Assignments and Materials
There are many options in setting up an assignment within Schoology. While these may seem daunting at first, they are each important to make sure that both faculty and students can access the information we need reliably and efficiently.
Schoology's Assignments Quick Reference Card
Material Types
Students rely on Schoology as their primary resource for their upcoming due dates and homework obligations. Please create an entry in Schoology for any due-date student expectations, even if you plan on collecting the work physically or offline. See Schoology's Course Materials documentation for full details on each type; below are our UPrep-specific notes.
Assignments are the most flexible and commonly used type of Schoology material at UPrep.
Discussions are commonly used for peer-review assignments, where you want students to be able to see and comment upon each other's work.
Media Albums let students submit photos, video, or audio, with optional comments visible to the class. Useful for presentations, performances, or visual work that doesn't fit a written submission.
Quiz/Test questions are often used as formative checks, since they can be assigned to a specific date/time, or left open with a due date.
Schoology also supports External Tool (LTI), SCORM/web content, Page, File/Link, and Folder material types — Events (calendar-only entries with no submission or grade) are a separate calendar object, not a course material type. Adjacent features worth knowing about: Conditional Release, Individually Assign, Student Completion Rules, and Portfolios.
Submissions
By default, Schoology assumes that assignments will be submitted electronically. If you don't want students to submit this electronically (for example, there's a handout or worksheet), turn off Submissions — listed under "Assignment option details" alongside Count in Grade, Individually Assign, Copy to Courses, and PowerBuddy. Otherwise, Schoology will assume that the assignment is missing, and erroneously notify students that their work is missing. This has the unfortunate side effect of training students to ignore all missing assignment notifications, whether accurate or not.
Attaching Resources
Schoology allows you to attach links or supplemental files to an assignment. If there are files or websites which a student should use to complete an assignment, please attach them directly to the assignment so that students may easily find them. If the resource will be used beyond that assignment, for example throughout a unit or throughout the term, consider putting it in the most appropriate folder and leaving instructions on where students will find it.