Helping teachers find what CPM offers and see how their students are doing

Everything teachers needed was there, behind the wrong doors

New teachers had no obvious place to start. Experienced teachers still sent support tickets because they couldn’t find documentation, classroom materials or other help to do their jobs. CPM already had all of it. It sat behind unusual menus and poor progressive disclosure.

I ran a heuristic evaluation of the three main entry points: the welcome page, the course home page and the core content area. The same gaps showed up in each. Users were saying the same thing. Eight pieces of feedback were linked to the initiative, including course names that couldn’t be read in full, teacher materials that appeared to be missing, and a 404 page telling people to “Return to MyCPM.” One described the home page directly:

I made “where is it?” a non-question

The heuristic evaluation found the same failures at all three entry points, and they were structural, not cosmetic. The legacy course page hid its own structure: a carousel exposed only a few lessons at a time, and the table of contents sat behind a control with no visible signifier, so teachers had to recall where things lived instead of recognizing them. Labeling was inconsistent from screen to screen, and resources weren’t grouped the way teachers think about them, so a label didn’t predict what was behind it. Fixing one control would not have changed any of that.

The new navigation replaces recall with recognition. It lists the whole course, always visible, down to individual lessons, so a teacher sees the structure instead of remembering it.

Search went from a separate tab to nearly every screen

Legacy search was a tile that opened in a new tab, outside the navigation model, so using it meant leaving your context. Search is now available from almost every screen, and results show matching course content beside an inline glossary card. With search able to reach CPM’s resources, “I don’t know where something is” becomes a matter of typing what you’re looking for.

The day starts with what needs attention

The home page now opens with a prioritized list pulled from what is happening in each teacher’s classes, such as homework posted and work waiting on feedback. A teacher can log in, see what needs attention, and plan the day around it.

I also split the places teachers work in (Teacher Tools) from the places they look things up (CPM Resources), and sorted the resources into categories that match how teachers think about them. That answers the “jumble” feedback above directly.

A lesson students can move through, not just scroll

The legacy student lesson was one long scroll with no way to move around inside it. I introduced lesson sections that let a student jump straight to the part they need. Student tools, strategies and the chapter glossary are within quick reach, alongside a one-tap English and Spanish switch and focus mode. None of this was easy to find on the legacy layout.

Teachers couldn’t see their students, so I built the view

In the legacy platform, teachers couldn’t see anything their students did. They couldn’t even tell whether students were using Infinite Practice. There was no data, so everything in this section is new.

Infinite Practice opens with a clear next step

The goal was an entry point where the next move is obvious: start a session and set it up, complete a session a teacher assigned, or go to the library and pick specific activities. Teachers control the session settings: how much of a session stays on one skill (fully focused at 80%, mostly focused at 60%, or fully mixed), the primary skill, and the starting level.

Teacher’s Desk turns grades into progress monitoring

Teacher’s Desk brings grades from the assessments students take into CPM, so the platform can track progress against assessments and Infinite Practice and build a progress monitoring plan for each student. A teacher who grades only in an LMS can’t use CPM’s progress monitoring or Infinite Practice tools to bring students up to where they need to be.

I added a Submit grades to LMS button so teachers don’t keep two gradebooks. When they grade with the rubric on the assessment, the grades are already in CPM, and one click updates the school’s gradebook. The aim is insight and automation, so teachers spend their time teaching and helping students instead of doing clerical work.

Less friction in the classroom

Focus mode lets a teacher present at the front of the room while controlling the pace and what students see. For students, it strips away interface that competes for attention and keeps the focus on the problems the teacher has given them.

I also added a Teacher View toggle, so a teacher can switch to a simple version of exactly what their students see.

One future direction: a mobile companion that lets a teacher control focus mode from anywhere in the room, instead of staying at the laptop.

One direction across eight groups

I led the design, interaction and UX decisions personally, and ran the alignment work with the groups below. Product partnered with me rather than driving. My job was to hold a single direction while each group’s constraints were heard, then bring the decisions back as designs and written rationale in Confluence.

• Curriculum
• Assessment
• Professional learning
• Customer success
• Product
• Engineering
• CTO
• Directors

Where it stands

The redesigned experience is in development. Beta versions are out, and data is being gathered to refine the design. The connection that sends grades to the school’s gradebook is still being wired up. The initiative set these targets at kickoff:

• Reduced prep and navigation time
• Fewer UX-related support tickets
• Improved overall UX
• Improved UX on small screens
• Higher student and teacher NPS

Results will be added here as the rollout matures. Until then I am not claiming any, and what I can show is the design and the process behind it.