With August upon us, many of you are already gearing up for the school year, while some of you are desperately hiding away from the mere mention of the words ‘back to school’.
Before you get too nostalgic mourning the loss of your summer, here are four quick Showbie tips to make going back to school a little less stressful and a lot more manageable!
1. Copy Classes Over
With Showbie’s Copy Class feature, you’re able to copy old classes — assignments and all shared folder items — to new classes! This is great if you’re teaching the same subject as the year prior and want to save time as you set up your lesson plans for this year.
Thankfully, due dates and students are not copied over, so you can tailor it to classroom and school year. You also have the ability to lock all assignments after copying your class in one go, saving you time from locking them one at a time.
2. Archive old Classes & Assignments
If you’re already a Showbie user, the best way to get back into school mode is to start fresh.
This is where the archiving feature comes in. Have an assignment you loved last year? Archive it! Think you might want to repurpose an old assignment and compare student work to see what did and didn’t work? You can also archive entire classes — assignments and classwork included — in just a few clicks. It’s a great way to de-clutter your Showbie.
Warning: while you have the ability to permanently delete classes and assignments, keep in mind that it’s irreversible. Archiving is a great way around this.
3. Start Thinking About Creating Groups
With our newly released Groups feature, you can easily streamline communication in your classroom and school.
Creating a ‘staff room’ communication group with your colleagues is a great way to set up for the start of the school year. You can share resources, plan events and get everyone ready for the school year ahead.
It’s also worth taking a moment to think of how creating Groups can help with your lesson planning — you can read here for some great ideas on how to do this.
4. Reduce Time by Reusing Assignments
If you have an assignment you know you want to bring over to this school year but don’t necessarily want to copy the entire class, you have the ability to quickly copy it over to your new class in a single click.
Our assignment copy feature allows you to copy the shared folder from one assignment (including any instructions or work files you’ve uploaded) into a new class. Want to change your instructions or upload/delete files? Simply lock your assignment once you’ve copied it and edit away.
5. Prepare Assignments & Lock Them
As many Showbie Pro users have discovered, having the ability to lock assignments is not only helpful for grading student work in batches, it’s also handy when it comes to planning assignments ahead of time.
Our Showbie Pro assignment lock feature allows teachers to start setting up assignments in classes without students being able to view them. You can begin uploading documents, adding instructions and planning ahead as much or as little as you’d like. It’s not procrastinator-proof, but it’s an easy step toward making the first week of school easier.
6. Look at Portfolio work
If your students were using Showbie last year and their teacher added items to their Portfolio, you can get an early glimpse at their work to help prepare you for differentiated learning in your classroom.
Having an idea of your students’ prior learning through the Portfolio feature not only helps you better prepare for starting your new classroom, it gives you an idea of how you can use the Portfolio feature in your new school year.
7. Always Ask for Help!
Lastly, if you ever have concerns or questions about using Showbie, make sure you contact our support team for help – our lines are always open, and we have many support articles that guide you through solving any issues you might have.
Have any other helpful tips for setting up Showbie for the new school year that we didn’t mention? Let us know on Twitter or in the comments section below.
