry. They don’t have that education background, and now we’re asking them to teach their trade to students. So not only do they have to worry about classroom management, but using a learning management system...we don’t want that to be a barrier.”
I really think that if we didn’t provide training for our teachers on the products that we purchased, we’re really not giving our instructors the best chance to succeed to their fullest potential.
Johni Edsel, Instructional Coordinator, Tulsa Tech
The Solution
Successful Instructors Lead to Successful Students
As a longtime customer of Blackboard LMS, the team at Tulsa Tech decided to engage Blackboard Services for training and professional development for their instructors. Tulsa Tech requires three days of training on the LMS for instructors who will be using it. In working with Blackboard Services, an Blackboard consultant comes in person to Tulsa Tech to lead the trainings, which Edsel said makes a big difference. “The teachers from our district see someone coming in from the outside providing that consistent message,” she said. This ongoing training reflects a decade-long partnership that ensured continuity in onboarding new instructors, strengthened product adoption, and supported the development of pedagogical skills, and the fact that it was delivered by a Blackboard LMS expert added credibility, reinforced best practices, and contributed to stronger instructor confidence in the classroom.
As Blackboard LMS itself continues to evolve with new features and regular new releases, the use of Blackboard Services has also allowed Tulsa Tech faculty to stay up-to-date on the latest in the technology as well as what they can do with it, and how to use it to create the best outcomes for their students. “Our training has been changing with all the updates, with monthly updates and things like that,” Edsel said. “And so part of our training is for the teachers to learn how to use Blackboard LMS effectively, but there is also training from Blackboard for our instructional coordinators, and so we get training for best practices so we can work with those instructors that are subject matter experts on what good course design looks like, what it looks like on the student side of things for the best possible outcomes.”
I know Blackboard is really on the edge of using AI and using the best technology they can, but there’s always that human element as well.
Johni Edsel, Instructional Coordinator, Tulsa Tech
Insights Delivered
An Established and Valued Partnership
In the ten years since Tulsa Tech began working with Blackboard Services for Blackboard LMS training and professional development, it has definitely seen positive results from the partnership. “That training, it’s invaluable to our students and for our teachers,” Edsel said. “And [Blackboard] providing the same trainer each year, that’s been huge for us, that we don’t have to start over with someone we don’t know and to whom we have to teach our culture or just the overall mission of the district.” She added, “[Our trainer] is really a part of the Tulsa Tech family.”
Edsel also credits the partnership with Blackboard Services with smoothing Tulsa Tech’s transition to the Ultra instance of Blackboard a few years ago. She mentioned the yearly training for new teachers and training for instructional coordinators accelerated the adoption process.
Edsel stressed the importance of investing in faculty to provide the best possible student experience. “I attended a conference once where the speaker said, ‘What if we invest in training for employees and they leave—well, what if you don’t invest in training for your employees and they decide to stay?’ That really stuck with me. If you don’t invest in training and your teachers end up staying, then it’s going to hurt your district.”
Of the overall experience working with Blackboard Services, Edsel said, “I would recommend Blackboard Services because they’re always going to have that human aspect...whether it’s the training, whether it’s the new products, they’ve always been willing, for us, to go above and beyond what’s expected. You’re always going to have that support.”
I’m really glad that our district has made that commitment to provide that training for our teachers every year.
Johni Edsel, Instructional Coordinator, Tulsa Tech
Epilogue
We’re so thankful to Johni Edsel from Tulsa Tech for taking the time to speak with us about her institution’s experience with Blackboard Services. We look forward to partnering with them for many more years to come!
Ready to learn more about what our in-house experts can do to optimize your use of EdTech? Explore the Blackboard Services offerings today.
