Introduction

In this article we will walk you through how to use Discussion on Work from the perspective of a teacher.

If you’d like more information on how this tool works, you can check out the overview article here:

Discussion on Work: Overview

Tool In Action

Accessibility

We're devoted to making our tools as accessible as possible for all learners - to read more about accessibility in FeedbackFruits tools, check this article: Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools.

Overall Student Progress

When you open the assignment, you'll see an overview of the overall student progress. This section shows the total grade, the completion percentage for reading the instructions, and the progress of all available steps within the tool, including submission, peer discussions, open discussion, selecting valuable contributions, and reflections. It offers a clear summary of the learning activity's progress.

Fig. 1: Overall student progress

Fig. 2: Full screen analytics

To edit the activity, click on the three dots in the top-right corner of the screen.

Fig. 3: Edit button

It is also possible to export all the student data into an Excel file. This file contains information concerning student's submission, peer discussion, open discussion etc. You can download this export by clicking on Export Analytics button in the overall student progress window.

Step 1: Instructions

Instructions: Setting up

Here, you can write the instructions you want to provide to your students. If you'd like to include an audio, video, screen recording, or attach a file, simply click the add items icon to do so.

Fig. 4: Instruction: Setting up

Collaboration Options

Directly underneath the instructions, you can select options for student collaboration.

Fig. 5: Student collaboration options

Options for hand in:

Individually
As a group

Options for students discuss:

Individually. Students will individually get assigned to anyone.
Within groups. Students individually get assigned someone within their group. (Disabled if ‘as a group’ option for post is chosen).
Outside of their group. Students individually get assigned to someone, not in their group. (Disabled if ‘as a group’ option for post is chosen).
As a group. All members of a group get assigned the same work. (Disabled if ‘individually’ option for post is chosen).

This will allow for the following combinations:

Hand in work individually, discuss individually
Use this option if you want students to individually hand in their work and then be assigned to discuss the submissions of one or more random peers who have also handed in their work.
1. Use case: In a class of 20 students, each student is required to hand in 2 pieces of work. Each student is then assigned 2 submissions from other students to discuss.
Hand in work individually, discuss within groups
Use this option if you want students to individually submit their work and then participate in smaller group discussions to engage with their peers' submissions.
1. Use case: In a class of 20 students divided into 5 groups, each group is assigned a specific topic. Each student in the group individually submits their work. When discussing, each student engages with submissions within their group.
Hand in work individually, discuss outside of their groups
Use this option if you want students to individually submit their work and then be assigned to discuss the submissions of peers outside their group.
1. Use case: In a class of 4 groups with 5 students each, each group is assigned a specific topic. Each student creates and submits their own work individually. When discussing, each student is assigned submissions from students in different groups.
Hand in work as a group, discuss individually
Use this option if you want students to collaborate on a single group submission but participate individually in discussions with submissions from other groups.
1. Use case: Students work in 5 groups of 4 to collaboratively create and submit one group assignment. Each of the 20 students is then assigned to discuss submissions from other groups.
Hand in work as a group, discuss as a group
Use this option if you want students to collaborate on a group submission and then collectively discuss submissions from other groups as a team.
1. Use case: In a class of 5 groups with 4 students each, the group collaborates on one submission and hands it in. When discussing, the entire group works together to discuss a submission from another group.

For more information on configuring groups when using FeedbackFruits within Blackboard, Brightspace or Canvas, click here. If it's not possible to sync the groups within your LMS or if you are using the platform, you can find more information about how to create groups here.

Submission Options: Active Assignment

After saving the instructions in the setup, you'll be able to view how they appear to students in the active assignment.

Fig. 6: Instruction: Active assignment

Step 2: Submissions

Submissions: Setting Up

When creating your assignment, you can configure submission options for your students.

Fig. 7: Submissions: Setting up options

Required number of files to hand in: Set the amount of files that students are required to hand in. Note that students will not be assigned to a peer for review if they submit fewer files than required. The submission requirement can be set at exactly, minimum or between your chosen amount. Students can always hand in more files than required.

Scheduling deadlines: Set the hand-in deadline by which students must upload their work. Once this deadline passes, students will be assigned to peer discussions. If no deadline is set, peer discussions will be assigned once 2 students have submitted their work. Click here for an explanation of how peers are assigned. Keep in mind that not setting a deadline may result in uneven distribution of assignments, so it is recommended to avoid setting a deadline for live feedback sessions.

If a deadline for submission has been set for the students, you have the option to allow for students to hand in after the submission deadline has passed. Simply enable this option (as shown on the screenshot below), and students will be able to hand in after the submission deadline as well. Keep in mind that enabling this option will not affect the student analytics - you will still be able to see if students have submitted on time or not.

Fig. 8: Scheduling deadline

If a closing date is specified, you can also grant students an extension to make a post after the deadline. By selecting this option, you can specify which students will regain access to this step and assign them a new deadline of your choosing.

Additionally, you can also allow students to participate in the review process even if they haven’t submitted their own work by enabling this option. However, this would mean that some students will receive more reviews than others.

File requirements: Check the box next to the file type you want your students to hand in. Students will not be able to upload file types to you deselect. For an overview of which formats are supported for each file type, click here.

Note: Embedded audio and video in documents and slideshows cannot be played in FeedbackFruits.

Plagiarism check: If your institution has opted into our Turnitin integration, you can select here whether the check should be toggled on or off.

You can read more information here: Turnitin FAQ

Guiding students (optional): If you have specific hand-in instructions for your students (such as the desired font, line spacing, naming the file, etc.) fill them in here. Example: Please name your student number in the file-name. Upload both your essay and the slides you will use when presenting about your essay.

Submissions: Active Assignment

Once the assignment has been set up, this step provides an overview of the students' submitted work, and which students have not submitted their work.

Fig. 9: Submissions: Active assignment

The students' submissions can also be viewed in the assignment itself. By clicking on the file in the files handed in column in the row for the student's name, you can see which files they have submitted. Click on view to view the submitted work.

Note: If the student has submitted a video, you will see the video player instead of the document.

Fig. 10: Viewing the student's file

Step 3: Peer Discussion

Peer Discussion: Setting Up

Here, you can set the required number of peer submissions that students need to discuss.

Fig. 11: Peer discussion: Setting up

Grading Options: Enable this feature if you want participants to grade their assigned peers' submitted work using a 10-point scale.

Peer Discussion: Active Assignment

Step 3 of the active assignment allows you to track which students have been engaging with their peers' posts by reading, responding, and upvoting replies. By clicking the Go to the Discussion button, you can view the entire discussion thread for each student, along with replies from other peers.

Fig. 12: Peer discussion: Active Assignment

Additionally, the keyword insights feature will provide you with the most popular topics or words your students mention in a learning activity. This includes reviews, comments, and discussion threads. If you click on a word, you will see an overview of all the comments that contain this precise keyword. You can click on the comment and be driven to the precise context of the comment.

Fig. 13: Keywords

Finally, click on Full Screen to access the full analytics view for Step 3. Here, you'll get a comprehensive overview of each student's progress in this step, including their participation in discussions, total comments, comments received, upvotes received, upvotes on submissions, upvotes given, upvotes to submissions, and time spent on the discussion thread.

Fig. 14: Analytics full screen

Step 4: Open Discussion (optional)

Open Discussion: Setting Up

In this step, you can allow students to optionally contribute beyond the required discussions. Similar to the previous steps, you can also set a deadline and provide special instructions to guide students if needed.

However, please note that this step is optional. If you decide that student reflections are unnecessary, you can remove this step by clicking the X button in the top right corner.

Fig. 15: Open discussion: Setting up

Open Discussion: Active Assignment

In the active assignment, click Open Discussion to view each student's entire discussion thread, including replies from their peers.

Fig. 16: Open discussion: Active assignment

click on Full Screen to access the full analytics view for open discussion.

Fig. 17: Analytics full screen

Step 5: Valuable Contributions (optional)

Valuable Contributions: Setting Up

In this step, you can choose whether or not students should select the most valuable contribution. To add a valuable contributions step, scroll to the bottom of the assignment in edit mode and click the plus (+) button in the green circle to view the available learning steps to add.

Fig. 18: Plus sign

Then you can click add to the learning step you wish to add to your assignment.

Fig. 19: Add learning step

In the valuable contributions step, students can select what they consider the most valuable contributions to be graded by you as the teacher. Please note that they can only select comments made by their peers, not their own. You can specify the number of contributions students can submit by setting it to an exact number, a minimum, or a maximum based on your chosen amounts.

Fig. 20: Valuable contributions: Setting up

Valuable Contributions: Active Assignment

In the active assignment, click the Show button to view the contributions that have been selected as valuable.

Fig. 21: Valuable contributions: Active assignment

A star will appear on the right side of the comment if it has received a vote from a peer.

Fig. 22: Star mark

Step 6: Reflections (optional)

Reflections: Setting Up

When setting up the reflections step, you can specify the required length of the written reflection, with a minimum of 1 word and a maximum of 5000 words. You can also set a deadline for when students must complete their reflection and enable features like the Reflection Coach, which provides AI-powered, real-time feedback to help students improve their reflections. This option is available under the Guiding Students section.

However, please note that this step is also optional. If you decide that student reflections are unnecessary, you can remove this step by clicking the X button in the top right corner.

Fig. 23: Reflect on activity: Setting up

Reflections: Active Assignment

In this step, you can view an overview of all student-written reflections. Here, the teacher can view which groups and specific students have made progress in completing their reflections. Only the groups/students who have made progress on this step will be displayed, as shown in the image below. If the teacher wishes to read a specific student's reflection, they can click View next to the student's name to access it.

Clicking the View Reflections button will take you to the reflections playlist, allowing the teacher to easily browse through the entire list of student-written reflections.

Fig 24: Reflection: Active assignment

Step 7: Grading

Grading: Setting Up

Here, You can configure how many points you want to give to each process of the assignment and whether the grade should be published as a percentage or pass/fail.

Fig. 25: Grading: Setting up

By clicking configure, you can customize your grading criteria and toggle certain parameters on or off depending on the needs of the particular assignment you're setting up:

Fig 26: Configure grades

If you added the most valuable contributions step, you can click Configure next to it to set the point allocation for this step.

Fig. 27: Configure most valuable contributions grades

Fig. 28: Configure most valuable contributions grade allocations

Grading: Active Assignment

In this step, you have to access a comprehensive overview detailing the grades of each student within the system.

If the teacher has included grading in the settings, it will be visible after the last step. The image below shows what that will look like. By clicking on the arrow on the right or using the scroll bar at the bottom, the teacher can view the rest of the grade sections (from left to right). On the far right there is also an optional grade adjustment . This allows the teacher to add or subtract points for each student. Click on Fullscreen to get a better view.