Schoology: best practices

What if we designed them to be a

What if we reimagined our learning

spaces?

blended learning experience?

colla

bora

tive

if we think about using Schoology pedagogically…

? What

not just administratively?

Best Practice #1

Name all courses with the following convention:

Elementary-Last Name, Grade Level, Content Area

Secondary-Last Name, Course Name

Best Practice #2Each course has a Course Name and a Section Name. This naming convention allows you to create multiple sections for the same course.

If your school uses class periods, you may also use a course/section structure like the following example:

Course Name: English 101Section Name: Period 1Section Name: Period 2

We recommend that you separate different class rosters into their own sections. If a group of students meet during Section 1, for example, you should consider creating another section for the group of students that meet at another time (Section 2).

Instead of creating separate courses... create sections.

Best Practice #3

Students need to understand how your mind works.

Organize your course.

Everyone should set their course to land on the Update Page. The Update Page is where you designate the Updates feed as the course landing page. In other words, Updates are the first thing anyone sees every time they navigate to your course. This puts emphasis on communication and encourages community.

First Things First: The Update Page

Some educators prefer to segment their courses by block or unit rather than chronology. If you would eventually like to move to a chronological model, this is a great first step to get a feel for the timing of your lessons. It can also help students conceptualize their lessons individually and in the bigger picture.

Organize By: Block

This approach refers to courses where the materials are organized in chronological order. The folders are labeled by week, month, quarter, etc. and help to organize the flow of the course for you and your students. Schoology also enables you to easily Publish/Unpublish individual materials or even Hide/Show entire folders (using the Availability function) so your students know exactly where to go every time.

Organize By: The Chronos Plan

Probably most applicable for educators at the elementary level, the multi-subject approach organizes everything by subject. Organizing your course in this fashion can streamline the navigation for your students and provide you an easy way to practice different instructional methods and track how your students respond.

For instance, the mathematics folder may contain more frequent assessments where as science contains more discussions and group-projects.

Organize By: The Multi-Subject Approach

Using modules is a great way to include the “student completion” feature in Schoology.

Organize By: Modules

Creating courses by weeks, provides students with an organized list of scheduled tasks to maximize meaningful learning experiences beyond the scheduled class time.

Organize By: The Week

Best Practice #4

De-clutter the learning space.

Hide this!

Best Practice #5

Use Schoology as a Learning Launchpad.

When students enter the classroom in the morning, they log into Schoology where they find an agenda for the day. They are immediately launched into interactive, rich learning tasks to start their day. The task might be a formative assessment to gauge understanding before starting a lesson. It might be a discussion. Or perhaps a video as an anticipatory set.

Best Practice #6

All assignments need to show up on the calendar. There are two ways to make that happen:

Way #1-By selecting “Add Materials” and using the “Add Assignment”.

Way #2-Creating an Event.

Do NOT just list assignments on a page…it will not show up on the calendar.

All calendar events are color-coded for easy recognition - course events are orange, group events are green, and personal events are blue.

Other LMS Best Practices to Support Learning

Course offers ample opportunities for interaction and communication student to student, student to instructor and student to content..

Learning Objectives & directions for online activities are clearly articulated.

Course provides a variety of learning objects, including visual (i.e. image, video), textual (i.e. articles), kinesthetic (interactive site) and or auditory activities (i.e. podcasts) to enhance student learning, accessibility, and accommodate different learning styles.

Course uses a variety of technology tools to appropriately facilitate communication and learning.

Student voice and choice are incorporated throughout the LMS to enhance student learning, and interactively engage students.

Instructional Design & Delivery

Other Best Practices to Power Up Your LMS

Course has multiple timely and appropriate activities to assess student readiness for course content and mode of delivery (pre-assessment).

Ongoing multiple assessment strategies are used to measure content knowledge, attitudes, and skills (formative assessment).

Course content and LMS features support summative assessment (tests, projects, essay, portfolio, presentation, performance, etc.).

Self- reflection, and peer and teacher feedback opportunities exist throughout the course.  

*Adapted from The Rubric for Online Instruction by California State University

Assessment & Evaluation of Student Learning

And Another Thing (or Two)…What if our courses...

had visual appeal?Embedded Google FormAn Interactive Syllabus

were seen as a teaching tool  vs. a static web page?

Multiple Pathways- to better meet individual needs

individually assign course materialsstudent-completionsupporting each student

Robust ContentWhy Create Your Own Content?Why You Should Add Video to Your Teaching

encouraged Deep & Meaningful Conversations?

Discussion Board Assignments15 Tips for Facilitating DiscussionsCreating Awesome Online DiscussionsOther awesome resources

Groups-can be a vehicle for interaction