Union Public Schools is a standalone community not too far from Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It’s on a mission to “graduate 100 percent of our students, college and career ready.”
The Challenge
Gart Morris serves as the Director of Instructional Technology at Union Public Schools. He has over 20 years of experience at the district across a wide range of roles–principal, assistant principal, and now director of technology. Because of his experience, he deeply understands the type of data administrators need to make informed decisions for faculty and students.
He describes his current role as overseeing” how we use technology in the classroom between teachers, administrators, and students.”
“We needed to make some strong moves into student technology,” Morris explained. “We didn't have an LMS, but we were at that point where it would be necessary. So the superintendent asked me to take on the role of director of instructional technology and oversee bringing Canvas to our district.”
Their district has been using Canvas LMS since 2016 when they piloted it to their ninth-grade class.
“We have expanded it grade level by grade level each year. We are now using Canvas as our only grade book in secondary. We were syncing grades to Infinite Campus for a couple of years, and I realized there was no benefit to it. Switching to Canvas as our grade book made my teachers very happy.”
A vital part of Morris’s role is tracking data and ensuring that everyone in the district–from teachers to administrators—has access to the information they need to do their jobs well.
“My priority was to guarantee that our principals could access reports and data smoothly. This includes percentages on how many students are failing, the number of missing assignments, and failing grades in each class. Within a K-12 environment, administrators need to review these factors quickly to evaluate our teaching staff effectively,” he explained.
”When administrators request specific information, sometimes, this involves me manually exporting CSV files from Canvas LMS as thoroughly to create my own data sets.”
Creating these data sets is an essential but often manual process.
Key Insights
Morris dramatically reduced manual data aggregation time with Intelligent Insights’ Ask Your Data.
Intelligent Insights empowers administrators with the right data to proactively support teachers & staff.
Principals at Union Public can now rapidly review critical metrics enabling faster and more informed decisionmaking across the school.
Intelligent Insights complements Canvas LMS, providing a flexible data analysis tool that enhances your LMS without disrupting existing workflows.
With IntelligentInsights,I can produce the data that our principals need to quickly make decisions on students or faculty–which has been invaluable.
Gart Morris,
Director of Instructional Technology at Union Public Schools
The Power of Connection
Morris selected Intelligent Insights to help him make the most of his data and lessen the tedious workload of aggregating data.
“From the moment Instructure announced Intelligent Insight, I was eager to push forward. I wanted it immediately. I hurried through a purchase order, probably the quickest one the district has ever seen because I was completely supportive,” Morris explained. “I rely on Ask Your Data more than anything else. The main reason? I can set up pin boards, log in as the administrator, and create personalized data sets for their dashboards.”
(When Morris needs additional support, he collaborates with Copilot to modify SQL and create effective prompts.)
Intelligent Insights helps Morris access data that isn’t typically available in standard reports. He described how he was able to find inactive students quickly.
“I love Intelligent Insights,” Morris went on. “Ask Your Data helped me out when schedules were finalized, many kids were reassigned, and I needed to sort inactive students out of all the second-semester rosters. While reviewing the reports, I noticed that none included the course and student SIS. So, I asked Ask Your Data to generate a report with the student and course SIS and students labeled inactive in the second semester or any upcoming terms. Intelligent Insights quickly provided the report.”
In addition to this use case, Morris explained that he can customize data based on what principals need.
"Within Ask Your Data in Intelligent Insights, I can produce the data that our principals need to quickly make decisions on students or faculty– which has been invaluable."
One area where principals need more insight is teacher engagement. In an era of teacher shortages, administrators want to know when their teachers are struggling so they can offer support. Intelligent Insights helps fill this gap.
“As we evaluate teachers, we use tools that require attention to student performance. Principals want to be able to pull up this data to show what’s happening in a teacher’s course. They can analyze the teacher's progress, student achievements, and time invested in the course. This makes it easy to notice if grades haven’t been touched for a while. This data can prompt necessary conversations and reveal when a teacher might be stressed–-before burnout settles in too much. We use these insights as opportunities to connect and support our teachers, it is a flashlight, not a hammer.” Morris explained.
Morris says that Union Public Schools Schools will continue to rely on Intelligent Insights to bring data to their decisions.
Unlock the full potential of your data with AIpowered insights that reveal what's working, what's not, and where you need to focus your efforts, just like Union Public Schools with Intelligent Insights.
Download Case Study