Many instructors are using reflective journaling as a teaching strategy. Reflective journaling is used as a means of aiding reflection, deepening students' understanding and stimulating critical thinking.
Brightspace does not have a Journal tool. However, you can setup private discussion forums for journaling using the Groups and Discussions tools. A private discussion forum is the same as any other discussion forum, except that only the instructor and an individually assigned student have access to the posted threads and replies. A private discussion forum ensures that students cannot see each other’s posts, but instructors can still respond and assign grades to the discussion threads.
IMPORTANT: Each group in Brightspace has a maximum capacity of 200 participants and is restricted to 200 groups per category. You WILL NOT be able to set up private discussions for journaling if your enrollment is more than 200.
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.
Are you still sharing files via email? An article by Lauren Suggett suggests three reasons why you should stop sharing documents via email. Her reasons are:
Nothing is trackable
Accessibility is limited
Email inboxes can be black holes
As you may know, Xavier adopted G Suite (formerly Google Apps). This means everyone has an account that allows them to store files in their Google Drive. Instead of emailing files back and forth, you can share files in your Google Drive. For more information on Xavier’s adoption of G Suite and how to share files using Google Drive, read Bart Everson’s Drive Right In blog post.
Additionally, Google Apps can be integrated into Brightspace. ICYMI, read my Google Apps Integration blog post.
Image credit: image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
A discussion forum is an excellent tool for student engagement. However, you don’t always have to use the question and answer format to engage students in a discussion forum.
In the Faculty Focus article, “Discussion Board Assignments: Alternatives to the Question-and-Answer Format,” professor Chris Laney gives his take on alternatives for Q&A discussions. Laney, who is professor of history and geography at Berkshire Community College, was having trouble engaging students in discussion forums in his online class and decided to rethink his use of online discussions. Professor Laney thinks of the discussion forum as a place to foster interaction between the students through a variety of means rather than just asking them questions. Specifically, he uses role-playing, debates, and WebQuest to foster interaction between his students.
Role-play
One example of how Professor Laney used role-play is a discussion forum activity that asks students to do some research on a person living in an urban Roman city in the first century CE. Each student creates a character and writes a diary entry or letter recording what he or she did in the course of a day or a series of days. To perform well in this activity the students need to research a few things about the professions and classes that would have existed during that time. The students end up talking back and forth in character and at no point does Professor Laney actually ask a question.
Debate
One example of how Professor Laney uses debates is he had students debate whether democracy in the Middle East would result in better or worse relations with nations in the region. It’s a pretty straightforward assignment; however, when having students debate it’s important to set clear ground rules to keep things cordial and to avoid simplistic arguments.
WebQuest
Professor Laney gives students a less intense discussion forum assignment in weeks when a major assignment is due. Rather than carrying on a discussion over the usual two-week period, he has students do a simple WebQuest and post their findings without having to respond to each other. For example, he may ask students to post an image, video, or music clip from the Romantic Period of art in the 19th century and write a brief description about why it’s considered an example of Romanticism.
Grading
In a class of 25 people there may be 75 messages in a week to grade. To keep the discussion forum assignments manageable, Professor Laney asks students to post their messages in a single thread. Having all the messages in a single thread makes it relatively easy to grade. When a discussion forum activity is over, Professor Laney can click on an individual student’s name and at a glance assign a grade.
Are you using an alternative to the Q&A format for discussion forums? If so, we would like to hear about it. Please leave a comment to share your alternative to the Q&A format.
Brightspace Pulse is a mobile app that can help learners stay connected and on track with their Brightspace courses. It provides one easy view of course calendars, readings, assignments, evaluations, grades, and announcement items. The app can help learners make better decisions about how to handle their workload, when to submit assignments, and when to prepare for tests. Real-time alerts can let learners know when classes are canceled, class is meeting in an alternate location, or new grades are available. The schedule view and weekly visualization enables learners to quickly at a glance view what is due today, this week, and upcoming across all their courses.
While the Brightspace Pulse app is designed for the learner, instructors can benefit too.
While the Brightspace Pulse app is designed for the learner, instructors can benefit too. When instructors enter due dates or end dates for assignments and activities the information is populated in the Pulse app enabling learners to stay connected and on track. Thus, instructors can spend less time reminding and more time teaching.
Instructors can make their courses Pulse friendly by including due dates or end dates for assignments and activities. When instructors do not enter due dates or end dates, no associated information is available in the Pulse app.
The Pulse app is great for helping students stay on track in face-to-face classes as well. Instructors can set up their face-to-face assignments and activities as events in the Brightspace course calendar. Students will get those date feeds in the Brightspace Pulse app.
Help keep students on track for success in all their courses by including a due date or end date for assignments and activities.
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.
I usually get a lot of questions from faculty related to setting up their Brightspace courses. In the spirit of starting the spring semester with less stress, I offer the following infographic with course design suggestions to reduce your course setup and management stress:
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.
Whether you've had one semester or a few semesters of using Brightspace behind you, you may be thinking it would have been helpful if I had known this about Brightspace beforehand.
An article in the Brightspace Community provided insights on what professor Lori McIntosh-Belanger wishes she had known about Brightspace when she got started. In the article she provides insights on using Quizzes and Question Libraries, Discussions, Widgets, Rubrics and Marking Assignments. If this has piqued your interest, you should read the article, “What I Wish I Had Known as a Brightspace Instructor”.
Image credit: Image by TeroVesalainen from Pixabay
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 December 2019/20.19.12 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – File size information in submission receipt email
File size information now displays next to the file name in the submission receipt email sent to learners upon making a submission to an assignment submission folder.
2) Assignments – Submission ID displays for Learners
A new column that displays Submission ID information is visible to learners on the View Feedback page in Assignments.
Submission ID visible to learners when reviewing Submission Feedback information
3) Content – Sort order changes in Upload / Create menu
When using the Upload / Create menu to add activities to Content, the placement of the New Assignment option has moved. Previously, it appeared between New Discussion and New Quiz. Now, New Assignment appears above New Checklist.
Updated sort order of the Upload / Create menu
4) Grades - Synchronization with Assignments and Discussions via API and import options
Grades are now fully synchronized in the Assignments and Discussions tools when grades are added to Brightspace via the existing Import as CSV, Import as Excel, and API entry options. This change builds upon recent grades synchronization updates for Assignments and Discussions.
Note: Synchronization only occurs for new grade entries. Existing grade data for assignment submissions and discussions will not automatically be migrated because of the high impact to all past data and reports.
5) Release Conditions – Learners are notified when a release condition triggers new content
In a course that uses release conditions to unlock additional content, learners previously were not informed when new content became available as a result of a release condition that was satisfied. Because there was no automatic notification or refresh of the table of contents, there was the potential for frustration when learners think they are done a module, and are later informed that there are steps left to be completed.
Now, when release conditions are satisfied, the learner is notified using a pop-up ("toast") message that there are new items available in the course.
6) Release Conditions – Updated ordering of Tools
When adding Release Conditions to activities or content, the View Conditions for, and Condition Type menus now display tools in an updated order.
When browsing for release conditions, Assignments is now at the top of the list of tools
When creating new release conditions, Assignments is now at the top of the list of 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.
As you work on setting up your courses you may have questions. Here is a list of Brightspace help resources you can use to get answers to your questions.
Additionally, if you are having difficulties using any of the course tools, you can get help from D2L. This help is available 24/7 via Email and Live Chat. You will find links for Email Support and Live Chat Support in the Help menu on the NavBar (inside of Brightspace). You must be logged into Brightspace to access the Email and Live Chat Support links.
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 PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
As you prepare to teach this spring, now is a good time to get started setting up your Brightspace courses. According to our Information Technology Center (ITC), the spring courses have been created in Brightspace. If you are listed as the instructor for the spring course in Banner, you should see the course in your My Courses widget in Brightspace.
NOTE: If you do not see your spring courses in your My Courses widget, you should click on the link to "View All Courses" (located at the bottom of the My Courses widget). If your spring courses are listed when you "View All Courses" but are not shown in your My Courses widget, you should pin the course in order to have it appear in the My Courses widget. Follow these instructions for pinning/unpinning courses.
To get started, you can post your syllabus, course documents, announcements, and setup your Grade Book in your Brightspace courses. You can also customize your course homepage and/or course image/banner.
If you teach a course that is cross listed you will have a Brightspace course for each cross listing. You can combine the cross listed courses into one Brightspace course so that you can post course materials and grades to one combined Brightspace course. Combining courses may also work for you if you are teaching different sections of the same course and would like to have the different sections combined into one Brightspace course so that you can post course documents and grades in the one combined course. The beginning of the semester is the best time to submit a request to merge your Brightspace courses before you add course materials or grades to the courses.
Additionally, if the spring course you are teaching is the same as one of your previous courses you can copy the entire course (or copy components) into your "empty" Brightspace spring course.
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.
A few weeks after the end of the semester, all Fall 2019 courses will be changed to an inactive status. Once the courses are changed to an inactive status, student work and grades will be visible to the instructor but students will no longer have access to the course.
The current policy is that courses will remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You can request a Brightspace Master Course Shell that you can use to make a copy of your course. Master Course Shells will not be removed from the Brightspace system. If you would like your course content/materials to be available in Brightspace beyond the current retention period of three semesters, you should request a Master Course Shell for the course.
Additionally, instructors who want to build their course before the normal course creation schedule can request a Brightspace Master Course Shell that can be used to develop and maintain their course materials.
A Master Course Shell:
Is a course environment an instructor uses to develop and maintain course materials that are used from semester to semester.
Is not tied to Banner. Therefore, no students or other users are enrolled into this Shell.
Can be used as a "master" where one keeps permanent changes to a course.
Faculty may copy content from a Master Course Shell into a Brightspace Course shell as long as they are enrolled as an instructor in both shells.
Master Course Shells are not deleted except upon the request of the instructor or when the instructor is no longer employed at Xavier.
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.
