Teacher

I love the student choice folders, but I"m really hoping that the grading features get an upgrade soon.  With nearly 100 students, I love keeping track of who has turned items in from the gradebook view, clicking into each student to hunt for these activities it really frustrating though.  While I grade them from the To-Do list, it doesn't give me a good picture of who/how many students have completed these activities.  I'm trying to think of these problems from a database point of view (limited knowledge), but could there be a way to create a column in the gradebook that displays which activity student chose and their grades?  I'm sure this isn't an easy tech. fix, but I'm excited to see improvements with the choice folders and how they display in our gradebooks.  

Megan, thank you for your post.  I was wondering the same thing and came across your post.  We too love the choice feature but are struggling with teachers who have 200+ students on how to manage who has completed what without having to complete on each individual student.  Is there away to view all of the submissions/grades for activities in a specific choice folder similar to the grade book view with all activities for that choice folder listed across the top row and all students across the side?  I understand that if there were 5 activities in the folder and they only had to 2 that they would have 3 assignments that were blank but I would still be able to determine more quickly who had completed the choice folder than I currently can by going through the "For me" for each individual student.  Is there a better way to go about this?

Agreed!  Our students and teachers are finding this very confusing!  They love the idea of choice, but how these work in the gradebook for students and teachers is confusing and in some cases it is preventing teachers from using this great feature!

We really wish the choice assignments showed on the student Grades tab of the Performance page before it has been submitted/graded.  It is almost as if it does not exist until it is submitted/graded.  Kids to not remember to click on the For Me tab of their Performance page.  

Agree with the comments made by others. It would be much easier for teachers if the choice items appeared in the gradebook just as any other assignment. The items should appear in the gradebook under the choice folder name so that it's easy to see if the student hasn't made selected any choice. Perhaps the scoring field could be greyed out if the item was not selected. I think the overall feedback is that the "for me" tab might make sense on the coding side, but it feels so separate from the gradebook that it is almost forgotten. 

Has there been any updates on this? I am on team working on competency based learning and one of the goals is to allow students to choose how to show competency through three different methods. If we allow them to choose a project to show competency and then the grade book updated with just that choice it would be easier for the student and the teacher to keep track of which projects have been chosen and what competencies have been mastered. 

Right now teachers have no idea when/if a student has submitted a 'choice' assignment and it is not in the grade book. 

Hi Jocelyn,

Our teachers have given up on the choice activities. They are great in theory, but they do not work well for either students or teachers in terms of knowing what to do and where the submitted work/graded work is – it is a separate gradebook. Anytime we have tried the use them it has been confusing for students.

Here is what we have done instead and it seems to work out well.

Instead of using choice folder – put your choices in a regular folder you make with a content page of directions telling them they get to choose 1 out of 4 or whatever you want (1/3, 2/5, etc.).  We typically then suggest teachers make a separate content page for each choice so students see the info for each assignment separately.  It seems to help their organization.

Then at the end of the folder put the one assignment you will grade and have them each submit whatever their choice was there – so some will submit choice 1, some choice 2, etc.  It can be generic, and all it really needs to say is submit here; you can call it “Submit Choice 1.”  If you have them choose more than one, say 2/5, then have 2 such assignments at the end.  Submit Choice 2. 

This is what we have done and it works well. 

Thank you. We have tried that as well but then the teachers have to go into the grade book and exempt any 'choice' the student did not pick. It is a work-around that we are trying to avoid if possible. :)

We avoid the exempt piece by making each assignment content only (not graded) and then having generic "Submit Choice #" assignments. 

So for example, if they have to pick 2 out of 5 choices, the directions for each choice are each on their own content page - there would be 5 non graded pages.

Then at the end of that folder there would be Submit Choice 1 and Submit Choice 2 - meaning everyone would have 2 graded assignments and no one would need anything exempt.  Hopefully that make sense.

Yes, that makes sense. Thank you! I will bring the suggestion to my team.