Professional learning · Teachers, Coaches, Librarians · 60 minutes
LMS Tidy-Up: Courses Students Can Find Their Way Through
Educators run a student-eye findability test on a messy mock course, then tidy their own with consistent modules, one home for due dates, accessible files, and a check on any AI-generated materials.
When students can't find the assignment, the rubric, or the due date, the course has become a scavenger hunt, and the students who struggle most with organization, language, or access pay the highest price. In this session, participants play students trying to complete five everyday tasks in a deliberately messy mock course, counting clicks and dead ends. They then tidy it using a shared checklist: consistent module structure, predictable names, one place for due dates, accessible files, and fewer clicks. Finally they check an AI-generated course page before posting and plan a findability test with real students in their own course.
In this packet
- Handout A: Ms. Varga's Course, As Students See It (reading)
- Handout B: Findability Test (organizer)
- Handout C: Course Tidy-Up Checklist (checklist)
TCEA ELE indicators
- T3.2 I can adapt my teaching methods to accommodate diverse learning needs.
- C2.1 I know how to guide teachers in meaningful technology integration.
- T1.1 I know how to seamlessly integrate technology into my teaching practices.
- S1.2 I can adapt to new digital tools and platforms.
Full facilitator guide: mglearn.github.io/eles/activities/lms-tidy-up.html
Handout A for LMS Tidy-Up: Courses Students Can Find Their Way Through
Ms. Varga's Course, As Students See It
This course, teacher, and school are fictional. Each paragraph describes one area of the course. Count every click it takes to reach an item.
1Course home page (Biology 9, Maple Hollow High School): A long scrolling page of 23 announcements, newest at the bottom. Announcement 17 says "Lab 3 due Thursday!" Below the announcements, a navigation menu lists: Modules, Files, Assignments, Stuff, Week 3 NEW, Old, and Resources (2). Each link is one click from home.
2Modules: Modules are named "Unit 1," "Week Two," "cells stuff," "Wk 4 (REAL ONE)," and "Copy of Week 4." Inside "cells stuff," items are in no particular order: "Document1.pdf," "lab.docx," "video," "READ THIS FIRST," "Lab 3 Cell Membranes," and "rubric final FINAL v2." Each item is one more click.
3Assignments: The assignment "Lab 3 Cell Membranes" lists the due date as Friday. It has no rubric attached; the rubric is a separate file in the Files area, inside a folder called "misc." The assignment description says "Directions are in the lab doc."
4Files: The Files area has 64 files in 9 folders. The lab directions, "lab.docx," are in a folder called "Old." The reading for Week 3, "Document1.pdf," is a scanned image of textbook pages, so it can't be searched, enlarged cleanly, or read by a screen reader.
5Week 3 NEW page: A page with a bright red heading and the text "Lab 3 due Wednesday. Video below." The video has no captions and no transcript. A link says "click here" and goes to a practice quiz that closed last week.
6Getting help: The teacher's email and office hours are listed only in a syllabus file inside "Resources (2)," on page 4. There is no "Ask a question" discussion or help item anywhere in the modules.
7Page 6 · AI-generated Week 4 overview (Ms. Varga pasted this in from an AI tool and hasn't posted it yet): "Welcome to Week 4: Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration! This week, learners will interrogate the bioenergetic pathways underpinning autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism. Complete the Photosynthesis Virtual Lab (due Monday) and the Chapter 9 Essay (due Wednesday). Click here for the readings. Remember, mitochondria are the only organelles that contain DNA." In the real course plan, Week 4 has a hands-on leaf-disk lab due Thursday and a short exit ticket, there is no virtual lab or Chapter 9 essay, the "click here" link goes nowhere, the image of a leaf beside the text has no alt text, and the DNA claim is wrong (chloroplasts also contain their own DNA).
Handout B for LMS Tidy-Up: Courses Students Can Find Their Way Through
Findability Test
Student traces and says each click aloud; Observer records. Use the blank rows to plan a real test with students in your own course.
| Task | Where the student looked first | Clicks + dead ends | Found it? Confident it's right? (Y/N) | Fix that would make it easier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. When is Lab 3 due? | ||||
| 2. Find the rubric for Lab 3. | ||||
| 3. Open this week's reading and make it larger or listen to it. | ||||
| 4. Watch the Week 3 video with captions. | ||||
| 5. How do you contact the teacher with a question? | ||||
| My course, next week: students I'll ask, tasks I'll test, what I'll measure | ||||
Handout C for LMS Tidy-Up: Courses Students Can Find Their Way Through
Course Tidy-Up Checklist
Tidy one module at a time. Check it again in student view, or with a student, when you finish.
| Done | Next | N/A | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A "Start Here" item on the home page tells students where to begin, how the course is organized, and how to get help. | |||
| Every module follows the same structure (for example: Start Here · Learn · Do · Check). | |||
| Module and item names follow one pattern students can predict (for example: "Week 3 · Lab: Cell Membranes"). | |||
| Due dates live in one place only: set inside each assignment so they appear in the calendar or to-do list. They are not repeated in announcements, pages, or file names. | |||
| Every assignment has its directions and rubric attached to it, one click from the assignment. | |||
| Old, duplicate, and "copy of" items are removed or hidden from students. | |||
| Files have descriptive names, use real text (not scanned images), and have headings a screen reader can use. | |||
| Videos have accurate captions or a transcript; images that carry meaning have alt text. | |||
| Links say where they go ("Week 3 reading: Cell Membranes"), not "click here," and every link works. | |||
| Key tasks take three clicks or fewer from the course home, and the course works on a phone. | |||
| Any AI-generated page, quiz, or summary was checked for accuracy, matches what students will actually do, uses readable language, and meets the same accessibility checks before posting. | |||
| I ran a findability test with at least two students and changed something based on what they did. |
Notes