A Day in the Life of Avery–a Student

Meet Avery, a ninth grade student.

Avery wants to do the best that she can in school and achieve good grades so she will be ready for her next steps. Her top priorities at school include:

• Being able to finish all her homework
• Knowing how she’s doing in her courses
• Using technology at school the way she does outside school—on her mobile device and with videos and social connections
• Getting good grades
• Feeling prepared for her next steps with college and career

Between school, sports, and her social life, Avery has a lot going on. Let’s look at her day and how she uses the Brightspace platform to help achieve these goals.

First thing: Find out what’s coming up

The first thing that Avery does in the morning is check her phone at home while having breakfast.

• With a visual to show upcoming activities, she can use the Brightspace Pulse app to plan her week. She’ll be out next week for a sports tournament, so she wants to be on top of everything before she goes.
  • She can track upcoming assignments, access course content online or offline, submit a discussion post, take a quiz, access grades, or view the course Activity Feed.
  • It’s easy to stay up to date with app notifications for new content and upcoming due dates, an Activity Feed of course announcements, and active discussions that she’s following.

Midmorning: Stay motivated with game-based learning

Avery goes to her Math class, but the teacher is out sick today. The substitute teacher has the class log in to the Brightspace platform. The regular teacher had already recorded a video to go over the lesson. After watching the recording there is a game for Avery to work through as she tests her knowledge—progressing through the game map as she completes different activities. Her other classmates are working through it as well and they enjoy the friendly competition.

Late morning: Review content for her Science course

Avery has a spare period before lunch and uses her time to review the content for her Science course. They have an upcoming lab and she wants to be prepared.

• She wants to check out the latest updates for the course. She looks at the Activity Feed on the course homepage and sees a note from her teacher about an upcoming field trip. She has a couple of questions but looks at the comments on the post first. It looks like others had the same questions and the answers are already there.
• She watches a video that her teacher recorded and gets a look at what they’ll be doing in the lab next week. She finds this really comforting as she likes to know what to expect.
• She does a prep quiz to test her understanding of the course and aces it! She’s pleased to get a badge for her achievement and posts it to her social media so that others can see.
• The next unit is automatically released to her and she can keep working ahead. She’s eager to get ahead since she will be out next week. She doesn’t want to be stressed out during the big game!

Noon: Check out that grade!

Avery sees a notification on her phone that a new grade is available. She swipes to reveal the grade and sees that she got an A+! She looks at the feedback from the teacher. The teacher provided a rubric, and she can see exactly what she did to earn that A+. She’s confident that she can get more A+’s in the future.

Late afternoon: Power through homework

After school Avery works on her homework.

• The unit she is working on is set up as a game where she can progress through a gameboard as she completes activities. This barely feels like homework!
• After that is complete, she works on her latest assignment. She remembers something from their last lecture that she wants to mention in her assignment, so she pulls up the recording of the lecture on Brightspace to find what she needs.
• She needs to head to an after-school activity. She has half an hour in the car and uses it to finish her homework. She’s pleased that the experience in Brightspace is the same on her mobile phone as it is on her computer at home.
• When she is done with her assignment, she uploads it to Brightspace and submits it. She’s excited to see what her teacher thinks. She always gets feedback quickly.

Dinnertime: Talk about school with her parents

Avery’s parents have Brightspace for Parents and have already seen the A+ that she achieved today. They congratulate her and talk about what she enjoyed the most about the assignment. Her parents had seen her upcoming assignments in Brightspace for Parents and they have a great chat about what she’s planning for those assignments. It’s an interesting discussion that leaves Avery feeling energized about school.