Using Brightspace to customize elearning to the learners

At Centennial College, they see a huge range of students, and with them comes a huge range of learning styles. Each student comes into their programs with a unique background and skillset, which will inform how they learn in their new environment.

Their shift to using Brightspace for a larger part of their curriculum can help the teachers enable their learners to customize their elearning experience.

One of the ways Brightspace allows a learner to take control of their learning is through the use of release conditions. Release conditions provide the teacher with the means to gate their materials (content, assignments, discussions, quizzes, announcements, and more) until a student has completed (or not completed) a certain action in the system. Those actions generally include viewing a piece of learning before the next one becomes available, being enrolled in a specific group before being able to see the content, and completing an activity or assessment before unlocking another piece of elearning.

These release conditions can help a teacher build custom learning paths for students with different skill levels. Students who need more help or accommodation can be guided differently or work at a different pace from learners who may already know the content or just work more quickly.

There are also two tools that are based on the use of release conditions. Awards is one of them. This tool can be used to gamify the learning experience by adding badges and certificates to promote competition and share achievements, or to create an actual game by turning your content into a “choose-your-own-adventure” story or puzzle game that unlocks clues as your learners “solve” the content.

The intelligence agent tool is invaluable for teachers to save time and monitor learners who may be falling behind. This can be used to create automated emails that will be sent when certain conditions are met or not met, for example, a check-in with learners who haven’t accessed a course in a set number of days, or offering support to learners who haven’t achieved a minimum score on an assessment.

Brightspace can help teachers recognize and respect diverse ways of learning in order to meet learners where they currently are and provide a variety of accommodations where necessary.