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All posts by Kristy Bunton
Organize Your Course Using Modules
Students like how course content is organized into modules, making it easier to navigate and understand the progression of the course.
Faculty actively teaching in Brightspace have found that this layout of modules and sub-modules makes it easy for students to navigate the course and find needed materials. (Please note that the Course Overview section cannot be viewed in the Pulse mobile app. It is recommended that if the syllabus is included in the Course Overview area, you also include it in another section.)
EXAMPLE:
COURSE ORIENTATION (module)
- Syllabus (sub-module)
- Introductory discussion (sub-module)
- Links to university resources (sub-module)
- Required readings (sub-module)
WEEK 1 (module)
- Week 1 Readings (sub-module)
- Week 1 Reading 1 (content)
- Week 1 Reading 2 (content)
- Week 1 Reading 3 (content)
- Week 1 Slides (content)
- Week 1 Assignment
WEEK 2 (module)
- Week 2 Readings (sub-module)
- Week 2 Reading 1 (content)
- Week 2 Reading 2 (content)
- Week 2 Reading 3 (content)
- Week 2 Slides (content)
- Week 2 Quiz
Lets Connect the Dots!
Happy fall semester!
Be sure to connect your assessments to your grades!
One of the first things instructors should do when setting up a course in Brightspace is set up the Grades. This will make the rest of your course setup a breeze!
Create your categories FIRST, then each assessment you add can be designated to a category that you created. Nice and easy!
For more information on how to do so:
https://it.stonybrook.edu/help/kb/setting-up-your-brightspace-grade-book
Releasing Final Grades
In order for student to see their grades in Brightspace, you’ll need to automatically or manually release final grades. (Note, releasing final grades in Brightspace does not send grades to SOLAR; you can either import your final grades Or enter them in SOLAR)
Before releasing final grades to students, you must first check your Grades settings to determine which type of grade will be release and if final grades are set to be released automatically. Alternatively, you can choose to manually release final grades.
For more information: https://it.stonybrook.edu/help/kb/releasing-final-grades-in-brightspace
Wednesday Wisdom
Task/Assignment Management in Brightspace
Do you currently use the built-in Brightspace calendar?
Do you know how to add the Work-to-do widget to your Brightspace homepage?
Both these tools help keep your students organized!
To find out more, join us this Thursday for our Mini-Byte.
Wednesday Wisdom
Are you currently using the built-in Brightspace Calendar tool?
If not, you should start today!
Display all upcoming events to learners in one spot.
Add items such as:
- Assignments
- Quizzes/Exams
- Project due dates
- Office Hours
- In-class Events
Students have told us that they are more on track with their assignments and exams/quizzes when their Instructor uses the built-in course calendar!
For more information: https://community.d2l.com/brightspace/kb/articles/18115-calendar
Wednesday Wisdom
Thinking of what you could do this spring break?
How about previewing your grades in Brightspace!
Make sure grades are accurate for your students before they return from break!
Use the Preview option to see exactly how a student sees his/her grades.
- In Brightspace,click the course selector near the top center and select the course
- Once in the course, in the Navbar select Grades
- Near the top left, select Enter Grades
Scroll down (or use the View By or search tools) to find the student whose grades you want to preview grades for and select the dropdown next to the student’s name and select Preview
Wednesday Wisdom
In Brightspace, instructors have the ability to create groups to facilitate collaboration amongst their students. Once groups are created, instructors can use the groups for various purposes.
Examples include creating:
- Group Assignments
- Group Discussions
- File sharing amongst group members
Wednesday Wisdom
The Question Library is a central repository that stores and archives questions which you can reuse within a course. You can create multiple collections within the Question Library to organize your questions by type and topic, making it easier for you to find questions for your quizzes, surveys, and self assessments.
As a best practice for storage, organization, and easy access, we 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.
Wednesday Wisdom
Want to check in on how students are progressing in your Brightspace course?
Instructors can access Class Progress and see overall how all students are doing!
You may want to use the Class Progress tool to do any of the following:
- Monitor progress for any or all users in your course
- Prepare progress reports
- View user profiles, email users, or instant message users
- Track when a user accesses the course and downloads course content
- Track a user’s grades, completion of learning objectives, access of content topics, participation in discussions, assignment submissions, quiz submissions, checklist completion, survey responses, login history, and system access.
- Set up intelligent Agents for learners who are falling behind in a course
- View feedback and submissions for assignments, discussion topics, and other assessments for individual learners