Unassign or hopefully folders for students

[mgarcia]

As the list of formatives my students are completing grows, it is getting increasingly hard or them to find the days lesson, or “what they are supposed to do”. I don’t necessarily want to unassign since I want them to be able to go back to different formatives and use them as study guides and even to correct mistakes as their learning grows.

Currently I post on GC so they have everything organized there, but it would be great if their view in Goformative included folders for specific units, much like how I have mine:

Something to consider maybe?

I wonder how others are organizing the work for students; Are you unassigning or have you found a different way to keep students’ view of your formatives organized in some way?

[lpereira]

You should comment on the wish list updates topic. Folders for students was my wish too!

[michael.lutz]

@mgarcia I‘m unassigning the older Formatives. However, I would appreciate if students could organize their Formatives themselves.

[david]

I could see this being very helpful. Would you want the formatives to be displayed in the same folders that you create? If not, would you want to be able to set up their folder system or have them do it?

Here’s a workaround that @tricia.mintner uses in case it helps

Cleaning up Student Dashboard?

I’ve tried a few things. One that helps the most is labeling each Formative with #.# before the actual title. For example, for unit 1, you can label, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc… and unit 2 can have labels of 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc. This year, my students’ formatives are in ABC order, so the numbering system works really well. Students can even ‘search’ using CRTL+F and typing in the code (or words) you want them to find. Another alternative is to make one formative for each unit and link all the other form…

You should comment on the wish list updates topic. Folders for students was my wish too!

@lpereira we’ve got a software tool that allows us to record and keep tally of every piece of feedback we get, regardless of the topic it’s posted in! This way if feature requests naturally arise within any thread, we can make sure they get recorded!

[tricia.mintner]

I think it would be good if they are initially placed in the folders the teacher sets up, but then students could move them around as well. For example, I think my students would make folders like ‘done’ and ‘done but not in grade book yet’. It would help to serve as a ‘to do’ list for the students.

[mgarcia]

Would you want the formatives to be displayed in the same folders that you create?

I would love it if this was the case simply because they are pre-teens/teens. It’s like trying to have my own kiddos organize their closet. Their idea of organization and mine is not the same thing

[tricia.mintner]

Maybe the ‘+folder’ button can be controlled by the teacher (toggle on/off).

[lpereira]

Wow, so fancy!

[david]

@mgarcia @tricia.mintner @lpereira we’ve definitely heard some teachers wanting to be able to control the way formatives are organized on the student end while others would like there students to be able to do this. It probably makes sense to first give the teacher control over this and perhaps build in the option for students to do some custom organizing as well.

While building a new interface for teachers to be able to organize how student dashboards appear might be a bit much right now, what if we made it so that a teacher could simply designate if a folder on their dashboard is visible to students? If they made it visible, than any assigned formatives (including ones that are “closed”) would appear within them on the student end. What do you think? Any potential problems you can foresee?

Maybe the ‘+folder’ button can be controlled by the teacher (toggle on/off).

Can you share some more details about this? It sounds intriguing

[lpereira]

I like that idea. Teachers would have to be careful not to have activities “open” if they aren’t ready for students to see those activities yet, but with a reminder about that, I think that this idea would work well.

[mgarcia]

what if we made it so that a teacher could simply designate if a folder on their dashboard is visible to students?

This would work, at least as a first step.This would help students at least deal only with the formatives for one unit as opposed to the long list that they now have even after just 5 weeks of class.

[jillian.kostuchrzepk]

I’m slowly getting some other teachers in our building to utilize formative. I haven’t looked at a students “dashboard” yet that has another teacher assigning formatives, but do all the formatives show up in one list?
I assign a couple each week. Being able to group into folders would be ideal to separate classes out, and also review specifics ideas later in the year.

[tricia.mintner]

That’s a good start, as long as those not assigned yet in that folder yet are not showing up on the student side. It would be nice to open one unit at a time. I agree with @mgarcia… this list is so long, I’ve had to unassign formatives to reduce the visual stress on my students.

Of course, if there was a ‘done folder’ or a ‘submitted’ folder active on the student end, perhaps when a student submitted the assignment, it could ‘go’ there instead of on the dashboard list. But, then teachers would need to have a way to ‘unsubmit’ an assignment so that it would reappear on a student’s dashboard.

[david]

Teachers would have to be careful not to have activities “open” if they aren’t ready for students to see those activities yet

Interesting! I haven’t see teachers do this before. Have you seen this happen? Why do you think this is the case?

[david]

This would work, at least as a first step.This would help students at least deal only with the formatives for one unit as opposed to the long list that they now have even after just 5 weeks of class.

Thanks, what part of your need would this solution not address? Or in other words, what would you still like to see beyond this? We just want to make sure that what we build first aligns with anything we build on top of it.

[david]

hat’s a good start, as long as those not assigned yet in that folder yet are not showing up on the student side. It would be nice to open one unit at a time. I agree with @mgarcia… this list is so long, I’ve had to unassign formatives to reduce the visual stress on my students.

One workaround that I thought of to reduce visual stress could be creating a class called “Archived”. When you don’t want a formative to show up as assigned for their class anymore, but you do want them to be able to see it, you could un-assign it from their class and assign it to this “Archived” one. That way when they are looking at their dashboard, they can just select “Archived” to look at those assignments. It’s by no means a lasting solution, but just thought it might be useful!

Of course, if there was a ‘done folder’ or a ‘submitted’ folder active on the student end, perhaps when a student submitted the assignment, it could ‘go’ there instead of on the dashboard list. But, then teachers would need to have a way to ‘unsubmit’ an assignment so that it would reappear on a student’s dashboard.

If we were to implement the ability to mark folders as visible on the student end, you could create a folder called “done” or “submitted”. I guess the draw back here would be if you wanted to move the assignment on your end, it would also be moved or no longer appear on the student end as well.

[lpereira]

I do it sometimes just to have the formatives all assigned and ready to go for the week. Maybe that is just me. I do it to have one less moving part to remember during a bust week. I might open them when I am doing my lesson planning the week before.

[mgarcia]

I would love two more things in the Ss view:
1 - A date attached to the formative, which would mean being able to assign to be due on a specific date (not to lock it mind you, but rather simply to let Ss know “work on this first” Perhaps the open formative button could instead of saying open could have the due date?
2. Some color coding of “complete” vs “incomplete”. I find that my students tend to skip a question or two for whatever reason and seldom recognize it. If that date button mentioned above could be blue, then turn to green if the formative, once opened, is submitted complete and red if the formative is submitted incomplete.

I know it is a huge ask, and understand if unfeasable.

[david]

not to lock it mind you, but rather simply to let Ss know “work on this first”

Interesting! What kinds of assignments do you give where there’s a due date but you wouldn’t want it to be locked?

Some color coding of “complete” vs “incomplete”. I find that my students tend to skip a question or two for whatever reason and seldom recognize it. If that date button mentioned above could be blue, then turn to green if the formative, once opened, is submitted complete and red if the formative is submitted incomplete.

Good idea!

[jillian.kostuchrzepk]

One workaround that I thought of to reduce visual stress could be creating a class called “Archived”.

I like this idea. Could it be something that maybe after a set amount of time, like 2 weeks, that it would automatically go there (was sort of thinking like the auto delete of spam emails)? Or would this be something that we would need to click?