All over the globe, the coronavirus pandemic has shaken up every aspect of our life. Unfortunately, the education sector was not an exception. With global school closures and the requirement for social distancing, educational units were forced to change the traditional organization of the learning process and the way teachers and students interact during lessons. Making a transition from face-to-face classes to online learning systems has become one of the most suitable solutions that meet the demands of the current situation.
Even though distance (or online) learning is not a new concept, adapting learning process to the new standards is a challenging task for most educational units. Besides an obvious necessity to change course programs, accommodate lesson plan designs and create new audio and video teaching materials, most institutions are facing such issues as the lack of online teaching experience, rather low academic involvement of the students and the need of technology that can create an effective learning environment. In view of all those challenges, the number of institutions adopting CRM systems to organize distance learning has significantly increased.
Although CRM software is mainly viewed as a business solution for large enterprises, its role in the education sector is often underestimated. The reason for it lies in the nature of relationships between people in business and educational organizations. If considered only superficially, the ways of interacting with customers and with students are completely different things. However, when these processes are viewed more thoroughly, we see that in both cases the primary aim of organizations is to maintain close, trustful, loyal relationships, and that is what any CRM software is intended for.
There is no question that in the context of the current need to shift to online mode, CRM platforms are one of the ways to make this transition smoother and organize work properly from the very beginning. Thus, in this article, we will take a closer look at three points in which EspoCRM can assist an educational unit on its way to the online mode of teaching.
Organize information about students and classes
With the constantly growing volume of information about the performance and behavior of students, materials used during the classes and for assessment, it becomes more and more difficult to keep the information properly structured and find something quickly if needed. With EspoCRM, you can prevent creating such data chaos. It allows to store all the information about your students and courses, view the history of interaction with any student, and attach all materials to classes only with a few clicks. If configured properly, the platform can become a unique learning environment where both students and teachers have access to the needed materials from any location and at any time.
Optimize the creation of schedules
Usually creating schedules is a real pain for the school department as it demands checking the availability both for a teacher and a student. EspoCRM eliminates the risk of making mistakes in schedules. The calendar will show the availability of teachers and students during any period of time, keep the information about the presence of students, and even send reminders about the beginning of the class.
Monitor the student lifecycle and progress
The platform allows to gain comprehensive insights into the accomplishments of any student and/or a whole class with the help of tools for analytics. Teachers can track the progress of each student individually and see his or her strong and weak points. Such analytics can serve as powerful feedback for a teacher. It will show the methods of teaching that were effective and the ones that didn’t bring the estimated results. Thus, teachers will be able to improve their lessons and provide a better learning experience for their students.
To sum it all up, we live in extraordinary times and as we know extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. Though CRM systems weren’t designed for educational purposes, they can be perfectly adapted to meet the demands of your institution in the time of crisis. They allow to create productive teaching and learning environment and assist in gaining control over the current situation. They ensure support and stability that are so in demand now.
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