Swing Education

Targeted training

Strategy

Copy

Design

Microcopy

Problem

Substitute teachers sought professional development opportunities, and schools wanted subs to access targeted training.

Solution

Skill Builder, an innovative self-paced training for a variety of different topics. Specific skills are recommended to subs based on school feedback.

Impact

In the first 5 months, over 1,500 subs completed a Skill Builder with a 5x adoption rate between December 2025 and April 2025. Subs who completed a Skill Builder worked more days on average.

Key elements

Feature naming

When setting out to name this feature, I considered how this feature would land with with both subs and school administrators. We needed something that felt fun, yet professional. We also needed these lessons to feel optional, while encouraging subs to complete them.

Reusable components

We reused onboarding components to create Skill Builders. As somebody who worked closely on the onboarding project, I helped the team reimagine these components for Skill Builders. This decreased the engineering lift, and allowed me to handle implementation as skills were added.

Linking to feedback

When a sub received neutral or negative feedback from a school, we linked them to a specific Skill Builder. This helps subs develop their skills in targeted areas, improving quality of the sub pool, and instilling confidence in our school administrators that we take action on their feedback. On average, these email have a 75% open rate, and a 43% click through rate.

Admin leaves constructive feedback

Automated email is sent to sub

Sub completes and earns qualification

Process

Deciding future skills

There are currently five Skill Builders with more coming each month. I developed a roadmap aligned with business KPIs. For example, we created a special education classroom Skill Builder to better prepare subs during a surge in special education requests. I also used RFPs asks to inform this data.

Adding additional skills

I worked with the engineering team to develop a process for adding Skill Builders with minimal engineering resources. After engineers built the page and flow structure, I was able to add content and attributes for future skills, which allowed us to ship quickly.

Skill Builder Highlights

Special Education Classrooms

Special education classrooms require different skills and strategies than a general education setting. This Skill Builder focuses on specific and actionable ways to effectively teach in the special education setting. We linked this Skill Builder to every special education teaching request.

Phone mock of Special Education Skill Builder homepage.

Phone mock of Special Education Skill Builder content page.

Phone mock of Special Education Skill Builder opening page..

Phone mock of Special Education Skill Builder quiz page.

Special Education Classrooms Skill Builder

Classroom Management

Schools report that classroom management skills are the top area for improvement for subs. Therefore, it made sense that it was the first Skill Builder we created, and remains the top Skill Builder. This Skill Builder contains tips for how to remain calm, keep students on task, and what to do when you need support.

Phone mock of Classroom Management Skill Builder content page.

Classroom Management Skill Builder

Classroom Engagement

The classroom engagement Skill Builder includes many tips for how to create an overall well-run classroom with structure and multiple opportunities for student participation. This Skill Builder is particualrly great for subs in long-term assignments.