Aplia User Guide for Instructors

Transcription

1 Chapter 7: Managing Students, Student Discussion Board, and Student Performance This chapter shows you how to manage student lists and discussion boards. You will also learn how to assess the performance of individual students as well as of the class as a whole and how to perform important administrative functions. These functions are performed from your course Gradebook or Administration tabs. Managing Students The Manage Students screen lists the students who have enrolled in your course. From this screen, you can block or unblock students from the course, reset passwords, change a student s section or ID number, send to students, or view login, logout, and answer submission times. View the Manage Students screen by clicking the Manage Students button on either the Administration page or the Course Home page. From this screen you can perform the following actions: 0 Block a student from being able to view your course by clicking the student s status and checking the Block this student box. In addition to preventing the student from accessing your course, blocking removes the student from appearing in grading and performance reports. To unblock a student, click the student s status and uncheck the Block this student box. A student s access to the course is also blocked when his or her course fee status is Not Paid after the grace period. The student can resume access once he or she pays the course fee; then you ll see his or her status as Paid. Students who have not paid appear in all grading and performance analytics. However, those with Withdrawn or Blocked statuses will not be included. 0 Reset student passwords by clicking the checkboxes next to student names, selecting Reset Password from the Choose Function dropdown list, and clicking the Go button. Resetting a student s password sets the password to changeme and resets the failed sign-in counter to zero. Confirm the identity of a student before resetting the student s password and remind the student to change the password after signing in. Page 1 of 19

2 0 Change a student s class section by clicking the individual s section name. You have the choice of typing the new section yourself or requesting that the student reenter the section the next time he or she signs in. You may also change sections for multiple students by selecting the boxes next to their names, going to the Choose Function dropdown menu to select Change Sections, and then clicking Go. 0 Send to a student by clicking a student s address. You may also multiple students by selecting the boxes next to their names, clicking Students from the Choose Function dropdown menu, and then selecting Go. 0 Change a student s ID number by clicking the ID number. You have the choice of typing the new ID yourself or requesting the student to reenter the ID the next time he or she signs in. 0 Determine student login, logout, and answer submission times to verify student behavior with the Activity Report. This report is particularly helpful to settle grade disputes from students. Download the report by clicking the Activity Report link. The Student Activity Report page appears. Click the Download the report link after the report is generated. The report will show the student s history from the course s start date until you request the report. The first worksheet shows login and logout time, while the second worksheet shows the assignment, question number, and the time an answer was saved or submitted. Please note that the Activity Report excludes login and logout time for economics experiments. Student Discussion Board When activated, the student discussion board appears as a new tab. Activating Student Discussions To activate discussions, create a category in your Discussion tab. Students cannot add categories or use the discussion board until you create at least one category. Organizing Your Discussions Your discussion board has three components: Categories, Topics, and Posts. You can use categories to organize your discussions. A topic is the beginning of a discussion, and posts created in response to that topic make up the entire discussion. Categories can be thought of as organizational folders for topics and corresponding posts. We suggest using categories to help students find specific discussions. For example, you may want to create one category for Chapter 1 questions or Midterm questions so that students know where to go if they want to read or contribute to discussions about those topics. Once you ve created a category, you can create multiple discussion topics within that category. Both you and your students can create topics as well as posts or replies within a topic. Page 2 of 19

3 Viewing Student Posts Aplia User Guide for Instructors When you navigate to your Discussion tab, you ll see the list of categories that you ve created. Categories that contain posts you haven t yet read will appear in bold. You ll also see a link to the most recent post in each category. Once you ve clicked a category, you ll see an expandable list of topics. The Topics page below contains two topics: Micro Economists and Macro Economists. Clicking the title of a topic will expand it and reveal a list of posts, or replies, that have been created within the topic. The expanded topic below contains nine posts. To read a post, click its title, and the body of the post will expand. Click it again to collapse it. Page 3 of 19

4 If you d like to view a listing of all posts within a topic in their expanded state, click the text that displays the number of posts (for example, the link in parentheses that says 9 posts above). Controlling Postings That Students Create As an instructor, you can delete categories, topics, and posts on your discussion board. To delete a student s post, navigate to the post in the Topics list and click the Delete link on the right side of the post. Counting the Number of Posts Each Student Creates On your Course Home page, you can access a Discussion Board Participation report that tells you the number of posts each student has created: You can use the report to manually record student participation scores in the gradebook. The Gradebook The Aplia gradebook is a powerful yet simple tool for calculating grades and analyzing student performance. With all of your students grades on Aplia, you can easily view and analyze their performance to quickly track student progress and identify strengths and weaknesses. Just click the Gradebook tab to begin. There are three tabs within the gradebook. They enable you to do just about anything with grades: - The View Grades tab allows you to view, import, and export scores. This is helpful for integrating grades with other learning management systems. - The Analytics tab shows interactive visual analyses of class and individual student performances so you can quickly identify students strengths and weaknesses. - The Manage Grades tab offers powerful tools to manage and customize grades to your needs. This is the place to quickly set up calculation rules, create groups of assignments and assign them weights, add bonus assignments, and drop assignment scores. Page 4 of 19

5 To optimize workflow, it makes sense to first visit Manage Grades and then either View Grades or Analytics. Therefore, we ll follow this order as we explain these tabs in more detail. Notes: Scores from assignments marked Not Visible on the Course Outline page are included. To exclude them from the gradebook, move them to Unassigned just recognize that they will be organized alphabetically in this folder. Also, grading and performance analytics are kept for 180 days following the end date of your course; make sure to print any reports that you want to keep before that time by clicking the printer icon on the page. Manage Grades Manage Grades allows you to set your calculation rules for total scores by dropping scores, adding bonus assignments, creating groups of assignments, and assigning weights. By default, all of your Aplia assignments are set as one group and given 100% weight toward the final total score calculation. Also, total scores are calculated by the total points method, meaning the sum of points earned for each assignment is divided by points possible. Lastly, no bonus points are given, and no scores are dropped. The default settings may not match the way you calculate total scores for students. Consequently, the analytics function may not be as accurate as it could be unless you adjust the settings to match your preferences. Also, the total scores students see on their Grades page may not match what they are expecting to see or may give students the impression that they are doing worse or better than they really are. You can change any of these default settings to ensure optimal accuracy by reading the sections that follow. Calculation Rule Each group has its own calculation rule, which defines how scores are totaled within the group. We offer two methods of calculating totals: (1) Total Points, which is the sum of all points earned divided by the sum of all points possible, and (2) Average Percentage, which is the average of all assignment percentages, considering each assignment within a group equal in weight. Both rules take into account the parameters you set around dropped scores, excluded assignments, and bonus assignments. By default, a group s calculation rule is set to Total Points. To change this, click the link next to Calculation Rule. Then select the desired calculation rule for the current group and click Submit. Page 5 of 19

6 Manage Groups and Weights Your syllabus may break down the course grade into different sets of assignments or activities contributing different weights. It may look like this: Grade Breakdown: Aplia 15% Essay 10% Quizzes 10% Midterm 25% Final 40% Since the default in the gradebook is for the Aplia assignments group to weigh 100% toward the final grade, the gradebook may not reflect what is on your syllabus. To create groups and add assignments to them, follow these instructions: Click the Manage Groups & Weight button. Click Add another group. Then type in the group name and its weight. Repeat until all groups are added. By default, the Aplia group is given a weight of 100%, so make sure you edit this if you prefer a different setting. The running total in the Weights column will help you keep track of the sum weight of all groups. To remove a group, click the X to the right of the group. Click Save when done. Page 6 of 19

7 Add non-aplia assignment scores into any group by clicking that group in the left panel of Manage Grades. Then click Add assignment to this group and select either Import Assignments & Scores or Add a New Assignment Row. Import Assignments & Scores allows you to import scores using a comma-delimited (CSV) file with student names and scores. Add a New Assignment Row allows you to manually add an assignment to the group. Choosing Import Assignments & Scores brings up the import wizard. This is a four-step process: (1) upload file, (2) match records, (3) review mismatches, and (4) select score columns to add. Should you need help during any step, click the Help link located at the top right of the box. Before you begin the import process, you need to prepare the file you will upload. Page 7 of 19

8 Preparing Your File You will need an Excel or comma-delimited file with a column of students first names and another of last names. Alternatively, if you ask for student identification in your Aplia course, you can choose to have a column of IDs. The file type must be.csv or.xls (Microsoft Excel version 97 or later). If you are using an.xls file, the scores must be on the first worksheet. The first row of the spreadsheet must contain unique column names. If duplicate column names are found, numbers will be appended to the column names (for example, Midterm_1, Midterm_2, and so forth). If a column does not have a name, it will be given a name (for example, UnnamedColumn_1, UnnamedColumn_2, and so forth). You can match records in your file to records in the gradebook in two ways: by student name or by ID. Please include either one of these in your file. If you wish to match by name, the file must have separate columns for first and last names. If your Aplia course does not require students to input their IDs, you can match only by name. Note that when importing a score sheet into Microsoft Excel, the leading zeros in a student ID might not display. To display leading zeros for a fixed-length ID, create a custom format in Excel with the same number of zeros as digits that you want to display. For example, for a nine-digit Social Security number, create a custom format with nine zeros ( ). Step 1: Upload File It's easy to upload a file containing external scores into Aplia. Empty rows in the spreadsheet will be skipped in the import process. Also, keep in mind that large files may take a few minutes to upload. To avoid errors, review the Preparing Your File section above before continuing. From the Gradebook page, click the More Actions menu and select Import Assignments & Scores. Click Choose File. Then find your file. Click Upload. Page 8 of 19

9 Step 2: Match Records Specify how student records in the file will match Aplia student records. A small preview of the first 10 rows of the file will appear. 1. Select the option to match record by student name or by student ID. 2. To match by student name, select the column that contains the students first names in the first dropdown menu. From the next dropdown menu, select the column that contains the last names. 3. To match by student ID, select the column that contains the student IDs. 4. Click Continue to proceed. The selected column(s) will be highlighted in the file preview section. The student record matching process is not case sensitive (for example, james = James). Step 3: Review Mismatches Review mismatched records. If there are none, you will be taken to Step 4. 0 You may view the number of students in the uploaded file that could not be matched with the students in Aplia. The complete list of mismatched records in the uploaded file is displayed in a tabular format on the left. 0 You can see the number of students in Aplia that could not be matched with the students in the uploaded file, if any. The complete list of mismatched students in your Aplia course is displayed in a tabular format on the right. 0 You can either correct the mismatches or continue. Only matched student records will be imported into the Aplia gradebook. You can enter any missing scores in the gradebook after the import process. 0 There are two ways to correct the mismatches: You can (1) click Step 1 to upload a file that contains the same student information (name or ID) found in Aplia or (2) click Step 2 to select a different column to match the student records. Click Continue to proceed to the next step. Page 9 of 19

10 Step 4: Select Columns to Add to Gradebook You can easily select the columns containing the scores that you want to import to the Aplia gradebook. For your convenience, we display a small preview of your uploaded file on this page. The preview is restricted to the first 10 rows of the spreadsheet, not counting the header row. 1. Under Column Name, select a column of scores that you want to import. 2. Under Score Type, indicate whether the column contains points or percentages. 3. Under Points Possible, enter the maximum points for the selected column. Some scores (especially with bonus points) can exceed this number of points. 4. Click Add Another Column to import an additional column to the gradebook. 5. Click Import Scores to complete the import process and view your imported scores in the Aplia gradebook. 6. If there are mismatches, you can navigate back to any of the steps below: a. Step 1, to reupload your corrected file b. Step 2, to select a different column to match the student records c. Step 3, to review any mismatched student records Page 10 of 19

11 Add a New Assignment Row enables you to manually add an assignment and then enter student scores on the View Grades tab. After clicking Add a New Assignment Row, submit the assignment name and points possible. Add student scores from View Grades by clicking each cell underneath the column of the new assignment. Organize assignments: Assign an assignment to another group by clicking the Actions link and selecting the appropriate group. Indicating Bonus Assignments or Excluding Assignments At times you may want to add a bonus assignment to encourage and reward students for doing extra work or to help those struggling with another chance to perform better. There also may be situations in which you want to exclude an assignment. You may want to do this, for example, if all of your students performed poorly on an assignment. You can do this in Manage Grades. What does this mean for calculations? Exclusions and bonuses apply to the entire class, not individual students. Excluded assignments are not considered by any calculation. Bonus scores within a group are treated according to the calculation rule you chose for that group: 0 If you chose the calculation rule of Total Points, points earned on the bonus assignment are added directly to the group points, and the points possible for the assignment are disregarded that is, the denominator remains the same. 0 If you chose Average Percentage, final bonus percentage is added to the group percentage: Final bonus percentage = (bonus points earned / bonus points possible) x bonus percentage, where bonus percentage = points possible for bonus assignment divided by group points possible. For example, a group has three graded assignments with points possible of 10, 5, and 30. It also has a bonus assignment worth 10 points. If the student earned 5/10 on the bonus assignment, then: Bonus percentage = 10 / ( ) = 22.2% Therefore: Final bonus percentage = 5/10 x 22.2% = 11.1% Page 11 of 19

12 Indicate that an assignment needs to be excluded or be a bonus assignment by clicking the Actions menu. Then appropriately select Make bonus assignment or Exclude from calculations. After performing one of these two actions, either bonus or excluded appears in parentheses under the Points Possible column. Drop Lowest Assignment Scores You can drop lowest assignment scores on an individual student basis for each student in the class. We suggest waiting until the end of the course to drop scores. Otherwise, students will regularly see different scores being dropped as they complete additional assignments. Drop lowest scores by clicking the link next to Drop Lowest. Then use the dropdown menu to select the number of assignment scores you want to drop. Click Submit to save changes. View Grades In the View Grades tab, you will see all scores of past-due and in-progress assignments as well as overall scores and group scores. In the More Actions menu, you can add external scores by importing them from a file or by manually adding a new column in the gradebook. You can also export the entire gradebook so that you can add them to another system and download the report on practice assignment participation. Remember that assignments marked as Not Visible on the Course Outline are also listed, so if you do not want them in the gradebook, it s best to move them to Unassigned folder. In-progress assignment scores are excluded from the calculations you see on the page. Looking at View Grades, you may see dashes. These dashes indicate either that the student did not attempt the assignment in the Course Outline or that you have not submitted scores for the outside assignment. Bonus points appear in green. Page 12 of 19

13 An excluded assignment appears as a column of grey scores; also, hovering the cursor over the column header displays Excluded in parentheses. Dropped scores appear on View Grades in grey; if you hover your cursor over a dropped score, it shows dropped in parentheses. Should you set up Aplia course sections for the course, you can filter the student listing on the page using the All Sections menu located on the far right. Just as on the Manage Grades page, you can add scores to View Grades by importing a spreadsheet with grades, names, or IDs or by entering scores manually. To add scores by importing a spreadsheet, please refer to the previous Manage Groups and Weights section. To enter scores manually, click More Actions and then select Add a New Assignment Column. A pop-up window will appear. In the Assignment Name field, enter the assignment title. Enter the points possible in the Points Possible field. Select the assignment group and then click Save. Finally, enter points for each student in the new column: select the student s cell, type in his or her points, and then click Save. Page 13 of 19

14 From View Grades you can edit assignment titles and points possible for added assignments or delete them. To do either task, click the column header and click Edit or Delete. If you click Edit, submit the new assignment name or points possible and then click Save. If you click Delete, click Yes to confirm you want to delete the item. Analytics The Analytics page offers interactive, data-rich visual analytics for your class and individual student performance. Reports are best viewed at a monitor with a resolution of at least 1024 x 768 pixels. The first analytics that show are class and student performance on the assignments from the default Aplia group. If you have created additional groups in Manage Grades, you can click the All Groups link to view analytics on all groups. Page 14 of 19

15 By clicking a student s name and/or assignment title, you can drill down for additional details on a particular student, assignment, or question. On the most detailed level, you can view the question a particular student was given, the student s answer, and Aplia feedback. Some instructors prefer to see analytics based on submitted data. To exclude zeros being considered in the calculations of class overall average and class assignment averages, navigate to Analytics and select the box Exclude assignment scores of zero from class average calculations. Please note that zeros are still included in analytics for individual students, showing how well the student has done in the class or on an assignment. In-progress assignment scores are included in analytics as well. These averages are calculated using the same methods applied to past-due assignments. However, the calculations consider numbers only from students who submitted or saved work for at least one question in an assignment. The averages are what the individual would receive if the deadline were to pass. Therefore, the numbers include scores for unattempted questions. Calculations in View Grades and Analytics In View Grades, you can view each student s overall average and averages for each group. In Analytics, you can access both of these calculations as well as those listed below with their calculation descriptions. How are these numbers calculated? 0 Student assignment score: points earned divided by points possible. 0 Student group average: average of student s assignment scores in the group, calculated by the rules set in Manage Grades. 0 Student overall average: student s weighted average across all groups determined by the weights set in Manage Grades. Here s an example: o Group 1: Student s group average is 90%. This group is assigned a weight of 50% toward the overall average. o Group 2: Student s group average is 75%. This group is assigned a weight of 30% toward the overall average. o Group 3: Student s group average is 80%. This group is assigned a weight of 20% toward the overall average. Therefore, the total average is (90% x 50%) + (75% x 30%) + (80% x 20%) = 83.5%. 0 Student assignment participation: percent of questions attempted for the assignment. For external assignments, the assignment is treated as if it contains one question. A manually filled-in score is therefore an attempt. 0 Class question average: average of all raw scores for students who have attempted the question. If the assignment is in progress, only averages from those who attempted the question are considered. o Example: Student A earned 4/5, student B received 3/5, while student C did not attempt the question and received 0/5. The class average on the question is then (4/5 + 3/5) / 2. 0 Class assignment average: average of each student s assignment score. 0 Class group average: average of all group averages for all students. 0 Class overall average: average of each student s class average. 0 Class participation on a question: percent of students who attempted the question. Page 15 of 19

16 Please note: Class averages include data from all sections, even when you filter name lists by sections. Also, some students may not have submitted their section information. As a result, these individuals performances will not be included in the section reports. Manage students with missing sections by going to the Manage Students page from the Administration tab. Or add sections to your course from the Administration tab by clicking the button under Course Sections. Manually Adjusting a Student s Score At times, you might want to adjust the score for only one student s problem set. For example, the student might have a valid justification for his or her answers that you have decided to accept. In this case, you can adjust the score as follows: For Aplia assignment scores: 1. Click Adjust on the bottom of the Administration page. 2. Next to the assignment, click the Select Actions dropdown menu, select Adjust Scores, and click Go. The Adjust Student Scores page displays. 3. Enter the new score(s) as desired. 4. Click Submit. The last adjusted date appears next to the New Score column. For outside scores: 1. Click the score you wish to adjust on the View Grades page of the gradebook. 2. Enter the new score as desired. 3. Click Save. Reading and Grading Essays Aplia cannot automatically grade essay questions. If you assign required essay questions to students, you can award credit to all students who submitted answers at once, or you can award individual credit. Students will see a score of Pending on essay questions that are past due but not yet graded by you. To read and grade essays, go to the Administration page and click the Manage Essays button. You ll see each past-due essay question listed along with information about how many students submitted essays and how many of those essays have already been graded. You can manually assign scores to essays as follows: Click the Assign Scores button by the essay you want to grade. To assign a single score (for example, to award participation credit) to all essays submitted: 1. Click the Assign One Score to All Essays button. 2. Enter the score you d like to award to all essays along with any comments you d like students to see when they navigate to the essay in their accounts. 3. Click Submit to award scores. To grade each essay individually: 1. Click the Assign Individual Scores to Essays button. You will see a batch of five essays to grade. 2. Enter your score and any comments you d like to provide to the essay writer for each essay. 3. To continue grading essays after your first five, click Save and Continue. 4. To exit essay grading, click Save and Return to Grade Sheet. To make score adjustments to graded essays, click the Edit Scores button. Page 16 of 19

17 Once you ve awarded scores to all essays, click the Publish Scores and Make Visible button. This will reveal individual scores to students and save them to your grade reports. Once you have published your essay scores, you can no longer edit those scores. To make score adjustments after publishing essay scores, use the Adjust Scores function in the Administration tab. Downloading Score Sheets and Experiment Reports A variety of reports are available for download in spreadsheet (comma-separated value, or CSV) format. These are helpful in that they allow you to integrate Aplia scores into your learning management system.these are reports excluded from the gradebook, because they are ungraded activities.you can use these performance reports to import them as grades in the gradebook. Available reports include the following: 0 A raw score sheet containing scores for both Aplia and outside assignments 0 A practice assignment participation report displaying the percent of attempts made by each student 0 A discussion board report showing the number of posts each student made 0 A report listing the students who participated in assigned experiments (economics only) 0 A report giving specific transaction details for each student participating in assigned experiments (economics only) Please note that scores in the gradebook are removed 90 days after the course end date. If you feel that you may need the scores after this date, please export your gradebook scores in advance. The reports can be obtained in the following ways: 0 Raw scores of Aplia and outside assignments as well as practice assignment participation reports are located in the gradebook on the View Grades page. Click the More Actions menu on the right side of the page and then select the appropriate report name. 0 Discussion board and experiment reports can be found in the Download Reports section of the Course Home page and from the Download Reports list on the Administration page. Page 17 of 19

18 Adding Co-Instructors Aplia User Guide for Instructors You can give other instructors or TAs access to your course and control what capabilities they have in your course. This is useful if, for example, you want your TAs to be able to alter assignment due dates but don t want to give them access to student grades, or if you want another instructor to be able to see and copy assignments from your course but not to modify them. Co-instructors can never delete your course or add additional co-instructors. All co-instructors, regardless of the permissions you grant them, will have the ability to create their own Aplia courses and view all of Aplia content. We encourage you to grant co-instructor access only to those instructors or TAs that you trust. To add a co-instructor to your course: 1. Notify the instructor whom you want to add so that he or she can register with Aplia. 2. Navigate to your course and click the Administration tab. 3. Click the Manage Co-Instructors button to display the Manage Co-Instructors page. 4. Click Add Co-Instructor. 5. Enter the instructor s registered address and click Continue. 6. Select the capabilities you wish to provide to the co-instructor: a. Read: By default, all co-instructors can view the Course Outline, assignments, grade-analytic reports, and the student list. b. View Scores: Allows the co-instructor to view individual student scores and answers, analytics reports, the Practice Participation report, the Grading Tool, and Experiment reports. c. Grade: Allows the co-instructor to adjust student scores. d. Manage: Allows the co-instructor to change the administrative details of the course, including course details, student IDs, and sections. The co-instructor can change an individual student s student ID and section, reset a student s password, and block or unblock a student s access to the course. e. Communicate: Allows the co-instructor to post course announcements and send messages to students. f. Assign: Allows the co-instructor to add, modify, and delete assignments and course materials. g. Experiments: Allows the co-instructor to launch and control Aplia experiments as an instructor. If the co-instructor does not have this capability, he or she can only join experiments as a participant. Page 18 of 19

19 7. If you have sections, choose the appropriate section to assign to the co-instructor. If a grading privilege is given, co-instructors assigned to a section may view grades and the student roster for that section only. However, if the individual has the capability to manage the course, any changes the individual makes on the Course Outline page will reflect throughout all sections. 8. Click Submit when you are done selecting your desired preferences. If necessary, edit capabilities by clicking the Edit button. If necessary, remove co-instructors by clicking Remove. Your course will now show up on your co-instructor s My Home page. It will be denoted by an asterisk so that the co-instructor can tell which course is yours. Deleting a Course Courses are removed two years after their end date. You should receive a reminder 30 days before this date so that you have the opportunity to contact Aplia Support and ask for the course to be exempt. You can manually delete an entire course. (You may want to do this, for example, if you created a sample course while learning Aplia features.) Deleting a course will erase all assignments and scores associated with that course. To do so: 1. Navigate to your My Courses page. 2. Click the Delete button in the same row as the course that you want to delete. 3. A verification screen appears, asking if you re sure you want to permanently delete the course. Click the Yes button. The course is immediately deleted. Moving On Now that you ve been introduced to Aplia administrative capabilities, you should have all the information you need to create and run an Aplia course. Should you have any questions, please contact the Aplia Support Team at support@aplia.com or reach out to your Aplia representative. Page 19 of 19