Instructor Guide
Tips: Assignments, Quizzes, & Simulation Exercises
Editing an Activity After Student Attempt
Note: Assignments, Quizzes, Simulations, and Simulation Exercises will often be referred to as an Activity within Physics LE.
Once a student attempts an assignment or quiz you can no longer add or remove problems. However, settings on the Settings: Assignment/Quiz/Simulation page can still be edited. A student who is in the middle of an attempt will not see any setting changes until their next attempt.
NOTE: For assignments and quizzes which have been attempted by students, problems can be added or removed in the future after your course is reset at the end of the semester or end of the school year.
Reviewing Student Answers to Activities
For assignments, quizzes, and simulation exercises you can review student responses to individual problems & questions and edit the score received by a student on an individual problem or question. This can be done in the Gradebook and also on the Student Results page. (See the Instructor Guide Gradebook and Summary Statistics and Student Results.)
Setting a Due Date for an Activity
A due date, or close date, can be set for an Activity, after which time students are no longer allowed to submit the Activity.
Go to the Course page and click on the Activity you wish to set a due date.
Click on Activity Menu in the upper right corner and select Edit Settings.
On the Settings: Assignment/Quiz/Simulation page, click on Timing to show the options.
(This is the first page you see when creating a new assignment, quiz, or simulation exercise.)Enter the due date in the Close the Activity field being sure Enable is checked.
In the field When time expires or close date has passed, the recommended setting is In-progress Activities are submitted automatically. This setting will automatically submit in-progress Activities when time expires, even if the student is logged out. Work which has been completed will be scored and recorded in the gradebook.
When finished click the Save and return to Course page button at the bottom of the page.
NOTE: The due date, or close date, for an Activity can be changed at any time. Extending a due date is best done prior to the time of the close date. Once the close date passes, in-progress attempts will be automatically submitted closing out the attempt (this is the recommended setting above). This may make it necessary to allow an additional attempt using Attempts allowed for Activity (Settings: Assignment/Quiz/Simulation page > Grade > Attempts allowed for Activity).
Changing the Due Date for Individual Students or Course Sections
The due date, or close date, for an Activity can be changed for individually selected students or course sections. This allows you to extend the due date on a closed Activity, and set any desired due date for individually selected students or selected course sections.
Steps to changing a due date for individually selected students:
On the Course page click on the Activity for which the due date should be changed for an individual student.
Click on Activity Menu in the upper right corner and select Student overrides.
Click the Add student override button.
In the Override student drop-down menu, select the student for which the due date should be changed.
(Optional) In the Require password field, enter a password that the student will be required to input in order to access the activity.
Enter the new due date in the Close the Activity field being sure Enable is checked.
The Attempts allowed for Activity option corresponds to the total number of attempts the student is allowed to have for the Activity, including any attempts that may have occurred prior to the override. For example, if you want the student to have one more attempt and they already attempted it once, you must change the Attempts allowed for Activity to 2.
At the bottom of the page click Save.
If you wish to make an override for an entire course section, the procedure is similar to that outlined above. Simply select Group overrides from the Activity Menu after clicking on the Activity on the Course page.
Handling Late Work
Physics LE does not have a feature to automatically penalize students for late work. However, there are a number of ways to handle late work.
Option 1: Extend the close date for a specific student, or groups of students (see above section), and manually penalize the score in the Physics LE gradebook. To manually penalize a student’s score, click the Turn Editing On button in the upper-right corner of the Physics LE gradebook and enter a new score for the student’s Activity.
Option 2: Re-open the Activity after the close date and assign a reduced point value to the re-opened Activity. The Activity can be re-opened by entering a new close date on the Settings: Assignment/Quiz/Simulation page. You can enter a reduced point value for the Activity on the View/Add Problems & Simulations page in the Scaled total points field.
Option 3: Do not use a close date and simply review the students submission times to manually penalize late submissions. (With no close date displayed by the system, the due date can be stated in the Activity title or description.) You can check which attempts were submitted past the due date on the Student Results page, accessed by clicking on the Activity name at the top of the Physics LE gradebook. In the Student Results table, click the Completed column header to sort the table chronologically based on completion (submission) time. This makes it easy to identify students who submitted the Activity after the due date. You can then manually penalize the student's score in the Physics LE gradebook.
Allowing Additional Attempts for Individual Students
The procedure outlined above can be used to allow additional Activity attempts for individual students. Simply change the value for Attempts allowed for Activity. Remember, this setting corresponds to the total number of attempts the student is allowed to have for the Activity, including any attempts that may have occurred prior to the override.
Hiding Activities from Student View
Existing assignments, quizzes, and simulation exercises can be hidden from student view on the Course page. Also, entire Topics (Units) can be hidden from student view. This can be useful when you have a large collection of existing Activities from a prior time period and wish to make the student Course page more manageable, and more focused, on only the current material. (You can also hide Activities in the Gradebook, see the Instructor Guide Gradebook.)
On the Course page click the Turn Editing On button which will give you access to the Edit menu appearing to the right of each Activity, or Topic section. Select Hide from this menu to hide the associated item. The instructor view will show the item as grayed-out along with the text Hidden from students. The student view will show none of the hidden items nor any text, the hidden items will be completely gone along with the space they occupied. To make the items visible select the option Show from the Edit menu.
Viewing the Course Page as it Appears to Your Students
You can see the Course page as it appears to your students by selecting Switch view to… from the User Menu in the upper right corner of the screen. In the page that opens select Student. This feature is particularly useful for seeing how the Course page and Gradebook appear to your students. When finished select Return to normal view from the User Menu.
Universally Changing the Points for a Problem in an Activity
The points assigned to an individual problem in an assignment or quiz can be changed at any time. This may be needed should you decide a particular problem was more difficult than originally anticipated and wish to change its point value to zero, or some reduced value, in order to diminish its weight on the total score. This can be done on the View/Add Problems & Simulations page (Course page > click on selected Activity > Activity Menu > View/Add Problems & Simulations). Click the pencil icon to the right of the problem to input a new point value then press Enter on your keyboard. Student grades will be immediately updated.
Renaming an Activity
You can rename an assignment, quiz, or simulation exercise at any time. Renaming an Activity is often done when the due date is included in the name and needs to be changed. The most convenient way to do this is to click the Turn Editing On button on the Course page, then click the pencil icon appearing next to the Activity. Edit the name then press Enter on your keyboard when done.
Student Exiting Activity Mid-attempt
When working on an assignment, quiz, or simulation exercise, students can log off at any time from their Physics LE account and their submitted work will be automatically saved. Students can log in at a later time to pick up where they left off. Note that if an answer is entered in an input field but the Submit Answer button is not clicked by the student, that answer will not be saved.
If a time limit is put on the Activity, once started the time continues to count down regardless if the student navigates away, or logs off, from Physics LE.
