NYU Classes
Digital Learning
Environment
enables instructors to
use technology to enhance
their teaching with
a variety of tools
all in one platform.
In this video, I
will show you how
to access and
navigate your way
through NYU classes
as an instructor or
teaching assistant,
including a short
introduction
to the most common features
within a course site.
To get started, sign in to
NYU Home at "home.nyu.edu".
Select the academic tab,
and then scroll down
to select NYU classes.
You will be signed
in automatically.
Now you're in NYU
Classes Home.
On the far left vertical
menu, you will
find administrative tools
that are specific
to your NYU Classes account.
It's a good idea to
update your profile
with a photo to help
your students get
to know you and to
review your preferences
for receiving
notifications
about things going
on in your course sites.
On the top horizontal menu,
you will see
a list of tabs.
These are favorites, or
shortcuts, to
your course sites.
You can change
which courses
appear in this
menu by selecting
"My Sites", where
you'll see a list of
all your courses organized
by the semester.
Simply click the star icon
to add or remove a course
from your favorites. Then,
organize the list
of courses in
the next tab
"Organized Favorites".
If you are the lead
instructor for
a course scheduled to
run in the
upcoming semester,
you'll see a link
called  "Set Up Course
Sites" in this left-hand
navigation menu.
If you don't already see
your course site
in "My Sites",
follow the prompts in
"Setup Course Sites'"
to create the site.
Before we go into
a specific course site,
there's a few other
useful things to
cover about NYU
Classes Home.
In the center, you will
find information from
the NYU classes
service team,
including opportunities
for training and support.
On the right, you will
see important deadlines,
recent announcements,
messages, and
calendar entries from all
of your course sites.
Let's dive into
a course site by
selecting one of the tabs
at the top of NYU Classes.
As an instructor,
I can customize
my course site in a way
that enhances the student
learning experience
while helping me manage
the courses that I teach.
Every course site starts in
an unpublished
state indicated
by the banner displayed
along the top of that site.
This allows you to work on
your course site
behind the scenes.
Remember to click
the option to publish
your site when
you are ready
for your students
to engage with it.
Personally, I like to
upload my syllabus and
just a few resources
to help my students
get started.
And then I publish
my course site.
I make sure to
communicate to
my students that
the course site is
a work in progress, and to
check back regularly
for updates.
By clicking on "Settings" in
the left-hand course
navigation menu, I can
review the structure of
my site and make changes.
My students are
automatically
enrolled and I can see them
here in the list of
participants, as well as in
the "Roster" tool.
Let's review
the most important tabs in
the "Settings" menu
from left to right.
First, I'm going to
"Edit Site Information",
and I will update
the course site title
to a more meaningful,
memorable name.
Earlier, I edited
the site description
to add an image
and some brief
information to
orient and welcome my
students to the course.
You can update
this information through
the "Overview" tab in
your course as well.
In the next tab, "Add/
Edit Tools", I'm going to
make sure that I add
all the tools that
I want to use in
this course site and
remove those that
I won't need.
This will help me
and my students
focus on what's important.
Once I've selected
the tools that
I'd like to use, I can
rearrange the order through
the "Tool Order" tab
in the settings menu.
If I have a teaching
assistant to add
to my course site,
I will go to
the "Add Participants"
tab and
enter their net ID to
grant them access.
If I've used NYU Classes to
teach this course
before, I can
save time by copying or
importing content from
my previous site.
Simply follow the options
to merge content
in the "Import from Site Tab"
in the settings menu.
Now let's take
a brief look at
the main tools available
in NYU Classes,
and how each of
them can support
your course
administration as
well as student's learning.
For deeper dives on
these features, simply click
on the "Help for
this Tool" link
featured on each screen.
From there you can search
our comprehensive
database of
detailed,
step-by-step guides.
The first thing
I'll want to do
is go to the "Syllabus" tool.
Here, I will add
my syllabus . This way,
students can
regularly review
the course
structure, goals, and
learning outcomes, as well
as the
responsibilities that
I've outlined for them in
order to succeed
in this course.
The "Resources" tool enables
you to upload and organize
documents, such
as readings for
your course, as well
as website links.
It serves as a content
repository for your course.
The "Messages" and
"Announcements"
tools enable you to
easily communicate with
individual students, groups
and the entire class. Messages
are great for individual
check-ins with students,
whereas announcements
provide a quick way
to send updates to
my entire class.
To help my students stay on
track throughout
the semester,
I use the "Gradebook"
to display
all of my assignments
and graded work.
Each student
will be able to
view their own grade for
each component and
the valuable feedback
that I add as comments.
To collect, grade, and
returns student's work,
I use the "Assignments"
tool, which
can be integrated
with the "Gradebook".
To engage my students with
active learning between
live class sessions,
I use the "Forums" tool to
organize online
discussion topics,
where they can
ask questions and
share meaningful insights
about our course.
"Forums" also help to build
community, which plays
an important role in
student learning.
Moreover, student
discussions can
be graded and added
to my gradebook.
A few points to incentivize
these online conversations
can be highly
effective for
student engagement.
To create rich
assessments that
contain a mix of
question types,
such as short answer
and multiple choice,
I use the "Test
and Quizzes" tool.
Yep, these can be added to
my gradebook too. One
of my favorite features of
NYU Classes is "Lessons".
This tool enables
me to build
modular content so
that my students have
everything they need for
a given week or unit
of the course right at
their fingertips. Rather than
asking my students
to click on
the various links for
resources, assignments,
and other course
components,
"Lessons" lets me tie it all
together through
a few simple pages.
Refer to our lessons video
for a detailed example.
I hope this video
has given you
a few ideas for
how you might use
your own NYU
Classes course site
to streamline
your administration
and keep your students
engaged throughout
the semester.
Thanks for watching!
