Chalkface Blog

Some of these updates, particularly those relating to due dates, are tripping up both teachers and students at the moment. So, please, take note!

1. Due dates are real! Many students are not used to the idea that work really does have to be handed in when you say it does. Assignments are locked after the due date; please make your students aware of that! The default due date is 7 days from the assignment date, but you can change it to anything up to a whole term ahead.
2. Only stuff that needs to be done is in the to-do list. Students’ to-do lists now show only work that is current, sorted by due date with the most urgent items at the top. Completed or out-of-date items are moved to their Archive. Students can manually archive or unarchive any item at any time.
3. Old, undated, assignments now have due dates. Work set some time ago was cluttering up students’ to-do lists, so we added due dates of [assignment date + 100 days]. For a few users of ePortfolios, this turned out to be too aggressive and live tasks got locked and archived. You can easily re-date those assignments; see below.
4. Edit due dates at any time. Select ‘Edit’ from the Action dropdown in the Assignments list.
5. Allow extra quiz attempts. If students lose quiz attempts due to system crashes etc, you can allow additional attempts. As above, use ‘Edit’ from the Action dropdown. You will only see the additional controls for students who have somehow lost attempts.
6. Quickly duplicate an assignment. If you regularly re-set the same assignment, or set the same assignment to multiple student sets, you can now do it in two clicks from the Assignments Page. Choose ‘Assign Again’ from the Action dropdown.
7. Progress charts screencast. Teachers who use the Progress Charts love them; here’s the 4-minute guide to how they work.

People (including your students) fall into broadly two groups

• those who like to get stuff out of the way as soon as possible
• those who leave things until the last minute.

There is a third group of people who do things in an orderly, scheduled manner, but it’s very small.

What proportion of your students is in each group? My guess is that the second group accounts for more than half.

The do-it-nowers will complete your Yacapaca assignments as soon as they appear in their to-do lists. Hooray! They are sorted, unless you overwhelm them with too much work.

The last-minuters will do it the night before it’s due. So what happens if you set some work with no date, or a date far in the future? They won’t do it at all. Set a few of these, and those students will come to see Yacapaca as something they are supposed to ignore, and your confidence, in turn, will be knocked.

My advice is to set no more than 1-3 quizzes or one written task at a time, with a short deadline. The Yacapaca default is a week, but make it shorter if you can. If you want to line stuff up ahead of time, set start dates as well, so there is still only a short window during which students know they must complete the work.

This is another place teams can be really useful. Make team success meaningful by offering praise and prizes for the winning team. Slackers will then come under peer pressure to complete, as their personal results affect their team’s chances of winning.

Combine these two techniques and I guarantee your completion rate (and your students’ results) will rise.