Wit & Wisdom in Sync - Student Handouts

You and your students may have noticed that some of the digital format student handouts are fillable (with the blue or gray fill-in spaces) while others are not. You can see which handouts are fillable by scanning for blue or gray fillable spaces when you look at the handout in the teacher preview.

Handouts are fillable only when they require that students write a response. Handouts are not fillable when they contain supplementary texts or other information students simply read or annotate. Those that students must complete by drawing, cutting, or gluing are also not fillable. Handouts not requiring students to write text-based responses are static because students either use the handouts as they are online (reading supplementary texts) or complete them offline by hand (drawing, cutting, etc.).  

Students can download handout files and save them. They can also print them if they have access to a printer. If your school has purchased print Student Editions, students can get the handouts from them. If not, the teacher can print handouts and organize them in the packets of assignments students pick up from school during materials distribution times.

When handouts require cutting or gluing, Great Minds® teachers offer students who are unable to print these handouts an alternate way to complete the assignment. For example, if a lesson calls for students to cut out and order pictures to show a sequence of events in a text, the Great Minds teacher might tell the student to draw simple pictures to show that sequence.

When handouts require annotation, classroom teachers might direct their students to print the handouts. Or teachers might instruct students to use digital annotation tools such as sticky note applications, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Kami, Hypothesis, or NowComment.

The Wit & Wisdom® user experience currently calls for the PDFs to be downloaded and saved for students to complete and then submit following the teacher's or school's guidelines, by phone, learning management system, email, photo, or other process. When students download and save their work, their work will not be affected if the system logs them off because of inactivity. If students do not download but simply type into the PDF handouts in the Wit & Wisdom in Sync™ platform, their work will not be saved. For more on how to use the PDF handouts, see the Complete Assignments article.

For students who download files, teachers may want to establish a simple naming convention for student handouts, such as having students add their names to the name of the file when they save it, so that teachers and students can more easily keep track of assignments.