Avenue Help Centre | Adding an Assignment

Digital Learning Development: Assignment

Adding an Assignment

Margarita Berezyanskaya

Last Update sebulan yang lalu

The Assignment activity module is used to assign tasks, collect student work and provide grades and feedback. Depending on the type of assignment, students can be asked to complete an assignment by uploading files, including word processing documents and multimedia files (i.e. audio, video, images), by
using the PoodLL online voice recorder, or by typing their submission directly on the Avenue site. There are also offline assignments, for which students do not have to submit anything electronically. These tasks do not require use of a computer to be completed. The grading (and feedback) for all types of assignments appears in the courseware grade book and reminders appear in the course Calendar.

The Assignment activity module can help teachers communicate deadlines and collect student submissions in one central area. The date and time of each submission is also recorded. Assignments can be rejected if they miss the deadline, although there is flexibility for this in the settings. Teachers can provide students with individual feedback using the learning management system or they can mark up the submissions with feedback and return assignments with their comments inserted.

The Assignment activity module can help teachers manage both online and offline assignment tasks. Teachers who ask students to email their written assignments should find the Assignment activity module very convenient to use instead. Submissions are collected centrally and they can be downloaded as a single compressed - .ZIP archive.

Assignments with Rubrics

Rubrics are mentioned in this document, however there are separate articles for adding a rubric. These detail how to use a pre-built rubric as a template (Assignment Rubrics) and another about adding a rubric from scratch (Assignment Rubrics from Scratch).

Using the Assignment Activity to Enhance Learning

Students can work on and submit assignments as follow-ups to activities they did in the face-to-face class. For example, a submission could be the first draft of a writing composition, a PowerPoint presentation, a spoken summary, or even the second draft of a handwritten assignment. Assignments can be individual or group submissions. The group submission could be the product of collaborative in-class (or out-of-class) work. There are many possibilities for blending face-to-face class activities with uploaded assignment submissions.

An Offline Assignment integrates the learning management system with classroom-based learning. In this case, the language-learning activities may be done completely offline, e.g. preparing and delivering an in-class presentation or submitting paper-based portfolio tasks, but the assignment communication and grading is provided on the Avenue site.

The Assignment tool can be particularly useful for supporting PBLA. It allows individualized, action-oriented feedback. It is a useful way to store examples of students' speaking tasks. It can be used for group-work, which can include peer assessment, and it can be used to store grades and show feedback, even for tasks which are not actually created with the Assignment tool.

Action-oriented feedback consists of comments given to students about specific actions they can take in order to improve in a meaningful way. It is specific to individual students and can be referenced to assessment criteria as well.

Action-oriented feedback puts a focus on steps that can be taken or goals that can be set for the future to help improve. It can also help teachers come up with ideas of things that can be worked on more in future modules and planning.

Action-Oriented Feedback Strategies

Use verbs or action statements instead of general comments.
Start feedback with context, such as "continue doing..." or "next time remember to..."
Provide feedback orally to the class as a whole.
Choose a few action-oriented feedback comments that were common among students in the class and ask students to choose one they would like to focus on.
Keep comments short and to the point, in learner-friendly language.
Focus on most important elements of overall success and communicative competence rather than specific details.
Target feedback toward the criteria that were missed or not done clearly/well.

Assignment Feedback Modes

Feedback can be delivered to learners through the following modes or technologies, further explained in the other Assignment documents:

Rubrics
Microsoft Word documents
Annotated PDFs
Inline comments annotated directly on the student's submission
Audio using the PoodLL recorder

Storing Examples of Speaking Tasks

Create a PoodLL Assignment, to keep your students' speaking task stored in Avenue. See the Adding a PoodLL Voice Recorder Assignment article. Once the assignment is completed, it can then be marked using Action-Oriented feedback, as appropriate.

Group-work and Peer Assessment

Peer feedback/assessment is another hallmark of PBLA. Assignment submissions can be shared and viewed by classmates. After seeing each other's work, students can then each upload a file giving feedback to one of their classmates.

However, peer feedback becomes unruly if students all have access to everyone's submissions. Some students may be missed in the process. Dividing students into Groups makes this more manageable. It is recommended that Groups are defined in the courseware before moving forward with assignment peer feedback. To set up Groups in a class see the Organizing Learners Using Groups article. Once the students in the Group upload their assignments, they can each see each other's work and can upload a file giving feedback to a group-mate.

Note: Another way to facilitate Peer Feedback would be with a Forum activity or a Wiki, also possibly in Groups. These may be easier to administer than using an Assignment for this purpose.

Storing Grades for Offline Assignments

Assessments in PBLA are usually based on real world tasks. These do not always lend themselves to being uploaded as Assignments in the courseware. However, teachers may want all the students' Assignment marks to be stored in the courseware, so that the gradebook reflects all the assessments, whether they were done as Assignments in the courseware or not.

This can easily be achieved. If an Assignment is created with no requirement for a submission, it is considered an Offline Assignment. Some examples of tasks that might fit this model would be in-class speaking activities, in-class writing, interactions on a field trip, or even other kinds of activities in the courseware such as a Forum or Wiki entry.

Once the students have completed the task, teachers can give Action-Oriented feedback and marks in the Offline Assignment, as for any other assignment. In this case, the students' work is not stored in the Assignment but the marks and the feedback are.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Adding the Assignment Activity

1. On your course, click the Turn editing on button.

2. In the topic where the link to the Assignment should appear, click on the Add an activity or resource link.

The Add a new activity or resource pop-up appears.

3. Select Assignment in the Activities tab.

The Add a new Assignment page appears.

4. In the General section, type the Assignment name that the learners will see.

5. Type a description of the assignment in the Description text box.

To read how to add a video to your instructions, see the Adding Video to an Assignment Description article.
To read how to add an audio recording to your instructions, see the Adding Audio to an Assignment Description article.

6. To display the description on the course home page, select Display description on course page.

(To keep the page less cluttered this is not recommended.)

7. Use the Additional files upload area to attach files that will be attached to the Assignment description, an answer template, or answer key for example.

Note the maximum file size in the top right corner. In tis example it is 2 GB.

Settings in the Availability section are used to control when the activity is available to students.

8. The Allow submissions form setting specifies the times and date the Add submissions button appears for the learners. From this point, learners can submit an assignment.

9. The Due date setting specifies the time and date that the assignment is due. Any submissions received after this date are marked as late.

Note: The Enable check box for both these lines is checked by default, meaning that students will not be able to submit their work before the dates. If it is disabled, students are able to submit an assignment right away.

10. The Cut-off date setting specifies the date after which assignments are no longer accepted. Any assignments submitted after this date are not accepted, except with an agreed-on extension.

11. The Always show description check box is enabled by default. If disabled, the Assignment description above will become visible to students only at the Allow submissions from date.

12. Settings in the Submission types section are used to indicate the submission types and the allowable number and size of accompanying files. There are four types. These are File submissions, Online Poodll and Online text.

If File submissions is selected, instructors can:

select the Maximum number of files that may be uploaded with the submission.
choose the Maximum submission size of each of these files.
select the Accepted file types that can be uploaded.

In this example, learners can submit up to 3 files that are smaller than 5 MB in PowerPoint and Microsoft Word format.

The Online PoodLL option allows students to record spoken words with the online recorder.

If Online Poodll is selected, instructors can:

select the PoodLL Rec. Type from Audio Recorder, Video Recorder, Whiteboard or Snapshot image.

If Audio Recorder is selected, instructors can select the PoodLL Rec. Time Limit for student recordings in seconds, minutes, days, weeks from the drop-down menu.

If any type of submission is selected, instructors can select the Current Submission to choose display options for the current submissions.

Note: These include Do not show, Show (minimized), Show (Expanded) and Show Always (minimize recorder).

Note: Setting the Active drop-down to No prevents learners from submitting additional recordings.

If Whiteboard is selected, instructors can select a PoodLL Whiteboard Background or set a PoodLL Whiteboard Size.

If Online text is selected, instructors can set a Word limit.

13. Settings in the Feedback types section are used to set the following options of leaving feedback: Feedback comments, Annotate PDF, Offline grading worksheet, Feedback files and Feedback PoodLL.

14. The Feedback comments setting is used to enable commenting such as traditional comments, uploaded files etc. for each submitted assignment.

If Feedback comments is selected, instructors can select to Comment inline to allow instructors to comment in the Feedback comment field when assessing assignment.

15. The Annotate PDF setting is used to provide feedback, marked up over the submitted document.

16. The Offline grading worksheet setting allows teachers to download a customized worksheet and grade and add feedback for each submission offline. Once they log back to their Avenue course, this spreadsheet can be uploaded to Moodle for the grades and feedback to be automatically updated in the Assignment and Gradebook.

Note: This feature is not available if advanced grading methods such as Rubrics or Marking Guides are used.

17. The Feedback files setting is used to enable feedback comments through a teacher created document.

18. The Feedback PoodLL setting is used to insert an online voice recorder for teachers to give feedback.

If Feedback PoodLL is selected, instructors can:

select a PoodLL Recorder type from: from Audio Recorder, Video Recorder, Whiteboard or Snapshot image;
set a PoodLL Whiteboard Size;
display a link to download feedback by selecting Yes in the Show download link drop-down.

Settings in the Submission settings section are used to set the options of finalizing of the submission, confirming the integrity of the students' work, and limiting the number of assignment submission times.

19. The Require students click submit button setting specifies whether the student submission is final or in draft on uploading. If Yes is clicked, students will have to click a Submit button to declare their submission as final, with no changes allowed. If No is clicked, assignments will stay in draft form on uploading, and students will be able to make changes to their assignments at any time.

20. The Require that students accept the submission statement setting specifies whether a student is required to accept the submission statement. If Yes is clicked, students are required to accept the submission statement (i.e. to declare that their submission is their own work). If No is clicked, accepting the submission statement is not required.

Note: No should be selected if the Require students to click submit button has also been set to No.

21. The Attempts reopened setting specifies if and how many times an Assignment is allowed to be reopened. If Never is clicked, a student submission cannot be reopened by a student. If Manually is clicked, a student submission can be opened by a teacher. If Automatically until pass is clicked, a student can reopen his/her submission until he/she achieves the minimum passing grade set out in the Grade book.

22. The Maximum attempts drop-down menu appears only when Manually or Automatically until pass is selected in the Attempts reopened drop-down menu.

Settings in the Group submission settings section are used to set the parameters for assignment submissions from students working in groups.

23. The Students submit in groups setting specifies whether students are required to participate in a group during the completion of the assignment and then submit it as a "group" assignment.

24. If No is selected, the Require all group members submit and Grouping for student groups drop-down menus are hidden. If Yes is selected, these drop-down menus appear. The Grouping for student groups menu has a default setting of None. Click the drop-down-menu to view and select available groupings.

Settings in the Notifications section are used to set up teacher notifications regarding the timing of assignment submissions.

25. The Notify graders about submissions setting specifies whether the teacher receives notification messages about assignment submissions. If Yes is clicked, the teacher receives a message whenever a student submits an assignment early, on time or late. If No is clicked, the teacher will not receive such messages.

26. From the Notify graders about late submissions drop-down menu, click Yes to enable receiving a message whenever a student submits an assignment late. Click No to disable receiving such messages.

Settings in the Grade section are used to configure various aspects of grading the submitted assignments.

27. The Grade setting determines how the assignment will be graded. If None is selected, only feedback will be provided. If Scale is selected, a student's submission will be evaluated against the chosen scale. If Point is selected, a maximum numeric grade must be set.

28. The Grading method setting specifies how the grading will be set up. If Simple direct grading (the default setting) is selected, the advanced grading method is disabled, and marks and summary feedback can be set up. If Marking guide is clicked, a comment and mark on each criterion is provided. If Rubric is clicked, marking according to pre-set criteria and levels can be set up, and an overall mark is generated at the end.

29. The Grade category setting shows categories or ways of grouping assignment grades. Uncategorised is the default setting.

30. The Grade to pass field allows teachers to set the minimum grade required to pass. This setting will affect how grades are displayed in the gradebook and are used for activity and course completion if set up.

31. The Blind marking setting hides the identities of students who have submitted assignments.

32. Use marking workflow can be used if teachers expect multiple rounds of marking and want to release marks to students only after final marking is done. If set to yes, marks will go through a series of workflow stages before being released to students.

33. Use marking allocation can be combined with the marking workflow to assign marks to students.

Settings in the Common module settings section are common to many Moodle activities and resources.

34. The Availability setting is used to Show/Hide the activity. This is identical to using the Show/Hide icons when the Turn editing on function is enabled on a course home page.

35. The ID Number setting sets an ID number for advanced use of the grade book. (This is not used in the LINC courseware.)

36. The Group mode setting enables the use of groups. (More information is available in the Organizing Learners Using Groups article.)

37. The Grouping option enables the use of groupings (a collection of groups).

Settings in the Restrict access section can be used to limit access to the activity. (More information is available in the Setting up and Using the Restrict Access Settings article.)

38. Click on the Add restriction... button to display the Add restriction pop-up.

39. Settings in the Activity completion section are used to set Completion tracking, grading options and the expected completion date. (More information is available in the Setting Up and Using Completion Tracking article.)

40. The Tags sections can be used to add keywords to the assignment.

Note: Tagging an activity will generate an artifact that is seamlessly added to the learners' ePortfolios. See Tagging Activities for Avenue.ca ePortfolio Auto-Collection for more information about tagging and the auto collection of artifacts for the learners' ePortfolios.

41. Click on the Save and return to course button to view the assignment from the course menu.

41. Click on the Save and display button to save view the Assignment screen.

Note: If you intend on using a rubric, you will see these options. It is recommended that you refer to the Assignment Rubrics from Scratch or Assignment Rubrics articles in this section. Do not select Create a new grading for from a template.

Video Resources

Assignment video

Resources

Moodle documents: Assignment module

Moodle documents: Assignment settings

Moodle documents: Using Assignment

Moodle documents: Assignment FAQ