Creating a Culture of Class Participation

Posted on by luckensj · 2 Comments

Have you ever felt like Ben Stein in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Standing awkwardly in front of your silent class and staring at blank faces (or blank Zoom screens)?

How can it be that no one besides you has any idea why the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was so terrible? What is it, national silence day, again?

Fear not, Wentworth, we’re back with a blog post to help you create a culture of class participation in your courses from day one.

Here are our top five strategies for getting students to speak up in class:

1) Wait

2) Write

3) Talk

4) Cold Call

5) Assess Participation

Here’s what we mean…

1) Wait 

Have you ever posed a question to your class, waited a few silent seconds, and then preceded to answer your own question? We’ve all done that! In your experience at the front of the room, those few seconds can feel like a few minutes. I totally get it. But here’s the thing: it’s a classic mistake.

In those pregnant seconds, your students are processing a question they’ve never heard before and are just starting to formulate answers. This takes time! Wait it out. Seriously.

Take a few deep breaths and count to 10. Then, if you need to, reframe your question. But don’t answer it. By creating and holding the space open, you are inviting participation, and I guarantee that someone will eventually speak up.

By answering your own questions, you are training students that they do not need to answer your questions. From their perspective, you already have an answer in mind and will happily provide it if they just wait out your silences.

If students are afraid of being wrong in your class and know that you’ll tell them the answer anyway, they won’t be motivated to speak up. However, if you establish the convention that you won’t answer your own questions, and will instead wait to hear their ideas, your students will be more likely to speak up.

Additionally, I would suggest waiting beyond the initial few hands that fly up to give more students space to formulate their own ideas. That way, the class won’t rely on the usual suspects to answer your questions, and students who prefer to think longer before sharing are invited to participate.

When you wait, I recommend inviting students into your thought process by explicitly telling them that you’re waiting until more hands go up before calling on anyone, and explaining why.

Little by little, by demonstrating that you value all of your students’ ideas enough to wait for them, you will establish a culture of class participation.

2) Write

In the language of Universal Design for Learning, it’s our job as professors to remove unnecessary barriers to entry so that all students can participate fully in the learning experiences that we design. Writing is a fantastic way to invite more students to share their ideas in your class.

This can take many forms. Here are two examples:

A) Pose a question to your class both orally and in writing via a whiteboard, the zoom chat box, a PowerPoint slide, etc. Presenting the prompt in multiple ways benefits all learning styles.

Then ask your students to free write in response to the prompt for 1-2 minutes before taking any comments. You can also ask them to tackle a STEM problem before delving into it as a class.

Giving your students time to formulate ideas in advance will:

      • promote deeper introspection
      • give students scaffolding time to actively build new neural connections
      • benefit students with diverse learning styles
      • provide more equity of opportunity for engagement in your classroom

B) In addition to taking verbal comments, invite students to simultaneously respond to your questions in writing.

This could be the via zoom chat box, on a shared document (i.e. Google doc, Google slide, etc.), or a collaboration tool like the discussion board on Brightspace.

This enhances student learning because:

      • students have multiple means of representing their ideas
      • more students will have the opportunity to express their ideas in the same amount of time
      • the group’s thinking is made visible in writing in addition to the verbal discussion that is happening.

3) Talk

Students have a variety of learning styles. Some learners are verbal processors, meaning that they formulate ideas by speaking them out loud. Some learners will engage much more deeply with the material when interacting with their peers than when listening or writing on their own. Some learners require more time to process information and synthesize their ideas than others.

Universal Design for Learning suggests that adding one additional engagement strategy will have a positive impact on broad range of learners. All the students described above would benefit from the opportunity to discuss a question that you’ve posed with their peers before being asked to share their thoughts with the whole class.

Here are two ways to do so:

A) Use a “turn-and-talk” or “think-pair-share” strategy. Give students 2-3 minutes to discuss a prompt that you’ve posed with a partner or a couple of people sitting near them. Keep them on task by moving around the room and listening into snippets of conversations, and by giving them a deliverable.

For deliverables, perhaps every small group is asked to share a key takeaway, a possible solution, or something thought-provoking that their partner said. Maybe each group types a response into a shared document and you ask follow-up questions of groups that had particularly evocative responses. Or perhaps you simply open the floor up to comments after everyone has had a chance to share their initial ideas with each other.

Either way, more of your students will be actively ideating and engaging during this time of small group or pair conversations than if you directly opened up the floor to comments from individual students without giving them time to ideate together.

B) If you’re teaching on Zoom, breakout rooms can serve this purpose. In this case, it’s even more important to be explicit about what you expect the students to discuss and what you are expecting from them when they return to the main group.

I highly recommend writing up the prompt or instructions in advance and pasting it into the Zoom chat before you send students to breakout rooms so that they have something to visually refer to which explains what they are expected to do. You can also visit each breakout room virtually if they are discussing for a longer period of time.

Providing your students with space to bounce their ideas around with each other before sharing them with the whole class is a time-tested method for getting more thoughtful comments from more of your students in full group discussions.

This strategy also enhances learning retention because students are engaging with your content in a more active manner than passively listening. Additionally, students will both learn from each other’s ideas and crystalize their own thinking by verbally expressing their thought processes.

4) Cold Call

Cold calling means directly asking a student who isn’t raising their hand to share their thoughts. Speaking up in class can feel like a bold move, especially when students haven’t volunteered to do so, and it’s your job to make students feel like it’s not a high stakes gambit to offer up their ideas.

I recommend repeatedly telling students that their ideas don’t have to be “right” or even be fully formed, as speaking is a great way to ideate. Try framing this by elaborating on the ways that robust dialogue is essential to the process of discovering connections and creating moments of realization. As IDEO designer Tom Kelley says, “fail often in order to succeed sooner!”

So how can you create a culture of safe intellectual exploration while integrating cold calling? It’s a delicate balance. The secret lies in setting clear expectations from day one and providing framing that feels supportive and empathetic.

Explain to students on the first day of class that you will cold call regularly because you value each and every student voice, and it’s your job to make sure that everyone in the class has the opportunity to share their perspective and succeed in your course. You can even put it in the syllabus—cold calling shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Alleviate student anxiety by giving your students the ability to pass on answering any question if they don’t feel comfortable sharing. Invite them to email you or speak to you at the beginning of class if they’ve had a particularly rough day and would prefer not to be called upon in class that day.

When your students feel that they have some shared control over the situation, they won’t mind the structure of cold calling that you’ve put in place. In fact, they may even appreciate it.

Also, try using the aforementioned strategies (individual writing/drawing/problem-solving; talking with peers) before cold calling to give your students a chance to think through their ideas, either in writing or by speaking to their peers, before being asked to share in front of the whole class.

5) Assess Participation

If you want to indicate that something is important in your course, giving it a grade is a fantastic way to do so. Ideally, your students will be intrinsically motivated because you’ve ignited their passion by proving how your course will enrich their lives. But let’s be honest, a little extrinsic motivation can’t hurt.

So how do you assess class participation? You probably have an idea of what good class participation looks like in your course, but how do your students know exactly what you are looking for?

Try creating a rubric or a checklist that defines the elements of participation that you value. This way, when you assess each student’s participation at the end of the semester, you will have explicit guidelines against which to grade them that students are familiar with from day one.

Also, consider writing a few brief case studies of fictional students to provide narrative examples of what A-level, C-level, and F-level participation looks like in your class. Make them fun and memorable! Read them when you go over the syllabus. By using humor to engage memory, students will better recall what you’re looking for, and will have clear models to follow (and not follow!)

Grading participation is tricky, as when we’re teaching there are so many demands on our attention that it’s very difficult to document exactly how actively each of our students is participating at all times. So in assessing participation, it’s best practice to gather input from multiple perspectives rather than simply relying on our own limited perspectives.

Try creating a thoughtful self-assessment survey that students must complete at the end of the course asking them to reflect upon their own participation and provide specific examples. Give them the self-assessment questions at the beginning of the semester so that know what to expect and can keep this task in the back of their mind as they go through the course, making note of impactful moments of participation that they want to highlight in their self-reflection.

To paint an even fuller picture, consider asking students to assess each other’s participation as a third point in the data triangle in addition to your perspective and their self-perception. You could assign three students per class meeting to keep track of class participation by filling out a short form highlighting whose participation in that class was particularly impactful and why, ideally focusing on quality over quantity.

Involving students in assessment is beneficial because:

  • You get additional data from a broad range of sources
  • Students feel both empowered and accountable to one another
  • You underscore the value of active participation by creating a structure that literally causes students to see its importance

In Conclusion

Try using these teaching tips to create a classroom culture that invites active and engaged participation, and let us know how it goes!

The instructional design team at the Teaching & Learning Collaborative is proud to support Wentworth faculty by providing instructional coaching, observing classes, and offering you strategies to make your teaching even more dynamic. Partner with us to take the next steps on your journey of growth as an educator.

Josh Luckens is an instructional designer with the Teaching & Learning Collaborative (formerly Learning Innovation & Technology) at Wentworth. Josh would be happy to consult with you about creative ways to enhance your teaching practice. Feel free to contact him at luckensj@wit.edu.

Ode to Formative Assessments

Posted on by Lucy

A formative assessment is a low- or no-stakes assessment that provides extensive feedback on incorrectly answered questions. It also provides positive reinforcement on correctly answered questions. Formative assessments both measure how well a student is learning during instruction and give the student useful feedback to improve learning outcomes.

By contrast, a summative assessment provides final marks during the grading phase of a course. Summative assessments measure what a student has learned after a cohesive group of subtopics have been studied, where understanding is key to success in subsequent modules.

How to use Formative Assessments

  • Create polls that can be used during a lecture to check student understanding. Use Zoom Polls, Kahoot!, PearDeck, Tophat, or Padlet.
  • Knowledge checks in Brightspace after each learning material. See example below
  • Provide practice quizzes for students to use to check their own understanding before a big exam. These could ask the same types of questions students might see on a summative assessment.
  • Allow students to reflect on their learning. Have students submit ‘minute papers’ or exit tickets through Brightspace assignments or quizzes.
  • Give students the opportunity to ask clarifying questions during a lecture. Use Brightspace discussion boards to allow students to reflect on the material, ask questions, or apply what they have learned.

Example made in H5p.org:

Why we LOVE Formative Assessment

Where to start?! Each failure is a learning opportunity, so giving students a chance to fail with a low- or no-stakes assessment provides more learning opportunities. Timely, actionable feedback is a critical component in formative assessment. As in the example above, feedback teaches students what went wrong and how to fix it for next time.

Formative assessments allow students to self-assess, and go back, slow down, or study more BEFORE the big exam.

Furthermore, they let you know where you can adjust your teaching speed or reframe the content to promote deeper understanding.

Introducing Formative Assessment to Students

“Why should I bother, when I know that students aren’t going to bother if the assignment is worth little or no points?”

That is 100% a good point, and to that, we recommend that the benefits of formative assessments are directly shared with the students. Encourage students to participate in polls and surveys, non-graded quizzes, and assignments in order to help you assess what you need to reteach. Let your students know when these activities provide the opportunity to test themselves in a low-risk way.

Especially in a Zoom setting, formative assessments not only let you gauge the class’ understanding, but they also provide a chance for student engagement. At the very minimum, it is a nice change-of-pace from lectures and activities.

If you would like to add more formative assessments into your class, book a consultation with one of our Instructional Designers!

Fogelson, K. (2020). Toolkit: Sync Assessments. Arizona State University. Retrieved on 12/14/2020 from https://provost.asu.edu/sync/faculty

The differences between formative and summative assessment – Infographic
https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2017/04/the-differences-between-formative-and-summative-assessment-infographic

Ice Breakers!

Posted on by Lucy

Ice Breakers give students the chance to express their knowledge of themselves. They are the first foray into an active and engaged class community.

Ice breakers are fun, person-focused, and have the purpose of requiring learners to find something in common with the learning community.

Whether you are teaching an in-person, remote, or online asynchronous course, consider leading with an icebreaker. Zoom meetings could start out with a game of “popcorn”. You call on the first student to answer a fun question about themselves and then instruct them to call on the next student. Maybe you are playing two truths and a lie. Maybe it’s Pictionary using the Zoom whiteboard and a word generator. Maybe it’s desert island items. At the very minimum add an “introduce yourself” discussion topic for week 1.

Here are some other ideas…

Bingo

Pair an “introduce yourself” discussion or activity with a class member bingo card! Have your students play bingo based on the introductions, crossing off each square as you determine the correct name.

Classmate Quiz

Pair an “introduce yourself” discussion or activity and hold a classmate quiz in the second week of class. This will reinforce the activity of posting personal introductions and reading through each participant’s posting. BONUS, it familiarizes the students with the Brightspace test environment in a low-stakes, fun way.

Lineup

Have your students score themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on categories, such as…

  • I consider myself a sports expert
  • Cooking is one of my hobbies
  • I love to read
  • I am interested in the subject matter of this course
  • I love nature

Have students share their self-assessment in a discussion or breakout room, where they can meet people with common interests.

Lost in Space

Prompt = Imagine you have been living on a space station for a period of one year. Suddenly the computers malfunction, and you have fifteen minutes to evacuate to a space shuttle before all life support systems fail. You will be allowed five items to take with you. As quickly as you can, type your name followed by the five items in the chat. This is not the time for reflective thought. Just type as quickly as you can.

Once all participants have entered their list, read through what has been entered. Facilitate a course discussion on the items.

Name that Movie

Day 1: Post a 2-3 sentence response to the following: If you were to write the score to the movie of your life, which two songs would you pick and why?

Day 2: Based on the answers to #1, suggest a movie title for each person followed by a one-sentence explanation of why you chose that title.

Day 3: Consider all the suggested titles for your movie. Select the one title that would best fit your movie followed by a 1-2 sentence explanation.

One Word

Have your students think of one word that describes them our their life, then give them these instructions.

Asynchronously: Enter your word and your name in the subject line of a discussion, then explain why you chose that word in the body. Review the entries of others and find someone else whose word resonates with you. Reply to their post and try to find at least two additional words that the two of you have in common by the end of the week.

Synchronously: Post your word in the chat. Once everyone has posted their word, review the words and send a private message introducing yourself to an individual whose noun resonates with you. Try to come up with two more words that you have in common with that person.

Portrait

This is a playful way for students to get to know each other. Ask students to create a self-portrait to share. Artistic ability is not essential. They can use crayons and paper, or a graphics program, or even a collage of magazine images. In the end, share your creation and describe your decisions in creating your portrait.

Room with a View

Describe (in vivid detail) the view from your favorite window. Weave some autobiographical information into your “ view. ” For example, “I’m looking out over our pool where my son learned to swim this weekend. It also overlooks a lake. When we lived in Arizona we dreamed about living by the water and now that we are here in Florida that has become a reality.” Read what others have written and respond to two peers’ postings indicating why you would like to trade places for a day.

Snowball

Have one person enter a basic introduction of himself or herself, including his or her interests. A second person must then enter an introduction of himself or herself and find one thing in common with the first person. A third person then enters his or her introduction and finds one thing in common with the first person and the second person. Each of the rest of the class members then enters an introduction and must find something in common with at least three other people in the class. The first person, in turn, must respond to at least three people with whom he or she has something in common. The second person must respond to at least two additional people. The third person must respond to at least one additional person.

*NOTE* Best in small groups (under 10 ppl), for using this activity with a large group will turn a Snowball into an Avalanche!

Things

Find an object or a digital image that represents who you are or why you are taking this course or even what your research interests might be. Post a description of the object on the discussion board and explain why you chose that particular object. Attach a digital image of your object: a scanned image, digital picture, or Web-linked image, for example. Include a brief description of your expectations for the class in the explanation of your object.

Truths and Lies

Enter two truthful statements and one falsehood about yourself onto the discussion board (or into the chat room). Each member of the group should then try to distinguish the truths from the lie. What makes this activity fun is to be as outrageous as possible while sharing a bit of who you really are with your fellow participants. Once all responses have been received, post your truths and explain why you chose them to share.

Why are we Together

Send out a profile survey, with several questions about your students. Based on the results, assign groups of four to five people. Using the discussion board or Zoom breakout room, have the group discover why its members were put together. Also, are there any other things that group members have in common that were not included in the profile survey?

Examples of group categories

  • Students identified as having leadership skills
  • Students that are very comfortable with technology
  • A coin toss

 

Conrad, R., & Donaldson, J. A. (2011). Engaging the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.geisel.idm.oclc.org

Understanding the Brightspace Grade Book – Part 1

Posted on by cookel

One of the benefits of a flexible grading tool is that you can grade almost any way that you want. One of the problems with a flexible grading tool is that it is complex and sometimes confusing. The Brightspace grade book complexity, while allowing instructors to grade in a manner that suits their needs, has created confusion. To help instructors navigate the tool and more efficiently work with the grade book this post will explore the grade book workings starting at a high level by considering the connection between activities and grade columns and category structures for activities and grades.

A major difference between the Brightspace grade book and the Blackboard grade book is that Brightspace allows grade columns and activities to be separated. So, you can create an assignment or quiz without a corresponding column in the grade book. In contrast, in Blackboard when you created an assignment or deployed a quiz, a column was created in the grade book. In fact, you could not remove a column in the grade book without deleting the corresponding assignment/quiz and the grades associated with them.

In Brightspace, if you have an assignment associated with a grade column and decide to replace that assignment with another, you can disconnect the assignment from the column, create a new one, and connect that to the original grade column. By disconnecting the assignment from the grade book column, you preserve the assignment (and any associated submissions and grades). This preservation may be important to record work in the course that you decided should not be graded but you might want to refer back to when establishing a participation grade.

In addition to being able to separate activities from grade columns, the points possible per graded item can be different in both places. So you could have an assignment with points possible of 100 but the column points set to 10 points. Brightspace can calculate the values but they could cause a calculation error if you really wanted the points to be 100. This is another setting to pay attention to and we recommend setting them to the same value.

Another point of confusion I’ve seen is the categories in the grade book and in the activities. For example, you can create categories for different assignments. When you connect these assignments to grade items, many would assume that the category that the assignment was in is transferred to the grade item. That is not the case. Blackboard did not have any categories for assignments or tests so this is a unique feature of Brightspace we need to grapple with. In Blackboard, all the categories existed in the grade book. When you added an assignment to the grade book, a column was added and the category assignment selected unless you selected a different category, in the grade center.

Diagram showing relationship between activity categories and gradebook categoriesIn Brightspace the categories in the activities and grade book serve different purposes. In the activity areas, categories serve to group similar or related activities. In the grade book, the categories are used for weighting in the grade calculation. Because the activity categories are separate from the grade book categories they do not have to match. In the example above, none of the activity categories matches the categories in the grade book exactly. You could also have two categories of activities that are counted in the same category in the grade book, for example, activities that are used to determine a participation grade might come from assignments and discussions.

So, when setting up your grade book you may want to create all the categories and grade columns in the grade book first as well as setting up the calculation, weighted or points-based, and then attach activities as you create them. Map out how the activities will connect to the grade book so you know what to connect where.

In future posts, I’ll discuss some of the weighting systems and how to set them up. And for the brave, I’ll consider formula-based grades.

Brightspace FAQ

Posted on by Lucy

You had questions, and we had answers! Here is a compilation of some of the Brightspace questions we’ve received. This FAQ is a work in progress, and will be updated with new questions and answers. For more resources visit the WIT Teaching & Learning Hub.

Where do I get started?

Login to wentworth.brightspace.com.

Start with the Brightspace Toolkit.

Next, enroll in the faculty model course. To enroll in the course search, "Faculty Model Course" in the Discovery section of your Brightspace homepage.

Faculty Model Course

You can also check out the Getting Started for Instructors page on D2L.

Finally, feel free to book a consultation with one of our Instructional Designers; email lit@wit.edu, stop by Beatty 318, or call 617-989-5428.

Before or at Start of semester you may wish to copy content from a previous course into a new one. 

Use the Import/Export/Copy Components tool in Brightspace. Copy course components

Import Copy Admin Resources

Submit a ticket to lit@wit.edu and we can help!

Send your request to lit@wit.edu and we can help! Include the first and last name, email (if you have it), what course section(s) you want to add them to, and the role. I.e. Tutors, Course Assistant…

 

Grading

We have Qwickly Attendance that you can use and which will create a grade center column. There’s information and video tutorials on our website at: https://wit.edu/about/lit/toolkit/qwickly

Check out the blogpost. If you still need help, book a grading consultation with one of the Instructional Designers.

Difference between grade category and item

Grade categories organize and group related grade items into sections in your grade book, for example, a Writing Assignments grade category to group assignment items and a Class Participation grade category to group discussion items. Grade categories display in Manage Grades.

Grade items in your grade book represent all the work that you want to evaluate users on in a course. Grade items can exist independently in your grade book, or you can associate numeric grade items with course objects such as discussions, quizzes, and assignments. Each grade item has an entry in the grade book, which you assign a grade to for each user. Depending on the grade item type you want to create, grade items can be graded numerically or based on a grade scheme.

Categories are an optional way of organizing related items in your grade book. It is useful if you are using weighted grades, or if you plan on having Brightspace automatically drop the lowest item within a category. i.e. There are 10 quizzes in this course, and your lowest two scores will be automatically dropped. 

  1. On the course home page, click Grades.
  2. In the Manage Grades area, click Category or Item from the New button.
  3. Set the desired preferences and options for the category or item.
  4. Click Save and Close.

How to add grade item or optional category

The grade settings allow you to choose which grading system you use. Here you can choose weighted, points, or formula. 

  1. On the course home page, click Grades.
  2. Click Settings.
    screenshot of settings button
  3. In the Calculation Options tab, select the grading system you prefer: Weighted, Points, or Formula.
  4. Click Save.

screenshot of manage grade settings calculation options

Review the Gradebook Checklist and the Basic Gradebook Setup when setting up the gradebook.

Some instructors choose to keep grading simple and choose either a point-based system or categories that equal 100%.

Point-based
Participation = (10 x 10 points each) 100
Homeworks = (10 x 20 points each) 200
Quizzes = (10 x 30 points each) 300
Discussions = (10 x 20 points each) 200
Final = 200

Categories
Participation = 10%
Homeworks = 20%
Quizzes = 30%
Discussions = 20%
Final = 20%

More information on weighted, points, and formula grading systems

When deciding how to allocate points or weights across grade items, check the Final Calculated Grade to make sure they add up correctly

Final Grades FAQ

 

If you did not select the Automatically release final grade option when you set up your grade book, you can release final grades to learners manually.

  1. On the navbar, click Grades.
  2. On the Enter Grades page, from the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade context menu, click Grade All.
  3. To release grades for all users, on the Final Grades page, from the Final Grades context menu, click Release All. To release final grades for a specific user, do one of the following:
    • Select the check box by the user name and click the Release/Unrelease link.
    • Select the check box in the Release Final Calculated Grade or Release Adjusted Final Grade column.
      screenshot of release final adjusted grade
  4. Click Save.

The The final grade released icon Final grade is released icon displays in the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade column for any user who has their final grade released. The The final grade not released icon Final grade is not released icon displays in the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade column for any user who does not have their final grade released.

The date and time a grade is released or unreleased is displayed in a learner's Grades Event Log.

 

Quizzes

You create quizzes by going to the quizzes in the course tools menu. When you create your quiz you can associate it with an existing grade column if one exists or create a new column. On the Assessment tab in the New Quiz window, you’ll find where to either connect to an existing column or add a new column.

Screenshot of the Quiz Assessment grade item

Review the Quiz Creation Basics.

Question libraries are a great tool to deter cheating. You can add questions to the question library each semester, and have each quiz/exam/test generate a random set of questions.

  1. On the course home page, click Quizzes.
  2. Create a new quiz or select an existing quiz to edit.
  3. In the Properties tab, click Add/Edit Questions.
  4. From the Add drop-down menu, click Question Pool.
  5. Enter a Question Pool Title, the Number of Questions to Select, and the Points per Question.
  6. Click Browse Question Library.
  7. Search for and select the questions or the entire section of questions you want to add, and click Add..
    Note: If you selected a section, all the questions in that entire section appear in your question pool.
  8. Click Save.

 

Content

One-week before the start of term is the default, instructors can adjust the start and end dates. See Course information under Course Admin.

We recommend posting the course syllabus and a welcome announcement for courses opening one-week before start of term.

Screenshot of welcome announcment

Use the visibility icon, or set availability dates. If an item is hidden from students, there will be an eye icon with a strikethrough.

You can use bulk edit to change any of the following, start date, due date, end date, visibility. 

  1. On the navbar, click Content.
  2. On the Table of Contents page, click Bulk Edit.
  3. For any topic or module that you want to add availability or due dates to, click Add dates and restrictions.
  4. Do any of the following:
    • To add a start date, click Add start date. Enter your start date details.
    • To add a due date, click Add due date. Enter your due date details.
    • To add an end date, click Add end date. Enter your end date details.
  5. Click Update.
  6. Click Done Editing.

Wentworth uses Panopto for video creation, editing, and storage. Learn how to create Powerful Microlectures using Panopto.

Link your zoom recordings to the Panopto course folder by following these steps.

Modules are how you can organize your course content. Think of them as folders. You can create a course flow using weeks, modules, units, chapters, or a different organizational structure. Each module can contain files, discussions, assignments, quizzes, and other learning materials. 

  1. On the navbar, click Content.
  2. In the Table of Contents panel, in the Add a module field, enter the name of your new module and then press Enter.

Submodules establish a deeper hierarchy. You don't have to use them, but you may want to use them for an accompanying lab, bonus or supplemental material, or other content shell.

To add a submodule, click into the module. In the Add a sub-module field, enter the name of your new sub-module and then press Enter.

screenshot of modules TOC

Quicklinks are internal links that take students to a particular discussion topic, forum, page, quiz, etc. 

  1. From the course home page, click Content.
  2. In the module or sub-module you want to add the quicklink to, click Existing Activities and then Discussions.
  3. Click the discussion forum that you want to add a quicklink to:
    • To add a discussion forum, click the Insert icon for the forum.
    • To add a discussion topic, click the topic.

 

Communication

D2L Brightspace Product Idea Exchange – vote for ideas

Students set their own notification preferences, so announcements won’t necessarily send an email alert to students. Announcements are nice to have in one spot, and facilitate the archive of communication within the course. Consider letting students know to check Brightspace every day, and turn on their notifications.

 

Discussion

Discussions are a great tool for learner-learner interaction, formative assessments, and course communication. Well-designed prompts can spark dialog, reflection, and meaningful discourse.

Use forums to organize your discussion topics into categories. Your course can have multiple forums and topics, but you must create a forum before you can create a topic since all topics belong to forums.

  1. On the navbar, click Discussions.
  2. On the Discussions List page, from the New button drop-down menu, click New Forum.
  3. Enter a title for your new forum.
  4. Enter a description for your new forum.
  5. In the Options section, select any of the following check boxes:
    • Allow anonymous posts - To enable users to post anonymously.
    • A moderator must approve individual posts before they display in the forum - To ensure that posts are approved by a moderator before they display in the forum.
    • Users must start a thread before they can read and reply to other threads in each topic - To ensure user participation.
    • Display forum descriptions in topics - To provide instructors the option to display a discussion forum description within a discussion topic description.
  6. In the Restrictions tab, in the Availability section, select the Hide from Users checkbox to set the stats of the forum.
  7. Select Locking Options for your forum. Locking a forum prevents users from posting to any of its associated topics until it is unlocked; they can still read post made to a topic prior to it being locked.
  8. Click Save and Close.

Next, you will create a Discussion topic. Click on the Question below to expand.

Forums organize your discussion topics into categories. Set up your options, restrictions, and availability.

Topics are nested under forums and contain a prompt. You can have multiple forums and topics, but you must create a forum before you can create a topic since all topics belong to forums. Here's how to add a topic.

  1. On the navbar, click Discussions.
  2. On the Discussions List page, from the New button, click New Topic.
  3. From the drop-down list, select the forum you want to put your topic in. If you want to create a new forum for your topic, click New Forum.
  4. To grant everyone access to the topic and restrict learners to only see threads from their own group or section, under Topic Type, select Group or section topic.
    Note: You cannot edit the topic type once you save the topic.
  5. Enter your New Topic Details.
  6. On the Restrictions tab, select Availability options for your topic.
  7. Select Locking Options for your topic. Locking a topic prevents users from posting to it until it is unlocked; they can still read post made prior to it being locked.
  8. Click Save and Close.

Participating in discussions is a great way to increase instructor presence. For some discussions, you might wish to receive notifications for new posts. For example, a course communication forum where students are directed to ask questions about the posts. In these cases, you can subscribe to a discussion by following the steps below. 

  1. On the navbar, click Discussions.
  2. Do either of the following:
    • On the Discussions List page, from the context menu of the forum or topic you want to receive notifications of new posts for, click Subscribe.
    • On the View Topics page, beside the thread you want to receive notifications for, click Subscribe.
  3. In the Customize Notifications pop-up window, select your Notification Method. If you do not have an email address set up in your user profile to receive notifications, in the Customize Notifications pop-up window, click the Add an email address in a new window link. Click the Enable email notifications link, then set your email preferences in the Email Settings pop-up window. Click Save.
  4. Click Subscribe.

 

Assignment

Students use the Assignments tool to upload and submit assignments directly to Brightspace. 

screenshot of new assignment

Instructors can associate rubrics, competencies, and return submission with grades and feedback. 

Read how to create an assignment using the new create and edit Assignment experience

Four submission types are available to instructors when creating assignments to allow evaluation of many different tasks.

screenshot of assignment submission type

  • File submission: learners upload and submit a file to the assignment.

  • Text submission: learners post text, image, or a link to their work in a text box within the assignment.

  • On paper submission: learners submit a physical copy of their assignment directly to their instructor. No file upload is required to complete the assignment.

  • Observed in person: allows instructors to observe learners as they perform tasks, such as in-class presentations, and evaluate them using Assignments. No file upload is required to complete the assignment.

On paper submissions and Observed in person assignments include additional completion options as no submissions are made by learners in Brightspace Learning Environment. These submission types can be marked as completed manually by learners, automatically on evaluation, or automatically on due date. Instructors select their completion option when creating assignments.

You can grade, annotate, and leave feedback through Evaluate Submission. 

Read more on how to add feedback and evaluations to assignments.

 

What did we miss? Send your questions to teach@wit.edu or enter them in the comments below.