A conversation between Lisa Schulte-Gipson and Mark Quinn on teaching, learning, and a sales course with a purpose.
Mr. Quinn is the Conrad N. Hilton Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship and an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Xavier University of Louisiana. He teaches entrepreneurship, directs the Xavier University Entrepreneurship Institute and founded the X-ncubator, Xavier’s student business incubator.
Lisa received her BS from Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA). She attended SUNY Albany where she earned both her MA and PhD in Social/Personality Psychology.
Lisa has worked at Xavier University since 1993 and she is the Keller Family Foundation Professor of Arts and Sciences.
Throughout her tenure at Xavier she has served both the University and Department in many capacities, currently serving as Chair of the Psychology Department and as the Faculty in Residence for Service Learning at CAT+FD
Her current research focuses on both the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) and positive psychology (specifically as related to enhancing well-being among students).
I started using Google's applications (often called G-Suite) back when Google's motto was still "Don't be evil," so when Xavier switched us all over to Google in 2015, I was pretty pleased. Over the years, I've amassed a massive amount of data on my Xavier-based Google Drive and YouTube account, and I've pretty much stopped using my personal Google account. When we learned this past summer that Xavier would be migrating all of our accounts from Google to Microsoft, I panicked. Not only do I greatly dislike Microsoft's products, but I also have a ton of work that I was worried about. We've been told that all of the files on our Google Drives will be moved and translated to Microsoft's Office 360 system, and that only Google Forms will not survive the process. However, we've also been told that although our YouTube accounts will not disappear, we will not be able to manage them any more. Apparently, those videos will just sit on YouTube's servers with no one having any editorial control over them.
Instructors can create surveys in Brightspace and use the statistics tools to monitor current course trends, seek opinions, and assess user satisfaction.
Surveys are an excellent way to solicit feedback from learners regarding any aspect of a course. You can gather anonymous or non-anonymous opinions and information from users. Unlike Quizzes, survey questions do not have to have right or wrong answers and Likert-style rating questions are possible.
Some examples of the types of uses for surveys are: seeking feedback on the effectiveness of active learning exercises, the need for clarification of course material, and/or seeking suggestions for course improvement.
On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Surveys.
On the Manage Surveys page, click New Survey.
Enter a Name and select additional settings for your survey (e.g. choose the option to give instant feedback and/or make results anonymous).
To add questions directly to the survey, click Add/Edit Questions. Alternatively, you can add questions from the Question Library.
Click Done Editing Questions to return to the survey page.
Click the Restrictions tab to modify the survey's availability.
Uncheck the Hide from Users checkbox.
Specify a date range for the survey, if appropriate.
Set the attempts allowed for the survey.
Click Save and Close.
To track survey progress and results:
Based on how you have set up the survey properties, you might see a list of all users or just the overall survey results with anonymous responses.
On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Surveys.
On the Manage Surveys page, click the context menu next to the name of your survey and click Statistics.
In the Users tab, search for users and their listed attempt types. You can restrict your search of survey results by attempt in the Attempts tab.
To view a specific user's results, click on an individual attempt. To view the number of attempts per question within a survey, click View Overall Results at the bottom of the page.
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.
The Discussions tool has a new @mentions feature. Within the Discussion tool, users can now tag other users within the same course using @mentions. Tagged users are notified by alerts in the Minibar directing them to the thread in which they were tagged. Additionally, users can edit their notification settings and opt to receive email notifications when they are tagged in discussions.
The @mentions will identify users who match the criteria
You may be wondering how @mentions could enhance your class discussions. Here are a couple of examples:
Example 1:
@Mentions can help thread together concepts from multiple people in a discussion. For example, student A may be reading through discussion posts and sees that fellow classmates (Jayne and Francis) are making similar points in their posts but they are coming from completely different starting points. Student A wants to draw Jayne and Francis into a conversation with each other. Student A could post something like, "Hey @Jayne, did you see that @Francis agrees with you on x and y, but starts with presupposition b instead of a? What do you think about his presupposition?" Both Jayne and Francis would receive notification that they have been tagged in the discussion. Likewise, you as the instructor, could use the @mentions to tag students to draw them into a conversation.
Example 2:
You have a student that wants to draw you, as the instructor, into the conversation for clarification. The student could use the @mentions to tag you. You would receive notification alerting you that you have been tagged and you could prioritize responding to that thread before reading through all the others.
Do you have other examples of how @mentions could be useful in discussions? If so, please leave a comment on this post.
Tagged users receive notification in the minibar
Follow these steps to do it.
To use @mentions in a discussion:
Navigate to the forum topic or thread where you want to use @mentions.
Post as normal by selecting Reply to Thread or Start a New Thread.
To tag a user, type @ and begin typing their first or last name.
The user will appear on a list under the text. Select the user to tag them.
The @mention will display the user's first and last name.
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.
Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that is integrated into our Brightspace system. Turnitin checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.
Instructors typically create an Assignment submission folder with Turnitin enabled. When students submit their assignments they are checked for potential plagiarism. However, there may be situations where an instructor needs to submit a paper to be checked by Turnitin.
The Quick Submit feature allows instructors to submit papers and receive Similarity Reports without creating an Assignment in their course. This is ideal for instructors who would like to use Turnitin to spot check submissions and have these papers in electronic format. Quick Submit SHOULD NOT be used if the instructor desires to have students submit their own papers or plans on using PeerMark (peer review assignment tool) or GradeMark (make comments on and assess student papers). Instructors should create an Assignment and enable Turnitin for the assignment instead.
Follow these steps to do it.
To use Quick Submit to submit a paper:
Log in to your Turnitin account natively through www.turnitin.com.
Activate Quick Submit by clicking on User Info from the top of the instructor homepage.
On the preferences page, select yes from the activate Quick Submit drop-down menu. The Quick Submit tab will appear on the instructor homepage, making the Quick Submit inbox available for use.
To start the upload process, click on the Submit button in the Quick Submit inbox and follow the instructions.
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.
Turnitin Feedback Studio is a program that checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.
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.
November 8 – 12, 2021 is National Distance Learning Week (NDLW). This year's theme is "Life in a Hybrid World – Learning How to Flex".
In association with NDLW, the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) is offering free webinars on a variety of topics related to online teaching and learning. A few other organizations are offering free webinars during NDLW as well.
For more information on the activities and to register for the webinars visit NDLW 2021.
The XULA Entrepreneurship Institute is interested in gauging the Xavier communities' attitude and general knowledge regarding cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Please take a moment to fill out their survey and they will be sending you some crypto of your own!
D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.
Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.
Here are a few updates in the October 2021/20.21.10 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Brightspace Editor – Drag/drop and copy/paste images
Note: Similar to current functionality, image files added to these areas are saved in the root of the Manage Files area of the organization unit the user is currently in.
2) Brightspace Editor – Email notifications for users tagged in discussion posts and threads
This feature updates the Brightspace Editor – Additional functionality | Updated feature released in June 2021 / 20.21.6 and now adds the ability for users tagged in discussion posts and threads to receive email notifications.
3) Brightspace Pulse – Operating system support
The latest version of Brightspace Pulse is supported on devices with iOS® 12+ or AndroidTM 6.0+ (2015 release). Older versions of Brightspace Pulse will continue to work on devices with iOS 11 or Android 5.0, but will not receive any app updates. For an optimal experience, D2L recommends installing the latest version of Brightspace Pulse on devices with iOS 12+ or Android 6.0+.
4) Content - Add Print Button to PDF file types
This feature adds the option to print PDF file types to Classic Content.
The Print button is visible when viewing a PDF topic or the Course Overview as a PDF. This button will also only appear for users with Compile and Print Content permission.
No option to print PDFs was previously available.
Image is highlighting the absence of print functionality in the PDF view before the update
Image is highlighting the location of the Print button in the PDF view (in the Content area)
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.
The 'Observed in Person' assignment submission type is for situations where a learner needs to present something or demonstrate something and an instructor needs to confirm that it was completed. This submission type allows instructors to create assignments for a wide variety of activities and provide evaluation and feedback for these assignments in Brightspace.
The ‘Observed in Person’ submission type is meant for scoring and evaluation of a learning activity such as demonstration, presentation, lab test, etc.
There are four submission types to choose from when creating an Assignment in Brightspace. The submission types are:
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 the observation. No file upload is required to complete the assignment.
There are three options to mark an ‘Observed in Person’ assignment as completed:
Automatically on due date – Brightspace marks the assignment as completed on a pre-set date.
Automatically on evaluation – Brightspace automatically marks the assignment as complete when the instructor evaluates the assignment using any of the assessment methods in Brightspace.
Manually by Learner – The student will mark the assignment as complete.
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.
![[tree]](https://i0.wp.com/cat.xula.edu/about/staff/lisa.jpg?w=625&ssl=1)
