Grade Exemptions in Brightspace 

Instructors now have a tool within Brightspace where they can clearly indicate why a student does not have a score for a grade item or an activity.  There are several reasons why a student may have a blank grade or a zero (0) which include an assignment not submitted, the instructor has not graded the item, or the student has failed the assignment.  Providing an exemption to your student for a grade item gives the instructor some flexibility to accommodate many different types of circumstances (I.e., illness, accommodation requirements, etc.). 

Instructors can provide exemptions to all the different types of grade items (I.e., numeric grades, selection box, pass / fail, etc.) however exemptions can’t be given to final calculated grades or final adjusted grades. 

Setting an exemption for a student: 

Exemptions can be set from several different content items, including a quiz, an activity, or a topic but also can be set directly from a grade item. 

Watch the following video for an overview of how to create a grade exemption or see the step-by-step process below: 

Set up Grade Exemptions for your Students: 

To set an exemption for a student from the Gradebook:  

1. Once logged into your course, navigate to My Tools and Grades 
2. Click on the context menu of the relevant grade item  
3. Select Enter Grades from the drop-down menu 
4. Click the checkbox next to the name of student you wish to exempt, then click Exempt and when you are ready, click Save and Close. 

You should now see the word “Exempt” under the Scheme heading in the table. It is also possible to set up multiple exemptions for your student 

To set an exemption for a student from the Content area: 

1. In Content, on the context menu of the activity, select Edit Properties In-Place. 
2. Click Add dates and restrictions…. 
3. Under Exemptions, click Manage Exemption.
4. Search for and select the students you want to exempt from the activity. 
5. Click Exempt. 
6. Click X to exit the Manage Exemptions page. 
7. Click Update to save the restrictions. 

Note: When activities are exempted, any associated release conditions on these exempted activities must still be met. 

Brightspace Updates 

Assignments:  

• Instructors who teach several courses can save time by copying assignment folders to other courses.  From your assignment folder, use the context menu to copy your assignment to another course. 

• Access new shortcuts to undo and redo PDF annotations on evaluations.  Previously, the only way to remove PDF annotations in Assignments was to use the eraser tool or delete the selection.  Now, an undo / redo button has been added for PDF annotations when evaluating in Assignments. 

Classlists: 

• Pronouns can now be viewed from the Classlist and by hovering over a learner’s name or profile in the submission views within the assignment area.
  

• If you have students in your course with Extended Time on Exams within their accommodation letter, you may now Edit Accommodations directly from your Classlist.  Using the context menu for the student with the Extended Time allotment, choose Edit Accommodations.  From there, you can adjust the timing to suit the accommodation letter.
  

Quizzes: 

• “Disable Right Click” will be retired as of August 2022 within the quizzes area of Brightspace courses.  As the web has developed and browsers have become more secure, browsers have reduced the ability for web sites to control end-user behaviour.  Students are now able to install extensions such as “Allow Right Click” or use the browser developer console to skirt any restrictions, so “Disable Right Click” feature in Brightspace gives you a false sense of security.  

• Save time and prevent data loss with the Restore Deleted Quizzes functionality.  This feature adds a new option in quizzes that allows instructors to restore deleted quizzes.  This option appears in the More Actions menu in the Quizzes tool.
  

In her latest book, Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology, Dr. Michelle D. Miller examines the role of memory and attention in how we teach and learn, and the impacts our devices have in our classrooms. The book will be discussed as part of a joint EdTech & TCDC book club.

Read a short excerpt of the book below and join in the weekly conversation this fall:

Bloom’s system is unapologetically hierarchical, which is why it’s often illustrated with a pyramid. And in this hierarchy of teaching and learning objectives, memory is squarely on the bottom. Whenever I look at Bloom’s Taxonomy, I’m reminded of the U.S. government’s food pyramid, where the bottom layer – remembering – corresponds to something like white flour, and the rest – synthesizing, evaluating, creating – lives up in the land of filet mignon, raw organic kale, and wild-caught Alaskan salmon. The implication here is clear – excellent teachers don’t spend their time in the bargain basement of learning, but concentrate instead on the good stuff up at the top.

That’s the first objection to emphasizing memory in our teaching. Here’s the other, more modern one: Now that we have so much information available on the internet, and can access so much of it any time, any place, it’s simply not necessary to commit things to our own individual memories. In this way, expecting students to be able to recall facts is about as up-to-date as the skills of the roving bards of ancient times, the fellows whose stock in trade was the ability to reel off memorized epic sagas to illiterate audiences in the time before books (and Netflix).

David Pogue sums up this idea in a piece titled “Smartphones Mean You Will No Longer Have to Memorize Facts,” speculating that “maybe we’ll soon conclude that memorizing facts is no longer part of the modern student’s task. 

The weekly online (Zoom) book club begins Tuesday, Sept. 20 (4:30-5:30pm) and runs until Oct. 25. Sign-up for the EdTech & TCDC Fall 2022 Book Club here.