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Graduation and Retention Network

CircleIn for Instructors

The CircleIn App is designed to be a student-led study community.  You, as the instructor, can choose how active you wish to be in the app. Courses with the most improved success rates have instructors who consistently promote the CircleIn App to their students to study together using the app, link CircleIn within Blackboard and who have incorporated participation points into their grading scale 

 

What’s CircleIn App (for students) and CircleIn Insights (for faculty)?

CircleIn has created two distinct software applications: CircleIn App and CircleIn Insights. 

  • CircleIn App is the core study app for students only. The app combines student-only chat communities and a place for students to create and share study tools with their classmates. At the end of each week, students can also provide feedback to instructors on what they’ve learned during the week. Read the CircleIn Student Welcome Guide to learn more about this student-facing app. 
    • Students can earn points when using the app and making substantive posts, called “study actions.” The more posts, the more points. Points can then be converted into gift cards.
    • At USC, students will be automatically added into CircleIn – all they will need to do is download the app. 
  • CircleIn Insights is the back-end administrative dashboard where you, as the instructor, can monitor student activity reports, review student-created study tools, and review student course feedback. You will be automatically added into this tool as are your students. 

Incorporate CircleIn into your courses.

You can jump right into planning for next semester by reading the CircleIn 5-Star implementation Plan and Resources Guide [pdf]. This implementation plan offers you suggestions to easily adopt CircleIn—in addition to links to valuable resources. Your level of interaction with CircleIn is up to you!  At a minimum, communicate with your students that CircleIn is available to them for free and encourage them to use it. 

CircleIn Sample Syllabus Statement

Print, post, and hand out CircleIn flyers:

 

These instructional strategies yield the most impact:

During the pilot, instructors found that these strategies helped to engage more students into using the app: 

  • Add CircleIn information to their syllabus & to Blackboard.
  • First day of class:  share instructions & encourage students to download the app in class.
  • Share the CircleIn QR code and URL on a slide the first day and week of class.  
  • Award participation points for substantive CircleIn study actions.
  • Ask your GA or SI Leader to reach out to students to sign up. Encourage them to communicate with students through the app.
  • Give students a few minutes at the end of class (at the end of week) to provide feedback through the CircleIn “exit ticket” app survey – then following up on what you learned during the next class period or through supplemental resources in Blackboard.
  • Consistently encourage them to use the app—including the AI Tutor feature!

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Research indicates that the more a student studies, the better they do academically. This gives them one more tool that they can use at any time that works best for them. It's critical that you promote the app in your classroom to support a successful learning outcome. If they don’t know about it, they can’t take advantage of this additional support. 

At the end of each week, students will be asked to provide their instructors with feedback through the app. This is compiled into a report that can be accessed through Insights and then downloaded into a spreadsheet.

Think of this as a weekly “Exit Ticket” to help you gauge student learning, communicate with many students at one time, and create an action cycle to address areas where students are struggling.  

Student Feedback Questions:  

  • What did you learn during the most recent lecture?
  • Is there anything you’re struggling with or need help with?
  • Do you have any questions you can’t find answers to or any unresolved needs in this class? 

When students interact with the CircleIn app, the instructor's Insights Dashboard (insights.circleinapp.com) will collect student activity for a variety of uses. The video above will show you the instructor perspective when using the CircleIn Insights Dashboard. 

The dashboard is automatically filled with your course offerings and enrolled students before the first day of class!

  • The dashboard is accessed through a separate login link from the CircleIn app for students. This allows you to observe student activity from the back end of CircleIn.
  • You may choose to request course feedback from your students through the Insights Dashboard—but your interaction is optional. 
  • Read the  Professor Insights Dashboard Guide PDF  for more details. 

Log in to the Insights Dashboard

Need help? Please email CircleIn for tech support, and all other questions may be emailed to USC Columbia or USC Upstate:

 

 

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