Buzz: Questions & Answers

Hello Sophie!

I have been investigating this issue, and haven't been able to experience the reported behavior. Would you possibly be able to give me the Course ID of the course where you have been experiencing this? Along with the names of the folders? That will enable me to look into this from your point of view. Let me know if there is anything else I can do. Thanks!

Hi Andrew, thanks for your reply! I actually realized that I was doing something wrong, but that does lead me to a follow up question and another problem! I realized that I was putting Option 1 and Option 2 in the folder, but not actually clicking the question mark symbol to add them as choices, if that makes sense. When I added them correctly though, it caused a new problem--When I logged in as a student and checked the "Grades" section, the choice folders didn't show up at all! As a workaround I had to add something to the choice folders to make them show up. But now the grades for Options 1 and 2 are not showing up, which is an even bigger problem.

Here's a picture to help explain what I mean. My initial mistake was that I didn't click the question mark, so there was no 2 there and Option 1 and Option 2 were just in the folder below, where "Quiz Choices Follow-Up" is now.

This is now what pops up when I click on that 2:

Before I added "Quiz Choices Follow-Up", the folder was not showing up with a due date in the Grades section at all. Now that I added it, Buzz has assigned a due date to "Quiz Choices Follow-Up", so the folder is back in the Grades section, sort of. Students still can't actually see Option 1 and Option 2 in the Grades section.

Here's what that same quiz/folder looks like from a student view of the Grades section: 

Also (and this is the even bigger problem) I can't see the grades for Option 1 and Option 2 anywhere. They're popping up in my queue to be graded, but the grades are not shown in my gradebook. I can only see the grade for "Quiz Choices Follow-Up" in my gradebook, and that doesn't even really count. The students also can't see those grades in the grades section.

I'm worried I must have misunderstood choice folders in some way? I thought they were used to let students choose between 2 or more options for 1 graded assignment, but maybe that's not right? 

I'm not sure what the course ID is, sorry, hopefully the screenshots help!

Sorry, I was partially mistaken--I can see the grades by logging in as a teacher and clicking on individual scholars once they receive a grade OR by logging in as a student and clicking the grades section only once they receive a grade, but I can't see them in my gradebook.

Hey Sophie,

Thank you for your follow-up message! To clarify, choice activities won’t appear in the Grades section until the student has selected an option from the choice folder. Once a student makes their choice, the selected activity will then show up in their Grades section.

To ensure everything is set up correctly, you can drag and drop activities onto the question mark icon in the choice folder to add them as options. This will allow students to choose between the activities, and their selection will then reflect in the gradebook.

Let me know if this information helps or not. Thanks!

Hi Andrew, this is in line with what I'm seeing, thanks!

• Is there any way to make the choices show up in the teacher gradebook? You said "their selection will then reflect in the gradebook" but I don't see Option 1 or Option 2 in the gradebook at all, even after students have chosen an option and I've graded it. I can only see those grades when I click on individual scholars. 
• Is there any way for students to see the due dates for options in choice folders, if they can't see them in the gradebook? I don't see them on the calendar either.

Thanks,

Sophie

I'm glad I could be of assistance, and thank you for those follow up questions. Let me address each of them:

• Teacher Gradebook Visibility: I need to clarify that choice activities only appear in the Student Gradebook, not in the Teacher Gradebook. This is because they are individualized activities for students to choose from. As you  have already seen, you can still view the graded choice activities by clicking on individual students, but the choice activities themselves won’t appear in the main Teacher Gradebook view.
• Due Dates for Choice Activities: Students can see the due dates for choice activities once they have made a selection from the choice folder. These due dates will appear in the Student Gradebook and in the activity player. Please note that in a continuous course, due dates function more as suggestions rather than hard deadlines, as they would in a Range course. Due dates in continuous courses are designed to help students stay on track with their enrollment end date, but they are not as customizable.

Does that clear things up? Let me know if there is anything else I can help with. Thanks!

Hi Andrew, that's good to know, thanks.

I'm regretting using choice folders this year, it doesn't seem like they're well designed to be used for graded work. Maybe that's partially due to my school's settings (we have our courses set to continuous and we assign zeros to activities that are not completed). Were choice folders designed to be used only for ungraded work? How are teachers supposed to use them? 

What I'm noticing is that students are getting a zero on a choice folder assignment because they did not do Option 1 or Option 2 before the due date, but if they haven't previewed the options yet then that zero is not visible in their grades section. This means they overall grades are going down, and kids have no idea why, because they might only see 100s in their grades section (since the choice folder grades don't show up until they click them). Is there anywhere that kids can see ALL of their grades in a course, including zeros on activities in choice folders that they skipped? I normally recommend checking the grades section, and am disappointed that they can't see all of their grades there anymore, now that I added choice folders.

Thanks,

Sophie

Hello again Sophie!

To clarify, choice folders are designed to provide personalized learning options, and they can be used for both gradable and non-gradable activities. However, a choice activity can't be scored until a student selects an option. If no choice is made, the system won’t assign a score, which is likely why students don’t see a zero in their grades until they make a selection.

In your case, if students select an option after the target due date, the "auto-flunk" feature could assign a zero. This setup can indeed make choice folders less ideal for graded activities.

As always, if there are any further questions, please let me know. Thanks!

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for continuing to answer my questions! Sorry I have so many. I really love the idea of choice folders and am just trying to find a way to make them work.

My concern is not that they might select the option after the due date and have a temporary zero in the meantime, but that they might not select an option at all. These choice folder options don't show up in the calendar or the table of contents, so you have to really know where to look and go out of your way to find them. Is there a way for me to manually grade assignments in a choice folder before a student chooses an option and submits something? That way I could give a zero and a retry once the due date passes and they would see that in their grades section and know they had something that they need to do. 

Thanks,

Sophie

Hi, I just noticed that I have a student who has not done any of the options in choice folders, but he has 100% in the class. Does that mean that there is no automatic zero for choice folder items, since there are no due dates? 

Sophie,

Thank you for your patience as I look into this issue. I would like to further investigate the choice activities in your specific course so that I can better understand the situation. To do so, I would need your enrollment ID. Here is how you can find it:

1. Navigate to the activities screen (or really any screen) within your course.

2. When you click on the course, your URL bar should have changed to something like "agilixbuzz.com/teacher/123456789/activity"

3. That number in between the forward slashes should be your enrollment ID. If you provide me with that, I will be able to further investigate the course.

Please let me know if you need additional assistance. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!

Hi Andrew, I removed the choice folders from my course as soon as I realized the auto-zero wasn't working for the options within the folders, so I no longer have any in there for you to look at. Sorry about that! 

It seems like right now the choice folders are not compatible with continuous enrollment courses, because the different options don't get an autozero (so if kids skip them, their grades don't go down so they don't realize they actually have to do those), don't show up in the calendar or the table of contents, don't show up in the Grades section, and don't show up in the teacher gradebook (so I can't even manually give zeros and retries as a reminder to go back and do those). 

Thanks for answering my many questions!