Quick Fall Wrap-Up Checklist

• Finalize and release grades in Brightspace
• Submit your final grades to E-Grades
• Check for student extension deadlines or outstanding submissions (try quick eval)
• Disable Intelligent Agents to ensure they don’t continue to run once the course is over
• Unenroll additional people (like TAs) from your course

Quick Prep-For-Winter Checklist

• Copy or import your winter course shell(s): If you’re doing this for the first time, don’t be afraid to reach out for help
• Update due dates, release conditions and availability settings
• Review your syllabus for clarity, accessibility and AI guidance
• Set up your gradebook before the term begins
• Explore tools like H5P, Pressbooks and to refresh activities
• or if you’d like support planning ahead

Request a Classroom Orientation and Test Your Tech

Help ensure a smooth first day of class by testing your educational technology:

• Review your classroom ahead of the start of term and request a classroom orientation
• Sign in to Wooclap on the classroom computer and via PowerPoint (if using it)
• Launch a test Zoom meeting to verify functionality
• Try Kaltura Capture for recording lecture

Be sure to check out all our supported educational technology. If you’d like help with integrating these tools into your teaching and learning toolkit, reach out to us for support.

FeedbackFruits’ tool empowers instructors to allocate students to groups based on more practical or meaningful criteria—such as when they are available to meet or the strengths they bring to the project—by asking students to respond to a brief survey. Students can be grouped based on similarities or dissimilarities and each question can be weighted separately.

Instructors have noticed a few key benefits, including:

• Creating groups that are more balanced, whereby membership is intentional.
• Time is saved—no more manually organizing and setting up groups individually!
• Once the groups are created, they are synced to Brightspace and available to use in other Brightspace tools (e.g. Brightspace assignments, other FeedbackFruits activities).

Use Case Spotlight: Using the Group Formation Tool to Prepare for a Group Project

As part of a class project, your students need to work together in groups to outline, research, script, record and edit an audio assignment. To form groups that can work together effectively, you might set up a Group Formation survey with questions like this:

• “What day of the week are you available to meet with your group?”
  • For this question the answers would include the days of the week. You would group students similarly so that all the group members are available and ready to work on the same days.
• “How much experience do you have recording or editing audio?”
  • The answers to this question would include options like none, a small amount, a moderate amount or a lot. You may want to group students dissimilarly here, so that each group has a mix of students with different experience levels.
• “What skills and strengths do you bring to the team?”
  • Answers would include options like organization, writing, editing, communication or structure and planning. For this question you would group students dissimilarly, making sure that each group will have students with a range of strengths and skills.

By including questions aimed at both practical considerations and group dynamics, and then combining that with question weighting that prioritizes the most important factors, you can easily set up customized groups.

Some Practical Tips for Success with the Group Formation Tool

• Create your survey well ahead of the project start date and give students ample time to complete it.
• Make sure that the Group Formation activity closes with enough time for you to make any additional changes needed to the groups before the project commences.
• Group formation only works when students actually complete the survey. If students do not complete the survey, they end up being grouped with other non-responders. Let them know that this will happen and encourage students to fill out the survey so that they have the best chance at working with a compatible group.
• Keep your survey brief and purposeful. Surveys that are too long (i.e., more than five questions) can lead to survey fatigue and incomplete surveys.
• Cover key areas like availability, learning goals or collaboration preferences. This will help your group formation be powerful and deliberate without being overwhelming.

There are nine different FeedbackFruits activities available for you to explore, and all activities are focused on making student collaboration easier and scalable. You can add or create FeedbackFruits activities in Brightspace by clicking on the .

If you’d like help or want to learn more about how you can use FeedbackFruits in your course, reach out to Teaching and Learning Services via the .

We’ll highlight another use case next month!

The Interactive Video activity allows you to take videos you find online—or ones that you create yourself—and turn them into interactive activities by adding discussion prompts, multiple-choice questions or reflection cards along the video timeline. Instead of just watching a video, students can start conversations about what they’re experiencing, read what their peers think and reflect on the experience—all without having to leave the video.

Use Case: Using an Interactive Video as a Pre-Class Activity

Turn a video into a pre-class activity that helps prepare students for information or activities that will happen in class. Choose a video that will be applicable to your learners -it might summarize a topic, provide a different perspective or delve more deeply into one particular area. Once you have your video selected, create your FeedbackFruits Interactive Video, adding questions like:

• “This video looks more closely at the role of women in work in Victorian households. What changes when we examine an issue from someone else’s perspective? How will you include different perspectives in your midterm project?”
• “In class we briefly looked at the manufacturing sector, but this video examines it in detail. Find two points in the video that bring up topics you will need to address in your project. Flag them for your group by starting a conversation at those points.”
• “The content in this video is challenging, and introduces a lot of new terminology. We’ll address the terms and the content more thoroughly in class. But please start a conversation on at least one point in the video on something that is unclear to you.”

Once you have added all the questions and discussion prompts, it’s a great idea to give students early access so they have ample time to complete the activity ahead of class. You’ll also want to give yourself time to review their responses before class so you can prepare your activities or lectures to respond to—and expand on—the questions and conversations that come up in the video.

You can use this activity at any point in the semester to:

• Add supplemental information and provide room for free-form, ungraded discussions on extra material
• Turn recorded lectures into Interactive Videos, ultimately empowering students to ask questions in context (e.g. directly in the video at the specific point they are struggling with)
• Facilitate smaller, more focused, conversations by using Interactive Video’s group feature

Interactive Video is a flexible activity that can be applied to any subject at any level. No matter what you teach, it can add an interesting and interactive learning element to your course. If you’d like help using this activity in your class, or brainstorming ways it could work for you, reach out to us to .

Interactive Document allows you to upload a text or PDF file—such as your course syllabus—and embed discussion prompts, multiple-choice questions or reflection cards directly into the document. This transforms passive reading into active engagement.

Use Case: Syllabus Review

Start your course with intention by turning your syllabus into an interactive activity. Upload your syllabus and add question cards like, “What are the penalties for late submissions?” and “When and where are office hours held?” Students then respond individually or in discussion threads, helping to surface common misunderstandings and encourage proactive dialogue. You can even set requirements—like starting two discussions and replying to two peers—to support meaningful participation.

This activity isn’t limited to the start of term. Some instructors use the syllabus as a living document, allowing students to continue asking or answering questions throughout the course. Others revisit it at the end of the semester, prompting students to reflect on what changed, what could be clarified or what should be added next time.

Whether you use it for syllabus engagement, reading check-ins or policy discussions, Interactive Document helps build a transparent, collaborative learning environment from day one.

Discussion on Work: helps students reflect on and engage with each other’s submitted assignments through structured peer discussions. After uploading their work, students provide comments and participate in guided conversations—either anonymously or openly—fostering dialogue, critical thinking and collaborative learning. The tool supports constructive feedback, encourages diverse perspectives, and includes features like participation tracking, customizable prompts and optional reflection steps to deepen learning.

Discussion on Topic: Use to spark conversation around a course concept, prompt or issue—even when there’s no formal submission. Instructors post a discussion topic and students respond with thoughtful posts, reply to peers and upvote contributions to foster collaborative learning. The tool supports both individual and group discussions, offers anonymity options and includes a reflection step to deepen understanding. Ideal for warm-up questions, case studies, debates or low-stakes engagement, it promotes critical thinking, inclusivity and a sense of community.

Self-Assessment of Work: With , students evaluate their own assignments using instructor-defined criteria such as rubrics, guiding questions or open reflection prompts. This process fosters metacognition, builds critical thinking and encourages students to take ownership of their learning. The tool supports both individual and group assessments, offers customizable grading options, and can be used for a wide range of deliverables—from essays to presentations—making it ideal for reflective or developmental assignments.

We invite you to explore the full FeedbackFruits suite in Brightspace (via the ) and discover how it can support authentic, student-centred learning.

Interested in training? Check out the in-person on Aug. 26.

Already using one of these tools? We’d love to hear how it’s going! Reach out via the FeedbackFruits link in our .

Interactive Presentation: turns passive slide decks into dynamic learning experiences. Whether delivered synchronously in class or asynchronously online, instructors can add comprehension questions, polls and discussion prompts directly into their presentations. Students participate through their own devices, making it easy to check understanding in real time or foster reflection between sessions. This tool promotes active participation, even in large classes or fully online environments.

Interactive Video: allows you to embed questions, prompts and feedback directly into videos to enhance learner engagement. Students watch at their own pace, responding to check-ins or engaging in discussions as they go. Use it to flip your classroom, guide students through complex concepts or create a more structured video viewing experience. It’s a great way to turn passive watching into active learning.

Explore these tools today in Brightspace and see how they can support authentic, AI-resilient learning. Have you already implemented these tools in your courses? We’d love to hear from you! Reach out to us via the FeedbackFruits link in our .

Group Formation: Want to build better teams? helps instructors create student groups based on customizable criteria. Whether you’re organizing students by availability, learning goals, group dynamics, or other preferences, this tool ensures more intentional and transparent group creation. You can choose to form groups automatically or manually, based on survey responses or self-selected data, making it easier to set your students up for successful collaboration.

Group Member Evaluation: gives students the opportunity to assess their peers’ contributions within a group project. Students evaluate each group member (and optionally themselves) using open-ended feedback, Likert scales, or rubrics. This tool supports reflection, fosters accountability, and provides instructors with insight into group dynamics. You can also choose whether or not evaluations impact student grades.

Explore both tools today in Brightspace and see how they can support authentic, AI-resilient learning. Have you already implemented these tools in your courses? We’d love to hear from you! Reach out to us via the FeedbackFruits link in our .

Interested in using these tools to set your students up for successful teamwork by creating purposeful groups and fostering accountability through peer evaluation and reflection? Register for the held by Feedback Fruits.

Peer Review: The offers multiple feedback opportunities and enhances students critical thinking and writing skills. Students submit individual or group work, and then give and receive feedback from their peers on that work. The feedback is flexible; it can be in the form of open comments or guided by a rubric or scoring system. The learning process can be further extended by adding steps that allow students to reflect on the feedback they receive or to provide feedback on the feedback they were given by their peers. From the instructor side, this activity streamlines formative peer assessment. It can save instructors time in activity setup, document exchange, and feedback distribution, and is scalable to all class sizes.

Interactive Document: The enhances learner-to-content interaction and increases student engagement. In this activity, instructors add in-line questions and discussion points to documents, turning reading text into an interactive activity. Students answer the questions and pose questions of their own. Students can also start and participate in discussions with other students on areas that pique their interest—all within the document. This type of social annotation encourages close reading of the material and promotes a collaborative learning environment.

Explore both tools today in Brightspace and see how they can support authentic, AI-resilient learning. Have you already implemented these tools in your courses? We’d love to hear from you! Reach out to us via the FeedbackFruits link in our .