Grade Center Tips & Tricks

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Kris McElroy

The Grade Center is a great way to keep track of your grades and provide feedback to your students online, but it can seem cumbersome when you first start using it. Below are a few tricks for getting around more smoothly. You can gain access to your grade center by clicking on the link located in the class menu.

Be Sure to View the Icon Legend

The Grade Center uses several icons to indicate the status of a student’s submitted work. To review the meanings of these items click the “Icon Legend” button located in the bottom right-hand corner of the main Grade Center view.

How-To Organize and Re-Arrange Your Columns

When you create new grading columns, the Grade Center always places them at the end of your view. You can rearrange them based on due date or type of assignment to more easily find the grade column you’re looking for. This will also assist students in quickly locating their graded work in an orderly fashion.

To reorder your columns, click on Manage in the toolbar and then Column Organization.

Your columns will be displayed in rows. Click on the small move icon at the beginning of the row and drag the row to your preferred location. Drag rows that you would like to be frozen above the gray row. These will remain fixed in place at the beginning of the Grade Center as you scroll through the columns. Note: Most faculty find having the student’s name frozen to be very helpful.

Hide Columns You Don’t Need

You probably don’t need the Availability column or the Student ID column. They’re just taking up valuable visual real estate on your screen. Hide these from your view by clicking on the column menu and selecting Hide Column. Be aware that this does not hide the column from your students’ view in My Grades.

To hide a column from your students, select Show/Hide to Users from the column menu. The column title area will display a dark gray circle with a red bar through it to indicate that it is hidden from the class.

Use the Built-in Navigation Tools

Tired of clicking into an assignment and then back out to the main Grade Center and then into the next student’s assignment over and over again? Use the navigation options at the top of the Grade Details area. Click the forward and back arrows to go to another student or grade column.

To access Grade Details, click on the menu icon in a grade cell and choose View Grade Details.

Additional information about using and successfully navigating the Grade Center is available on our resources website.

Simple Ways to Save Time Using myLesley

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Kris McElroy

It’s a busy and rapidly changing world. You need tools to help you keep the chaos under control and make sure you have time for the important things. Below are a few ways myLesley can help you simplify some of the course administration tasks, leaving you more time for teaching.

Send Email

Looking up email addresses and setting up contact groups for your students can take a lot of time. Stop doing it! Email your students directly from your myLesley course using the Send Email tool. Email the entire class, groups of students, or select individual students. A copy of the message will be sent to your email address for future reference.

Are you better at speaking than typing? Try Voice Email instead.

Many faculty find they can provide more information in the same amount of time by recording their message.

Announcements

The Announcements tool is a great way to share time sensitive information to the entire class.

Use Announcements to kick off a new week, wrap up content and remind students about upcoming due dates. It’s a great way to summarize discussions and highlight key points for feedback to the whole class. Do you need to clarify information and clear up confusion that multiple students are having? Don’t send 15 emails. Send one announcement.

Announcements are visible on the home page of the myLesley course, but check ‘Send a copy of this announcement’ to also send an email to everyone. This will provide students two opportunities to receive important course information.

Create a Course Repository

Even if don’t teach online, having course content in myLesley can be incredibly helpful. Placing your syllabus, links to readings, and assignment information online allows students to easily find information when it’s needed, 24 hours a day/7 days a week. Clear organization and instructions translates to less frustration and confusion for students and fewer clarification emails for you.

Performance Dashboard

The Performance Dashboard provides a quick overall view of student activity in the course. The dashboard lists all the students and how long it has been since they last accessed the course. It is a quick way to identify students you may need to reach out to.

The dashboard also shows students’ discussion board activity. Click on the number in the ‘Discussion Board’ column to access details on an individual student’s posts.

These are just a few easy to apply tips for using myLesley as a time-saving tool. Check out our Faculty Instructional Technology Resources to learn more about myLesley’s features.

myLesley Tips & Tricks with Nick Pietrowski

Posted on April 15, 2013 by elisadmin

Talking with many faculty, myLesley can be seen more as a barrier than a tool for success. I am going to share with you four tips and tricks I have learned through my experience about myLesley. You will see a common theme of improving efficiency, particularly no longer having to enter grades twice.

Use the Journal Function in myLesley
As many of you, I use journaling in my courses. The problem with traditional journaling is we are not able to know what the students write until class is over. If you post a journal in myLesley you are able to check it before class. This also saves you from having to enter the grades twice. You are able to grade journals as you read them in Bb reducing human error.

Use the BlackBoard App
When I say I check journals right before class, I may be reading them as I am walking into University Hall. This is most likely when I am making a group comment about what the class may be nervous about at midterm and finals time.

Wikipedia turned some people in higher education off to using wikis. They are valuable! You can have students create stories or lab reports in a wiki. Wikis are about collaboration. The great thing is that you can grade them right in myLesley so there is no double grading.

Some faculty give quizzes on the reading in their courses. You lose an hour and forty five minutes of instruction time in a semester if you give seven quizzes that take 15 minutes! That is a little over half of a full class time. I recommend doing something similar to quizzes in myLesley, Reading Checks. They are multiple choice, not timed, and students must complete them in one sitting. I have talked to many students and they agree that one must read before taking a reading check even if it is untimed because it will take them longer to find the answers if they do not. One of the great things about Reading Check or Quizzes in my Lesley is they self grade and automatically enter into the gradebook so you do not have to double enter grades.

These four things are the short list of how I have been able to improve my courses in myLesley. There are many things I have learned through my online, hybrid and face-to-face experiences that I hope to share with you in the future.

Nick Pietrowski

Senior Lecturer at Lesley University

eLIS Blog

Lesley University eLearning and Instructional Support

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