The Assignment tool allows students to submit assignments in Brightspace/D2L without having to visit a classroom or send through email. TechSmith Relay can be used by students to record presentations.

Assignments

Course assignments and projects can be submitted through Brightspace/D2L using the Assignments tool, which will provide a space for instructions and a link for students to submit the assignment. Avoid having students submit assignments by email which can be difficult to manage and may not keep a record of submissions. Certain parameters can be set for the assignment including due dates, times, and grades or scores. For all learning, but especially with online learning that is more self-directed and independent, it is important to provide students with very detailed instructions for an assignment and clear grading criteria to help guide student work, including purpose of the assignment, format, due dates and grading rubric.

State expectations, but be ready to allow extensions: In the case of a campus closure or other crisis, some students will undoubtedly have difficulties meeting deadlines. Make expectations clear, but be ready to provide more flexibility than you normally would in your class.

Require specific filenames: It may sound trivial, but anyone who collects papers electronically knows the pain of getting 20 files named Essay1.docx. Give your students a simple file naming convention. For example, FirstnameLastname-Essay1.docx

If you have exemplar examples of past student work, post them for students to model and get a sense of what the instructor is looking for. If possible, break your assignments into smaller parts where learning can be scaffolded to give students opportunities to practice and receive feedback, i.e. submitting an outline of a paper with 5 peer reviewed sources. Note that online discussion forums can be used for peer review or critiques of student work.

Tutorial for Creating Assignments in Brightspace/D2L

Student Presentations with TechSmith Relay

Students at MSU have a TechSmith Relay account to record presentations. Students can go to MSU's TechSmith Relay website to access the account with their NetID and Password and download the software. Students can share their recordings directly with the instructor through an Assignment submission link in Brightspace/D2L or with other students as a link to their recording in an online discussion forum set up for sharing. Note that students may want to use another recording tool that they are familiar with but make sure the output of their presentation using that tool can be shared in the Brightspace/D2L course.