Educator Onboarding

Goal: Develop asynchronous onboarding for 10+ global roles to train educators better.

Outcome: We did all that and made onboarding faster, cheaper, and more effective.

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

Role
Training Development Specialist, Subject Matter Expert

Project
Educator Onboarding Program

Program Length
2 weeks

Goal
Accelerate and standardize onboarding across roles and regions

Project Duration
1 month

Stakeholders
Senior Training and Development Specialist, Director of Program Operations, VP of Education Operations

Tools & Platforms
Trainual LMS, Vyond animations, Google Workspace, Miro, screen recording + GIF tools, Slack, Zoom

PROBLEM

  • We needed to onboard educators faster, more consistently, with better quality.

  • We had over 500 educators across 10+ distinct roles—and were hiring 30+ more each month.

  • Onboarding was live, inconsistent, and time-consuming. Training relied on slide decks and resource links delivered over Slack.

  • There was no standard training or expectations across roles, and no way to verify new-hire readiness.

PROCESS

  • Mapped the educator journey in every role to identify needs

  • Evaluated and selected a new LMS that supported richer modalities and verifiable completion

  • Designed scenario-based training modules using video recordings, Vyond animations, and visual walkthroughs

  • Developed written and live assessments to verify job readiness

  • Served as SME, having held and developed many of the roles myself

SOLUTIONS

We replaced live slide-deck sessions with a self-paced onboarding experience that included:

  • Retroactive training for 200–300 existing educators who had not received formal training

  • Scenario-based video content

  • Live readiness assessments and verifiable completion of training

  • Structured live Q&As and mentor pairing

  • Role-specific job aids

  • Gradual release: educators watched → shadowed → practiced → worked independently

IMPACT

The impact was clear: students and educators were happier, educators performed better, and training became a reliable solution—not a bottleneck.

  • Educators were ready in 2 weeks instead of 6

  • Training staff scaled down by 60%

  • Student complaints dropped 30%

  • Existing staff (200–300) finally received consistent, standardized training

  • New educators were better prepared, more confident, and more consistent across the board