Adam Bilsky
Updated :
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Overview
This article introduces the Work-to-Do page for advisors (this term is interchangeable in Foundry with 'teachers'). For the Student Work-to-Do page, click here.
When you log into Foundry in the Advisor role, you see the 'Work-to-Do' (WTD) page by default. The purpose of this view is to answer these questions:
- What have my students done recently that need a response from me?
- Which students need a friendly push of encouragement?
- How do I quickly check in work on the learning experiences I’m managing?
Contents
- Overview Video
- The Table: Overview
- Filtering for Focus
- Experience Actions
- Experience Components
- Tasks
- Learning Logs
- Journals
- Evidence Items
- Saved Items
Overview Video
The Table: Overview
The table is made up of two main sections: at left is a column of buttons displaying the total number of work items of a specific type from all the filtered* students.
Think of this page as a work "inbox." Students and work items will only appear here when you need to pay attention to them.
At right are your students in rows. The cells in each student's row tell the items of work they have submitted for you to review. Each column represents one type of work that can be done in Foundry - not just whole experiences, but their components as well: tasks, journals, learning logs, evidence uploads, and assessments (for schools using this feature) appear here.
These cells do not represent a total count of everything a student has completed (those appear on the Student table on the next tab). Similarly, the page does not show all your students - only those waiting for you to check work they have submitted.
If a student has not turned in any work for your review, or if you have finished reviewing all of a student's pending items, their name will not appear on the WTD table.
As you approve experiences to become 'active', for example, the numbers will decrease. Think "inbox zero" - the goal is to have nothing appearing in this table at all!
[*Note that the counts only change when groups are filtered - they do not change by using the text filter.]
Filtering for Focus
In the course of your work with multiple student groups, the amount of work your students produce can grow significantly even over just a week. To help you focus on what needs immediate attention, this dashboard is designed with efficiency in mind.
Group filter
To review and/or check in work for a single group, use the group filter at top right (highlighted below) first to select a single group. Notice how the names in the table and number of work items changes once you select a group:
Text filter
Alternately, you can type into the text field at left to filter students by name:
Experience Actions
This is the total number of current experiences awaiting your review: this means at least one student has requested an experience for approval or submitted an experience for evaluation.
In this Section:
- Requested Experiences and available actions:
- Approve
- Return to Student(s)
- Cancel
- Returned Experiences and available actions:
- Edit Plan
- Submitted Experiences and available actions:
- Return to Active
- Evaluate
- Cancel
Click the X Experience Actions button to open a pop-up listing each student and type of experience action needed. Experiences in various statuses appear here - those 'Requested' by students for your approval to begin work, 'Returned' to students for further development before you approve them, currently approved 'Active' experiences, and those 'Submitted' by students for you to evaluate.
Click the "+" before a student's name to view all experiences.
Requested Experiences and Actions
Below each experience name, small initialed circles indicate the other experience members.
Click the small down arrow to expand and view the selected student's experience plan exactly as it would appear if you opened the experience itself:
This gives you all the information you need to review the experience and take the appropriate action. Click 'Actions' to see the available actions you can take on a requested experience:
- Approve will change the experience status to 'Active' on the student's experience page and allow them to begin working on it.
- Return to Student(s) will change the status to 'Returned, meaning the student needs to improve the proposed experience before it is ready.
- Cancel will cancel the experience for all group members if confirmed. You will be prompted with these buttons:
Click the orange Cancel to stop the action and leave the experience as-is.
Click the green Cancel It to confirm the cancel. This will change its status to 'Canceled' and remove it from your students' Work-to-Do list. This does not delete the experience, however. You and your students can see it on the experiences page menu by clicking the 'Canceled' filter:
As the advisor, you can return a 'Canceled' experience to 'Active' status by selecting 'ReActivate' from the experience actions menu in the table:
Note: Students do not have the ability to reactivate canceled experiences.
Returned Experiences and Actions
Experiences you have marked 'Return to Student(s)' will appear here. In the current Foundry version, if you choose 'Edit Plan,' make changes, and then 'Save,' the experience will be approved and change to Active.
Submitted Experiences and Actions
As with requested experiences, you will see experience member icons, the down arrow to expand and view the experience plan, and available actions you can take -- these differ slightly from the requested experience menu:
- Return to Active will return the experience status to 'Active.' Choose this to alert your student that not all the work is complete and you will not evaluate it until it is resubmitted.
- Evaluate will open the evaluation screen. You can also evaluate from within the experience itself. In the experience page, all the work is aggregated for you to review at one time if needed before evaluating targets and/or skills, or assigning grades and credit.
- Cancel will open the 'Cancel' dialog box described above. Note: If a submitted experience has been partially evaluated (meaning an advisor has evaluated targets and/or awarded credit to any students), Foundry will not allow cancellation from this menu.
More Information
Read here to review how to evaluate an experience.
Read here to read more about how (and when) to cancel an experience.
The Embedded Chat feature allows more detailed conversations on particular aspects of experiences and their components (not including tasks). Read here for more detailed information about Embedded Chat.
Experience Components
Experiences can contain additional pieces, or components, that reflect on-the-way learning, not just the final product. These include Tasks, Learning Logs, Journals, and Evidence. Each can be managed through the Work-to-Do page as well as the overall Experiences to which they are attached.
Tasks
Any task that students mark as completed, or which is due or late, appears here.
Click on the task box to open a popup window containing all the tasks belonging to students in the advisory group, listed by student.
For more detail on the options for administration of tasks, please read our Tasks article.
Note that the tasks above have a target icon next to the checkbox. These indicate "goals" from the student's PLP page. Tasks associated with an experience will have an experience icon beside them.
The menu beside each task allows you to verify a task (with or without comment), edit, move (to a different experience), or delete it.
Alternately, you can select "Verify All" to mark all tasks as verified in a single action:
Verifying a task will remove it from your Work-to-Do page, and reduce the count in the appropriate table cell.
Learning Logs
As with experiences, you can see student logs, with the date, title, and log type displayed. Click the log title to expand and view the log contents:
From here, you can comment on the log by clicking any of the green dialog bubbles. Read here for more on using learning logs.
Journals
Click the box to open a popup window with a list of all pending journals, sorted by student.
Like logs, journals are listed by date, title, and type (ex: Check-in, Reflection Question, etc.)
You can expand the journal view to read in depth and leave comments where necessary. Read here for more detailed information about Embedded Chat.
The small down arrow at right offers the option to edit a particular journal, if necessary:
Use this only to edit a student's responses, if they cannot perform the function themselves. Use the chat feature to leave comments or questions.
Click the journal title again to collapse the journal. Read here for more information on using journals.
Evidence Items
As with logs and journals, reviewing evidence summaries and their attachments works in the same way:
You can post comments and questions on evidence as with experiences, logs, and journals. With many file types, you can see it right through the pop-up window by clicking the link. Another popup will display the item in the viewer. If the file type is not compatible with the viewer, it will download to your desktop.
Locking Evidence
If the evidence is for a final project or presentation, and you want to restrict any further changes to the evidence (ex: the due date for submitting has passed), click 'Lock' to prevent further changes:
This lets the student know you will be evaluating the last uploaded evidence.
Notes:
- File types: At this article's publish date, our engineers are working to make sure as many different file types can be opened in the viewer. Those that will not open in the viewer will download to your desktop where you can open and view them. Read here for more detail on what file types are compatible with Foundry.
- Google Drive: Schools that use Google Drive for storing student work can link documents and Drive folders as evidence, but the user must have permission to access and already be logged in to their Google account to view folders or docs through the viewer. At present, the viewer will not let you log into Google.
Read here for more information on using evidence.
Saved Items
Work you begin and save for later appears here as well:
Click "Edit Request" to continue working on the experience...
...or click "Delete Request" if you no longer need the experience.
Suggested Reading
| Note: Articles linked here under "Suggested Reading" are chosen by Foundry Support team members for their relevance and are updated as needed. The articles listed here may differ from those on the right side of the page, where the Knowledge Base AI lists "Related Articles." |
Experiences: Quick Creation Overview
Experiences: the Experiences page
Labels: dashboard, inbox, work-to-do_page,
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