Category Archives: Assignment Ideas

Collect Assignments and Provide Feedback

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Collect student assignments and provide feedback online all without cluttering up your inbox.

As you consider your options, check with your students about their access to technology. Do they have access to a computer at home or do they only have a mobile device (tablet or mobile phone)? Do they have fast, reliable internet at home or are they on a slower connection or data plan? This information will help you as you plan for which tools and workflows will work best for your course.

  • Online Discussions: Create and facilitate online discussions using the myLesley Discussion Board. You may use the Discussion Board to replace or enhance classroom discussions in a digital format. The discussion board is also a great tool for peer review. Students can post their work to the discussion and receive feedback from their fellow classmates.
  • Blogs and Journals: Use the myLesley Blogs or Journals tool to have your students create articles or editorial, review their readings or reflect on assignments and progress on coursework. Blogs can be shared with the entire class allowing students to view and comment. Journals are a private space between you and the individual student. It’s a great place for reflection and private feedback from the instructor.
  • Assignments: Use the myLesley Assignment tool to post, collect, and grade papers or other written assignments all within your myLesley course.
  • Presentations: Use VoiceThread to create and collaborate on online presentations. Students can create individual or group presentations to share with class and receive feedback.
  • Tests: Create a test to assess student comprehension. myLesley supports a large number of test formats including multiple choice, essay, short answer, calculated numeric, and more, all which may be taken online. Create a full mid-term exam or a series of smaller knowledge checks to ensure everyone is mastering the content or to discover gaps.

Help and Resources

Online Tutorials 

The IT/eLIS Support Site provides resources and tutorials for all Lesley-supported technology, including myLesley, Kaltura Media, VoiceThread, Collaborate Ultra, Microsoft Teams, and more. Not finding what you’re looking for? Put in a support ticket for more information or to set up a training. 
 
Hoonuit (formerly Atomic Learning) features hundreds of self-paced video tutorials for popular software, online tools, tech integration, and more. Log in to Hoonuit with your myLesley username and password. 

Request a training 

Do you have questions or don’t know where to start? Reach out to eLIS and set up an appointment to learn more. eLIS staff are available to meet with you in person in University Hall, online, or on the phone. 

A Student’s Take on Peer Review

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In this summative assignment in a freshmen Honors English Composition class, students were asked to review their papers and assignments from the course, and determine 1-3 specific areas of growth or improvement, as well as specific classroom activities, assignments, etc. that contributed to the improvement. Students were then asked to demonstrate this in a creative work in any format/mode, and present the project to the class. A goal of the project was to reflect on one’s learning in a creative style which reflects both the learning itself and the personality or talents of the student.

Emily Tran created this awesome reflective video on her experiences with peer review.

Visible Thinking

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Visible Thinking is a research-based approach to making learning visible so that it can be reflected on and built on. It emphasizes three core practices: thinking routines, the documentation of student thinking and reflective professional practice. It is the difference between teaching skills and teaching students to think creatively and critically. The use of thinking routines encourages the development of habits of observing and analyzing situations and problems. Project Zero developed thinking routines as simple structures that help students work through complex information to make it accessible and then to reflect back on what they have learned.

View the video below for an introduction to Thinking Routines. Then review the tools to find one to begin using in your classes now.
 

12 Days of Learning: Digital Storytelling

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Atomic Learning has created the 12 Days of Learning, a series of articles designed to kick off resolutions to keep learning in the new year. We thought this was a great idea and have decided borrow (shamelessly steal) it and do our own. It’s Day 9 of our series and that means it’s time for digital storytelling.

Digital Storytelling is a way for students to create short stories using digital tools. These stories may include audio, video, images, and/or text. It is a way for students to demonstrate their knowledge about a subject in way other than writing a paper. The process of creating digital stories is often interdisciplinary requiring the use of research, analysis, planning, writing, media and technical skills to convey a story or content knowledge.

Getting started with digital storytelling in your classroom can seem intimidating. Fortunately, there are a lot of resources out there to help. The image below from the University of Houston’s digital storytelling site breaks the process down into steps. Visit their site for all the information on each step and check out the other resources linked below.

Digital Storytelling Resources: 
University of Houston Digital Storytelling
How to Design a Digital Media Assignment
Engage – University of Wisconsin, Madison
Media Commons – Penn State

 

Teaching Body Movement Online with Kaltura Video

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Nancy Beardall teaches Body/Movement Observation and Assessment for the Expressive Therapies program. This September, she taught the course in a fully online format for the first time. Initially, Nancy couldn’t imagine how she could successfully support students learning body, effort, space, and shape at a distance. Enter Kaltura, a video recording and sharing software that is integrated directly into myLesley.

Nancy’s students were required to observe and practice the fundamentals of body movement, but they were only going to be on campus for a few weeks during their summer residency. Nancy’s solution was to record her on campus students performing the body fundamental exercises and then uploaded these videos to her online course using the Kaltura Media Gallery. The online students could then review the videos as often as they needed, comment on what they observed in their assignments and discussions, and then practice the movements on their own. If students had questions, Nancy could refer them to the videos and even reference specific moments or clips within the movies.

body fundamentals video screenshot

The Kaltura videos worked so well that Nancy’s on campus students wanted to use it as well. The videos provided them with an easy way to review and practice their observation skills outside of class. They also uploaded selected dance project videos to Kaltura to share with their classmates for feedback.

Nancy has nothing but good things to say about Kaltura. She refers to it now as a “lifesaver” for her online course. She and her students also found it much more accessible and less cumbersome than previous software tools they had used to share video. Considering that Nancy didn’t get access to Kaltura until three days before the start of her course, and needed to get both herself and her students comfortable with the tool, this is high praise for its ease of use.

So what are you waiting for? Contact eLIS and start using Kaltura Video in your online or face-to-face courses today.