(22-03-2024) The new release update is scheduled for 2-3 pm CET and contains the following:
New releases
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New Group Formation tool
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Learning Analytics: Course exports
Pre-announcements
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New Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation Workflows
New releases
New Group Formation tool
We are excited to announce the launch of our latest DoTank development in collaboration with Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG): the new Group Formation tool.
Now teachers can make effective groups, automatically. Group Formation helps teachers easily create inclusive and well-balanced groups, aiming to enhancing group dynamics, learning outcomes, student satisfaction, and engagement.
As well, Group Formation helps to form equitable groups, preventing student alienation, and thus supporting further inclusivity. DEI departments are able to create templates, and provide teachers with a starting point to ensure more equitable and inclusive group projects.
How does it work: Group Formation simplifies and enhances group formation by leveraging strategic algorithms. Teachers set up a survey for their students, and depending on the goals of the teacher per question, students will get grouped with peers who answered similarly or differently than them. In result, this will allow for better compatibility, but also create groups in which students can complement and learn from each others’ skills. Read more about the algorithm here.
The groups created in Group Formation Tool aren’t only usable in FeedbackFruits tools. In the near future, teachers will be able to automatically publish those groups into their LMS and use them for all other assignments. This process differs per LMS:
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Canvas/Instructure and D2L/Brightspace: teachers can easily import the formed groups by clicking on the button Publish to LMS. Please note that after publishing the groups to the LMS, it won't be possible to modify them via FeedbackFruits anymore. It is possible to edit them via the LMS.
This functionality will require an update to the integration scopes. For group synchronization with Canvas/Instructure and D2L/Brightspace, please ask your FeedbackFruits contact person for more information about the integration and its availability. -
Blackboard, Moodle, Teams and other LMS: teachers can download an export with all the groups in the Overall students progress dashboard. This export can be imported to their LMS groups. Each LMS has unique export specifications. Therefore, please adjust the download export to align with the requirements of your LMS to ensure a successful import.
To know more about how to use this tool, please check the following articles:
Why we made this: Developed to address the time-consuming and often ineffective process of forming student groups, this tool offers a streamlined solution for educators seeking to optimize collaborative learning environments, while promoting inclusive and well-balanced groups, and enhancing learning outcomes, student satisfaction, and engagement.
Availability: This tool will be available for Toolsuite Partners, and its integration varies per LMS. If you or your institution are interested, please contact your FeedbackFruits Pilot and Partner Success Manager or your main FeedbackFruits contact person to discuss further your integration and toolsuite options.
Learning Analytics: Course exports
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our Learning Analytics solution. This innovative solution is designed to empower data-driven individuals in the education sector by providing comprehensive insights into student achievement and engagement.
What are Learning Analytics? Learning Analytics appear in a new space within FeedbackFruits platform: Insights. Here, teachers and learning designers can inspect and showcase evidence in feedback and assessment with FeedbackFruits data to improve teaching quality and student experience. Furthermore, it also promotes evidence-based learning design, and supports data-informed teaching interventions for students at risk. These benefits ultimately lead to an enhancement in student outcomes and retention.
Different parts of Learning Analytics will become available in the upcoming releases, the first release being: Course exports. In the future, you can expect cohort or program exports, and student engagement data.
Our Course exports feature streamlines the process of accessing and exporting student data on feedback ratings for each course. It consolidates data from various FeedbackFruits activities into a single export, saving time on data management and merging. Institutions can now seamlessly integrate this raw data into their existing institutional data infrastructures for comprehensive analysis and insights.
Why we made this: Our Learning Analytics solution simplifies the process of assessing student progress and activity effectiveness. It provides clear insights for educators to track student development, identify at-risk students, and analyze data effortlessly. By integrating FeedbackFruits data, educators can optimize teaching strategies more effectively.
Availability: For now, this feature is released as Feature Flag and only available upon request for Toolsuite Partners. If you or your institution are interested, please contact your FeedbackFruits Pilot and Partner Success Manager or your main FeedbackFruits contact person.
Pre-announcements
New Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation workflows
As part of our ongoing commitment to enhance pedagogy, learning design, and learning activity management, we are continuously refining our tools to better serve your needs.
We're pleased to announce that we're gearing up to release new workflow iterations for our feedback tools. Building upon the success of our recent updates to Skill Review and Assignment Review, we're now turning our focus to Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation.
Our primary goal is to provide an intuitive and seamless interactive experience, empowering users to deliver high-quality feedback effortlessly. The upcoming review workflows will streamline the feedback-giving process, featuring a refined interface, improving usability while maintaining familiarity.
Peer Review, scroll-down overview with submissions and criteria to
evaluate on per student
Peer Review, providing in-line feedback
Group Member Evaluation, providing feedback on a
Rubric, Scale-rating and Comment criterion
Group Member Evaluation, comparative view amongst all given reviews
Group Member Evaluation, student reading received reviews
Excited to learn more? Stayed tuned, we will be releasing more information soon to all newsletter subscribers, and Pilots and Partners. As well, please don't hesitate to reach out to your FeedbackFruits Pilot and Partner Success Manager or your main point of contact at FeedbackFruits.
Availability:
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From April 19th until June 14th:
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All newly created assignments will have the new version of Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation.
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When using 'Copy from existing', assignments will still have the old review flow.
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From June 14th onwards:
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All Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation assignments, both newly created and 'Copy from existing' will be generated with the new review flow.
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It won't be possible to revert to the old flow any longer.
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Do you want to be the first one to know all about our newest features? Subscribe to our Release Notes Newsletter here. Feel free to share the form amongst your curious, innovative peers who also want to unlock the power of pedagogy.