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Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #451: Quiz, Survey, or Self-Assessment?

man writing on paper

Brightspace has a variety of formative and summative assessment tools available for instructors to use in their courses. You may be wondering which tool you should use. This blog post explains the difference between the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments (SA) tools to help you determine which of the tools is the best tool to meet your needs.

  • A Quiz provides students with a score. Quizzes can be linked to the Grade Book to affect the final grade, but are not required to be linked to the Grade Book. This tool is commonly used for summative assessments (i.e., quizzes, tests, exams).
  • Surveys are not graded or scored, but do provide results to the instructor. Survey results can be viewed and downloaded as needed. Surveys can be anonymous.
  • Self-Assessments is a formative assessment tool that enables instructors to provide learners with a series of questions and give immediate feedback to their responses. A Self-Assessment is solely for the purpose of the learner to assess their understanding of the content. Instructors CANNOT view the results of a Self-Assessment, but they are able to see who has taken the Self-Assessment and the time spent on it. The omission of numeric evaluation enables learners to make reflective learning and course material comprehension their main priorities during a Self-Assessment.

The following table compares the feedback and reporting for each tool:

Quizzes Surveys Self-Assessments
Feedback for learner Feedback is released based on the options set by instructor. Feedback can be setup to be instant (upon submission) or delayed. Feedback is released after completion in the form of a report. Feedback is provided immediately after answering question.
Reporting for instructor Reporting for Instructors – yes, instructors can see summative feedback on scores and individual questions. Reporting for Instructors – yes, reports are generated, and can be done so anonymously. Reporting for Instructors – yes, but limited to who has taken SA and the time spent; instructors CANNOT view results of the SA.

This table provides some use cases for Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments:

Tool Use Case
Quizzes
  • Measuring knowledge acquisition: Assess factual recall, comprehension, and application of learned concepts. Assess skills for the purpose of determining whether instruction has been effective.
  • Evaluating critical thinking: Open ended questions requiring analysis, synthesis, or evaluation can assess higher-order thinking skills.
  • Standardized test: Deliver high-stakes tests with secure features like time limits, question randomization, paging, and integration with lockdown browsers.
  • Formative assessment: Create low-stakes quizzes for students to practice and receive immediate feedback. Assess skills for the purpose of identifying areas needing improvement.
Surveys
  • Gauging student understanding: Use anonymous surveys to assess student comprehension of course material before, during, or after a lesson.
  • Gathering opinions on teaching methods: Evaluate the success of specific teaching approaches or gather suggestions for improvement.
  • Course satisfaction surveys: Collect feedback on student experience with the course content, delivery, and overall effectiveness.
Self-Assessments
  • Promoting metacognition: Encourage students to reflect on their learning progress, strengths, and weaknesses through self-evaluation activities.
  • Identifying learning gaps: Allow students to assess their own understanding of key concepts before moving on to new material.
  • Personalized learning: Use self-assessment results to tailor learning experiences or provide targeted resources based on individual needs.

By understanding the strengths of each tool, instructors can select the most effective tool for the job.

A Note About the Question Library

The Question Library is a central repository that stores and archives questions which you can reuse within a course. You can create multiple sections within the Question Library to organize your questions by type and topic, making it easier for you to find, use, and reuse questions in your quizzes, surveys, and self-assessments.

As a better practice for storage, organization, and easy access, I recommend that you create all your questions using the Question Library. You can also consolidate questions created within the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments tools by importing them back into the Question Library.

Want more information?

Quizzes Tool
Surveys Tool
Self-Assessments Tool
Question Library

#LEX Advanced Topics:
Rethinking and Improving Online Tests in Brightspace
Allow Learners to Reflect on Their Learning

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
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.

Image credit: image by StockSnap from Pixabay (image cropped)

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #256: Which Tool Should I Use?

old wooden carpenters toolbox

Brightspace has communication and collaboration tools that can enhance the interaction between instructors and students in their Brightspace courses.

When viewing the tools available in Brightspace you see a number of tools listed there. How do you know which tool is right for the job?

The Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at Memorial University of Newfoundland developed a guide designed to help you to pick the right Brightspace tool for the job. The guide includes a chart that identifies the tools that align with common scenarios, and a link to further info for each tool.

Want more information?

Which Brightspace tool should I use?
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery release notes
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
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.

Image credit: image by bluebudgie from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #115: Which Tool Should I Use?

carpenter's toolbox

Course Tools are communication and collaboration tools that enhance the interaction between instructors and students in Brightspace courses.

When viewing the tools available in Brightspace you see a number of tools listed there. How do you know which tool is right for the job?

The Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at Memorial University of Newfoundland developed a guide designed to help you to pick the right Brightspace tool for the job. The guide includes a chart that identifies the tools that align with common scenarios, and a link to further info for each tool.

Want more information?

Which Brightspace tool should I use?
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery release notes
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
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.

Published on Leave a comment on Humanizing Tool Buffet

Taking an online course can be an isolating experience for students, but it doesn’t have to be. Humanized learning increases the relevance of the course content and improves students' motivation to log-in to the course week-after-week.

buffet with food in chafing dishes

Are you looking for ways to humanize your online course? Check out this Humanizing Tool Buffet developed by Teaching and Learning Innovations at CSU Channel Islands. In the buffet, you will find a collection of emerging tools just right for humanizing your online course. Peruse the buffet, click on the links, and sample what looks intriguing and helpful to you!

Image credit: image by Gundula Vogel from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #166: Pick the Right Tool for the Job

carpenter's toolbox

Course Tools are communication and collaboration tools that enhance the interaction between instructors and students in Blackboard courses.

When viewing the Course Tools in the Control Panel you see a number of tools listed there. How do you know which tool is right for the job?

The Center for Faculty Excellence at Fresno State developed a handy two page guide designed to help you to pick the right Blackboard tool for the job. If you know what tool you want to use, you can follow the row across to see it's strengths and weaknesses. If you know what you want to achieve, you can pick a column and follow it to see which tool is best for the job.

Try out this handy Blackboard 9.1 Tool Guide and let me know what you think.

Note: The Elluminate tool referenced in the guide is now Blackboard Collaborate.

Want more information?

Blackboard 9.1 Tool Guide (PDF)
Try these Blackboard How-To documents.
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
Visit our Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Photo credit: Carpenter's Toolbox | CC0

Published on Leave a comment on A Tool to Solve Your Teaching Problems

by Tiera S. Coston

As teachers, we all want to encourage the development and enhancement of the problem-solving skills of our students.  However, we may have to tap into some problem-solving skill of our own when attempting to create a classroom environment that is engaging, informational and effective in meeting the objectives of our courses.  Many times, this is easier said than done.  But, fear not.  The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon University has created an excellent resource that may help you to effectively address teaching issues that are commonly encountered in the classroom.  This Solve a Teaching Problem tool works as an easy-to-use, three-step process.  First, you identify the problem that is occurring in your teaching from a listing of issues that are divided into broadly-themed categories.  These categories include: Attitudes & Motivation; Prerequisite Knowledge and Preparedness; Critical Thinking & Applying Knowledge; Group Skills and Dynamics; Classroom Behavior & Etiquette; and Grading and Assessment.

Step 1.

Step 1

Once you identify the problem, the second step is to identify the possible reasons that the problem is occurring.

Step 2.

Step 2

Once you understand why the problem may be occurring, the final step is to explore the strategies provided to determine what may be effective in addressing the problem.

Step 3.

Step 3

It is important to note that these strategies are both evidence-based and practical.  However, as with any strategies, certain ones may work for some while being ineffective for others.  The idea is to think critically about what is happening in your particular class and use the strategies as a guide to create a plan of action for your specific situation.  Happy problem-solving.

Published on Leave a comment on Online Charts

Made with OnlineChartTool.Com

If you need to make a chart or a graph in a hurry, point your web browser to OnlineChartTool.com. It's a web-based tool which allows you to create charts in nigh on a dozen different styles: bar, line, bar-line, area, pie, radar, scatter, bubble, meter, pyramid. It's relatively easy to get started and suitable for student assignments. (As always, play around with it yourself first.) You don't even need to create an account — though if you do, you'll be able to come back and edit your charts later.

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Published on 2 Comments on 50 Web Tools

50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes

Thanks to everyone who attended our workshop on "50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes."

Full House

For your clicking convenience, check out the full list of web-based tools that we covered.

  1. Online OCR — Convert scanned documents to text.
  2. Wordle — Word clouds! (example) See also Tagxedo
  3. Up-Goer Five Text Editor— Can you explain a hard idea using only the ten hundred most used words?
  4. Scribd — Document sharing. (example)
  5. WordPress.com — Blogging platform.
  6. Edublogs — Like WordPress.com or Blogger but specifically tailored to educational needs.
  7. Wikipedia — "a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia"
  8. NolaWiki — "a collaborative, reliable, comprehensive look at the people, places, events and ideas of the city of New Orleans."
  9. Wikispaces — Create your own wiki. (Note: This page is hosted on Wikispaces.)
  10. Google Sites — Create your own website/wiki. (example)
  11. visualizing.org — Find (and share) visualizations of complex issues. (example)
  12. Many Eyes — Find and create data visualizations. (example)
  13. Pinterest — A social environment for collecting, discovering and sharing images. (example) (more on educational use)
  14. Compfight — Search tool that makes it easy to find Flickr photos, including those licensed for re-use.
  15. YouTube — Everybody knows about YouTube, but did you know about their Education Channel?
  16. Vimeo — Video hosting. Like YouTube but cooler. Lack of support for captioning could be a deal-breaker.
  17. CaptionTube — Speaking of which, here's a tool for captioning YouTube videos. (example)
  18. TED-Ed — Like YouTube's Education Channel but even more highly curated.
  19. Animoto — Easy-to-make online videos from photos and music. Free for videos under 30 seconds. (example)
  20. Screenr — Screen recording. Yes, it's web-based. (example)
  21. SoundCloud — Audio sharing platform. Free version limited to 120 minutes total. (example)
  22. AudioBoo — Audio sharing platform. Free version limited to three minutes per file. (example)
  23. Educreations — Recordable interactive whiteboard. Captures voice and handwriting/drawing to produce movies. Especially nice with an iPad but can also be used via web browser. (example)
  24. Prezi — Make (and find) crazy zooming presentations. (example)
  25. Timetoast — Build (and find) interactive timelines. (example)
  26. Capzles — Make (and find) multimedia storylines. Educational version in the works. (example)
  27. SlideShare — Share and find presentations (mainly PowerPoint). (example)
  28. VoiceThread — "A VoiceThread is a collaborative, interactive, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos." (example)
  29. MentorMob — Make and find learning playlists. Virtually all media supported: videos, PDFs, webpages, etc. (example)
  30. Quora — Social Q&A site. There are many of these but Quora's the best. (example)
  31. Khan Academy — Lectures and quizzes with an emphasis on math, science and finance. (example)
  32. Poll Everywhere — Easy way to aggregate live responses. (example) (example) (see also Socrative)
  33. SurveyMonkey — Surveys made easy.
  34. Moodle — Free course-management system.
  35. Quizlet — Make and find study tools (flash cards etc.) (example)
  36. Evernote — Store notes, images, documents, web clips, audio notes. Searchable. Sync across your devices. Claims to recognize handwriting from, say, a photo of a whiteboard.
  37. LiveBinder — Like a three-ring binder for web pages. (example)
  38. Delivr — Make and manage QR codes. (example)
  39. Facebook — Yes, it can be used for teaching. For example, make a group for your class.
  40. Twitter — For developing connections with colleagues around the world.
  41. LinkedIn — Professional networking.
  42. Yammer — Enterprise social network: social software designed for the institutional context.
  43. Dropbox — Easy file sharing.
  44. Popplet — Mind mapping, image galleries, more. (example)
  45. MindMeister — Collaborative mind mapping. (example)
  46. Voki — Create talking avatars. See example below. (example)
  47. MakeBeliefComix — Create your own comic strips. You'll have to make a screenshot for sharing online. (example)
  48. Diigo — Bookmarks on steroids. Allows you to highlight and add sticky notes to web pages. (example)
  49. ScoopIt — Curated web content. (example)
  50. Learnist — Curated web content, possibly more education-oriented. (example)

See also: The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies' Top 100 Tools for Learning