D2L Tip: Displaying users without D2L Dropbox submissions

One of my favorite features of our current version of D2L is the ability to leave feedback for students who did not submit a file to the Dropbox.  Even the initial step of that process – filtering the Dropbox to show the users without submissions – is helpful so that I know who to reach out to when, for example, the due date for a high-stakes assignment is around the corner.

Here are the steps for displaying the users without submissions:

• In the Dropbox tool, click on the title of the Dropbox folder to access the Folder Submissions view.
• Select “Users without submissions” from the Submissions drop-down menu (highlighted in image below).
• Click on the magnifying glass icon/button (circled in blue in image below) to display all users without submissions. 

Note: Additional criteria can be entered in the “Search For” box to narrow the results even further.

The link to “Evaluate” work will appear to the right of each user’s name even though they do not have a submission:

This ability to leave feedback – a grade and/or comments (text or audio) – for users without submissions is especially handy when a student accidentally submits to the wrong dropbox folder or sends a file via email; in the case that the Dropbox folder is linked with a Grade Item, I can leave feedback right in the Dropbox folder, and the grade and/or comments will display in the Grades tool. 

The ability to use the same approach for every student, regardless of whether or not the file made it to the Dropbox folder, is greatly appreciated.

Tip contributed by Laura Middlesworth

Knowing Your Students: What’s in a Name?

There is a unique feeling associated with being called by name for the first time by a professor. And I don’t mean the time during roll call when the professor proposes something that only vaguely resembles your name, a grotesque mutation of phonetics that would remain unclaimed and untouched if it weren’t important to be counted in attendance. What I mean is the first time a professor notices your hand raised in the air and doesn’t say “uh-huh” or “go ahead” or “you with the pit stains speak your mind,” but rather includes the word that suggests they actually know you, appreciate you, or have spent countless hours looking at a copy of the seating chart: your name.

Suddenly you feel real, tangible, distinctly differentiated from the sea of nameless strangers that surround you. You exist, you matter; you feel almost as if it was your destiny to answer that question about the consistency of paraffin wax. In the classroom of life, you have just been heralded into existence.

Feeling like you exist is a big thing for students (and people of all occupations I’d imagine). Studies have shown that classrooms where names are commonly used tend to be more relaxed, comfortable, and engaging. Learning the names of students can help them feel less isolated and anonymous, factors that lead them to shut down or not participate in class. Since learning names is never easy—especially in large lecture halls—here are some tips to help you create that more personalized environment:  

• Use name tents-- ask students to write their names in large letters on both sides of a folded 5 x 8 index card and to keep this card on their desks for the first few classes.

• Ask students to give their name each time before they speak. This can be continued until everyone (instructor and the students) feels they know the people in the room.

• Strive to memorize a row of students per day. In the few minutes before class begins, review what you've already memorized and then add another row of students to that list.

• Students with the same name as another person the instructor knows can be associated with that person in the instructor's memory. This association is a good memory-jogging tool.

• For large classes—dividing the entire group into smaller "working groups" will help facilitate name recall. Classroom time can be used to give small projects for each group to work on. Only having to remember 8-9 people in a small group is much easier than looking at 250 faces. Work on visualizing which faces sit in which seats. Then work on memorizing every name from a particular group.

Be realistic with yourself and honest with the students: expecting to memorize every name in a lecture hall is unreasonable. However, learning students’ names is vital for creating an active classroom and making students feel worthy of your attention. 

Credit goes to http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/resources/studentnames.html for bulleted ideas. 

Tip contributed by Jon Pumper

Faculty Projects: Working with the Textbook

Professor: Andrew Sturtevant

Department: History

Name of Group: First Year Only Sections Community of Practice

I have never gathered the statistics, but I’m fairly certain the number of Americans who keep a history textbook on their night stand is fairly low. Textbooks don’t exactly make for “light reading,” and often act as the factual and financial falchion stuck in college students’ sides. But their importance for learning cannot be overlooked: in the history of pedagogy, the textbook has stood the test of time (in addition to recording it).  Dr. Andrew Sturtevant, Department of History, looked to re-emphasize the importance of the textbook in his FYO classroom, by providing strategies and techniques for students to implement as they dive into the dense waters of history:

“I hoped to help students read their textbooks more effectively. I’ve noticed that students are often overwhelmed by the reading and unable to pull out the importance and significance of the reading. I hoped that if I shared a little bit about how textbook chapters are arranged and what to look for then students would be less intimidated by the readings."

His project was to create a step-by-step instructional worksheet that provided students with advice on how to read the textbook. Sturtevant outlines it as follows:

• "[The worksheet] started by asking the students to 'pre-read’ the text, looking at the images and captions, titles and subtitles, and other signposts and then to determine from these what the subject of the chapter might be."
• "Next it encouraged students to identify the major points and arguments of the chapter by identifying annunciatory language and to think about how the details and evidence fit into this larger schema. I encouraged them to express this graphically with a thought-mapping diagram that had them identify the main idea, subordinate/supporting ideas, and then supporting evidence.  I hoped thereby to help students who find it difficult to tell 'what’s important' in the reading." 
• "Finally, the worksheet encouraged students to do a few minutes of reflection after reading to think about what the most important takeaways of the chapter was and compare it to larger course themes and other readings.  We then walked through the worksheet in class."

As is the case with most projects, Sturtevant found it difficult to fully assess the effect the worksheet had on his students. Interestingly enough, he noted that that there was actually less understanding of the course materials in his “worksheet” section compared to a "non-worksheet" section of the same course, though—as he points out—this could be due to any number of external issues. Despite the ambiguous results, Sturtevant deemed the project a worthwhile endeavor:

“I thought the experience was a useful one for me and the students alike. Although textbooks have a clear pattern and formula, this isn’t always apparent to students. Decoding and demystifying that pattern, I hope, makes the textbook less intimidating. For me, it’s useful to remind myself that things that are obvious to me now, and were obvious when I was a student, aren’t always so obvious to my students. I’m using the worksheet again in my regular section of the course this semester. If nothing else, it points to the importance I place on the readings and to the students’ learning.”

Write up by Jon Pumper

Dr. Lisa Quinn-Lee on Online Videos

Besides all conveniently starting with a “c,” cars, corn, and classes have something else in common: they are steadily becoming more and more hybrid (except maybe for corn, which has been a hybrid product for quite some time*).  A hybrid course can open up a lot of new teaching and learning opportunities that were not originally present in traditional face-to-face meetings. Dr. Lisa Quinn-Lee, Department of Social Work, shares her experience with hybrid courses and online videos:

I’m a big proponent of hybrid classes. I periodically switch a regular meeting day to online when I want to utilize a video that is difficult to grapple with or contains high-emotional content. As a professor of social work, this happens quite frequently. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from my students regarding this: students say that they are happy they were able to deal with the emotional content privately, stopping and starting the video on their own terms when it gets too difficult to watch. As an additional bonus for me, I don’t have to watch the video a million times! I have the students respond to the video on a D2L discussion board, which I think is extremely useful: students who aren’t as comfortable talking in class—either in general or with these more difficult subjects—are much more comfortable discussing in an online format, which generates a lot of rich, meaningful discussion.

To view some quick tips on setting up a blended/hybrid course, view University of Milwaukee’s resource page here.

*For more information on hybrid corn, view History of the US Industry Hybrid Corn here.

                                                

Interviewed by: Jon Pumper

D2L Tip: Entering the same grade for multiple students

My classes often include a collection of low-stakes assignments each worth a handful of points. At first, I was hesitant to add more “things” to grade, but D2L actually makes it rather easy to enter grades/points quickly when many students receive the same grade.  Here are the steps:

In the Grades tool, click on the arrow next to the grade item and select Grade All from the drop-down menu.

On the Grade Item screen, check the boxes next to the names of the students who will receive the same grade.

Click on the Grade link (circled in blue below), and the Grade Selected window will open; type the grade into the box and click the blue Save button to enter the grade for the selected students.

The grade you just entered will now show up on the main Grade Item page for the selected students.  Don’t forget to click Save on the main Grade Item page to save the grades before moving on!

You will be asked to confirm the changes and then my favorite message, “Saved successfully,” pops up, letting me know that I can cross that item off my To Do list and move on to the next.  

Tip contributed by Laura Middlesworth

Dr. Sean Ford on Self-Discovery

There is perhaps no more depressing of a phrase in the English language than "learning from your mistakes." Invariably, one only encounters this expression when they are on the ground openly sobbing - due to falling after a failed unicycle attempt - and some well-intentioned, yet horribly unsympathetic person tries to bandage up their gaping wound with the fact that they "learned" when all they really need is some gauze and a double-scoop ice cream cone. Nevertheless, the "mistake" has taught valuable lessons throughout the years and is wildly regarded as the guru of educational practices.  Dr. Sean Ford, Department of English, employs this teacher and shares how he gets his students to discover and learn from their own mistakes:

One thing I started doing is assigning low-risk writings with three components that encourage students to give initial impressions or response to a literary work. They then go back and look at the work more closely, describing and analyzing it, and then they interrogate how their impressions have changed. Some things they’ll have right, many things will be modified significantly, and some things they have to reject as completely off. It is more meaningful that they discover it themselves, with emphasis on the process of discovery, than to merely be told they have missed the mark.

Interviewed by: Jon Pumper

Faculty Projects – The Ever Ubiquitous Deadline

Professor: Patti See

Department:  Student Success Center: Developmental Education Courses

Name of Group: Successful Teaching Practices: Group Work

For those in the world who shudder, cringe, or tip over the nearest office printer upon hearing the word “deadline,” the rather morbid etymology of this everyday phrase may come as little surprise: originating from the American Civil War, a “dead line” was a literal line that prisoners of war were not allowed to cross, under penalty of death. This bleak association with the phrase carries well into the academic world, where every semester students (and faculty alike) struggle, sweat, and figuratively (or literally) bleed in order to meet the mountains of deadlines piled up on their respective desks.

But the contemporary deadline is not a form of purposeless torture: deadlines can be used to one’s advantage as a constructive form of organization, a way to stay on task. They can also become less intimidating if they are coupled with deadlines along the way: in this manner, an enormous project ceases to become one huge undertaking and instead a series of smaller, more manageable steps. An idea gathered from CETL’s group entitled “Successful Teaching Practices: Group Work,” Patti See, from the Student Success Center, anticipates this addition in her semester long documentary project:

"If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Advice for Next Semester’s GEN 201 Students” is a group final project to create a documentary of students’ experiences as they regain good standing.  They are to work in groups of three to five and include pictures, video, voice narration, music, etc. to create a video.  They also are to write a one page reflection on this project, explaining the group dynamics, members’ roles, what they’d do differently, and what they learned.

This past semester I realized that simply because students wrote down their plans they didn’t necessarily follow through. A number of students said that they didn’t actually START filming until the beginning of finals week (our final was on a Friday). This spring I intend to have two deadlines: one at midterm in which I ask students to turn in a short version of their advice documentary, and one during the final exam in which they turn in the completed one.  This also allows students to map their progress throughout the term, since the main goal of the course is to keep the students on track to regaining good standing. Students in GEN 201 really struggle with deadlines, and, as one of my Fall 2014 students pointed out, if I require them to get something done half way through the term, the final project is not as stressful."

She ends by briefly advocating the CETL group process:

"Though I had done group projects in my classes for years, I was able to tweak this semester-long project with much of the information learned in the CETL group.  At the end of the fall term, I also asked my students after they completed their projects what would have made this process work more smoothly.  They had excellent advice, which also supported what I’d learned in the CETL group."

Write up by Jon Pumper