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Brightspace Tip #174: Simplify Grading and Giving Feedback

learner with his hands on the keyboard of a laptop computer and someone else's hand pointing at the screen

Giving students timely, useful feedback can greatly enhance learning and improve student achievement. ICYMI, read my Give Students Feedback That Helps Them Learn blog post for information on providing better feedback.

Are you looking for ways to simplify grading and for providing feedback on assignment submissions? These Brightspace tools can help:

Annotations Tool
The Annotations tool allows instructors to provide feedback directly in submitted assignments. Feedback can be provided as text highlighting, freehand drawing, text annotation, and note annotation.

The use of a stylus is not required when using the Annotations tool. However, it could help to speed up the process of marking up the assignment submissions.

For more information, refer to this how to use the Annotations tool blog post.

NOTE: The Assignment Grader app allows instructors to make annotations on assignments. The Assignment Grader app is no longer available for download to new users. Existing users may continue to use the app if they have it installed on their device, but no further updates or support will be made available by D2L and the app is scheduled to be removed from app stores. As an alternative mobile grading option, D2L recommends using the Quick Eval tool.

Rubrics
Rubrics allow instructors to establish set criteria for grading assignments. Using the rubrics click-and-score simplicity saves time when grading. With a rubric you can provide consistent evaluation and contextual feedback to students. You can add additional personal feedback to each criterion, expanding on why you chose that level and what additional work would be required to improve on it.

For more information, refer to this using interactive rubrics in Brightspace blog post.

Video Notes
Audio and video feedback can provide richer and more detailed feedback than may be possible through written comments. Visual or audio feedback also provides a more personal way of giving feedback. You have the option to provide audio and/or video feedback in Brightspace. Use Video Notes to provide short, video-based feedback, comments, or instructions.

Here are a few blog posts with more information:

Quick Eval
Quick Eval allows evaluators to see a list of unevaluated learner submissions from all their courses. Submissions from Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes are displayed in one location to improve efficiency when locating work that requires evaluation and providing feedback to learners.

For more information, refer to this blog post on using Quick Eval.

The Orange Room

Have you visited The Orange Room (Brightspace Educator Share Showcase)? The Orange Room is a community where educators can learn from each other about efficient and innovative ways to use Brightspace. Several of your colleagues shared tips and suggestions already. Here are two contributions that may be of interest to you:

Want more information?

Brightspace Tip #142: Simplify Assignment Collection
Brightspace Tip #143: Annotate Assignment Submissions
Brightspace Tip #167: Interactive Rubrics
Brightspace Tip #102: Video Notes
Brightspace Tip #157: Video Notes – Closed Captions
Brightspace Tip #169: Video Notes – Recording Limit
Brightspace Tip #120: Quick Eval

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You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Photo credit: photo by #WOCinTech Chat is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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