Using BrainPOP's Assignment Builder, teachers with a School or Homeschool plan can guide student learning by directing them to specific topics and activites, and then see the students' results in Teacher Reports to measure their learning progress. Assignments in BrainPOP allow a teacher to differentiate today’s lesson—and tomorrow’s, and the day after’s—to ensure that students learn in a way that is engaging, challenging, and accessible.

IN THIS ARTICLE

What You'll Need
Assignment Builder Overview
   Build
   Select Students
   Assign
Quick Assign from a Topic
Assign from the Dashboard
Quick Assign a Single Activity
Sync Assignments to Your Gradebook
Using Assignment Links
Sharing to Google Classroom
Assigning a BrainPOP Science Investigation
Next Steps
Frequently Asked Questions

What You'll Need

• An individual educator account included in a School or Homeschool plan
• At least one class with students to receive the assignment

Assignment Builder Overview

There are a few ways to begin creating a BrainPOP assignment from different starting points, but once you're in the Assignment Builder, creating an assignment always has three main steps:

1. Build — Choose which topic(s) and activities you want to assign, and at which grade or difficulty level or in which mode (Practice or Graded).
2. Select Students — Choose which classes or specific students you want to assign those activities
3. Assign — Put the finishing touches on the assignment by giving it a title, adding instructions, and giving it a due date or scheduling it to be given to students on a future date. This step is also your chance to make any final edits to the learning activities, classes, or students included in the assignment.

Build

Select Activities

When you build an assignment, you'll find activities grouped into three instructional categories: Build Knowledge, Apply & Assess, and Deepen & Extend.

To include an activity in the assignment, select the check box next to the activity name:

Differentiate & Preview Activities

Each activity includes key at-a-glance information to help with lesson planning in labels beside the activity name, such as a time estimate, whether it is automatically graded, and whether it offers Immersive Reader or Reading Scaffolds. 

When assigning enhanced activities like Movie with Pause Points, Quiz, Vocab Builder, and Connected Texts, selecting the activity can offer additional options, such as:

• question sets or text passages differentiated by grade or Lexile Level
• assigning in Practice or Graded mode (or both modes)
• enabling or disabling AI-assisted Reading Scaffolds

Choosing Preview allows you to preview the activity to help decide what to include in your assignment.

Combine Topics

Activities from more than one topic can be included in a single assignment. To add activities from multiple topics in an assignment, choose Add Another Topic below the activity list.

Use the Assignment Builder's search to find the topic you want to add:

When multiple topics are included in an assignment, the page can get a little long! To save yourself some scrolling, you can expand or collapse topics and activity groups by choosing the - or + symbol next to the topic or activity group.

If you change your mind about a topic you've added, you can remove it from the assignment by choosing Remove Topic.

Once you've chosen the activities to assign, you're ready to move forward! Choose Next to select the classes or students who will receive the assignment:

Select Students

You can select All Classes to receive the assignment, or select specific classes and even specific students.

Select Classes

To select a specific class, choose the check box next to the class name:

Select Specific Students

To differentiate within a class by assigning to specific students, choose Select Specific Students and then choose the check box next to each student who should receive the assignment, then choose OK:

Once you've finished selecting classes and students, you're almost done! Choose Next to put the finishing touches on your assignment:

Assign

Title, Instructions, Due Date, and Scheduled Date

To put the finishing touches on the assignment, give it a title! You can also add instructions to give students more specific guidance about how to complete the assignment. 

Use a Due Date to set the date students need to complete the assignment by, and use the Scheduled Date to schedule an assignment in advance. 

The assignment will be considered Overdue after the Due Date, and will not appear in the students' Assignment list until the Scheduled Date.

Reorder Activities

To place activities in an assignment in a different order, click and drag the activities into the order you want. (You can choose Edit Learning Activities to go back and add or remove activities.)

Confirm Classes

Whether you've assigned to an entire class or specific students, the name of each class with students receiving the assignment will appear in the Class list. (Choose Edit Class to go back and change the classes or students receiving the assignment.)

Once you've put the finishing touches on your assignment you're all set — choose Assign!

Receive Confirmation

After you choose Assign, you'll receive confirmation that the assignment was created! 

You'll also see the option to View Assignment as a Student (previewing what the student view of the assignment looks like), and to go Back to Dashboard where you can view and manage classes and assignments.

If the assignment was issued to students in more than one class, the confirmation will include a reminder that each class receives a separate copy of the assignment, and that each assignment must be edited separately to make changes later. 

On the confirmation page, each class's assignment has its own card, with some additional details:

• See Selected Students — Choose this option to see the students receiving the assignment in that class.
• Copy Link — Choose this option to copy a direct link to the assignment, which can be pasted to other documents or resources like a grading spreadsheet. The assignment link can be used by teachers or students in the class.
• Share to Google Classroom — Whether or not your school uses Google to sign in to BrainPOP, you can share assignments to Google Classroom, if you use it. Learn more about sharing to Google Classroom.
• Sync to Canvas/Google Classroom/Schoology — If your school uses Clever LMS Connect to integrate BrainPOP with your LMS gradebook, you can sync assignments to Canvas, Google Classsroom, or Schoology

Quick Assign from a Topic

While viewing a Topic, you can choose Create Assignment to begin creating an assignment with that topic:

Assign from the Dashboard

From your Dashboard or the Assignments page choose + New Assignment to launch the Assignment Builder and search for the topic you want to assign:

Here's what it looks like from the Assignments page:

Quick Assign a Single Activity

While viewing an Activity, you can choose Assign to create an assignment containing just that activity:

From the Quick Assign builder, the assignment will be given a default title, which you can edit. Choose the options for the specific activity just as you would in the Assignment Builder.

Scroll down and choose Go to Class List to select classes or students. When you're ready, choose Assign, or choose + Add more to launch Assignment Builder and add more activities.

Sync Assignments to Your Gradebook

If your district uses Clever LMS Connect to integrate BrainPOP with a supported Learning Management System (LMS), you can sync BrainPOP assignments to your LMS gradebook to simplify the assignment, grading, and login experience for you and your learners.

Clever LMS Connect supports assignment and gradebook integration for BrainPOP's Clever districts that use Google Classroom, Canvas, or Schoology as their LMS.

When you use Clever LMS Connect to sync an assignment from BrainPOP:

• You and your students can use instant login to BrainPOP from Clever or the LMS. 
• Students can find their BrainPOP assignments in the LMS and jump directly to complete the assignment in BrainPOP using instant login.
• The assignment and scores on auto-graded activities within it will be synced to the LMS automatically.

Learn more about Using Clever LMS Connect to Sync Assignments!

Using Assignment Links

From the confirmation page when creating the assignment, from the Assignment's drop-down menu on your Assignments page, or from the assignment's Teacher Report, you can copy a copy a direct link to the assignment, which can be pasted to documents or resources outside BrainPOP like a curriculum tracking document or a grading spreadsheet.

We recommend keeping these considerations in mind when using and sharing assignment links:

• An assignment link can be used by you, your co-teachers, or students in the class the assignment belongs to. Teachers, students, or admins who are not in the class that the assignment belongs to will not be able to view the assignment.
• Teachers and students must be signed in to BrainPOP to view the assignment.
• Teachers and students who are not signed in to BrainPOP will be directed to log in or create an account before they can view the assignment.

• If your school usually signs into BrainPOP from somewhere other than our login page (such as the Clever Portal, ClassLink LaunchPad, Google App Launcher, Canvas or Schoology LMS, or your school or district's own resource portal) be sure that you and your students have already logged in the way you normally do before clicking a shared link to an assignment.
  
  This is especially important if you do not use Clever SSO, Google SSO, or a BrainPOP username & password to sign in, since those are the only ways to sign in directly from our login page. Attempting to sign in or create an account from our login page if you and your students normally sign in a different way may risk encountering a login error or creating duplicate accounts.

Sharing to Google Classroom

If you use Google Classroom, you can share a BrainPOP assignment to Google Classroom from the confirmation page when creating the assignment, or from the Assignment's drop-down menu on your Assignments page. 

You can use Share to Google Classroom even if your school does not use Google to sign in to BrainPOP or sync assignments to your gradebook.

We recommend keeping these considerations in mind when sharing to Google Classroom:

• Sharing an assignment to Google Classroom creates a Google Classroom assignment containing the BrainPOP assignment link. However, it will not sync the students' assignment results — BrainPOP supports grade passback when syncing assignments with Google Classroom if your school uses Clever LMS Connect.
• The assignment linked in Google Classroom can be used by you, your co-teachers, or students in the BrainPOP class the assignment belongs to. Teachers, students, or admins who are not in the BrainPOP class that the assignment belongs to will not be able to view the assignment.
• Teachers and students must be signed in to BrainPOP to view the assignment.
• Teachers and students who are not signed in to BrainPOP will be directed to log in or create an account before they can view the assignment.

• If your school usually signs into BrainPOP from somewhere other than our login page (such as the Clever Portal, ClassLink LaunchPad, Google App Launcher, Canvas or Schoology LMS, or your school or district's own resource portal) be sure that you and your students have already logged in the way you normally do before clicking a shared link to an assignment.
  
  This is especially important if you do not use Clever SSO, Google SSO, or a BrainPOP username & password to sign in, since those are the only ways to sign in directly from our login page. Attempting to sign in or create an account from our login page if you and your students normally sign in a different way may risk encountering a login error or creating duplicate accounts.

To share an assignment to Google Classroom, choose Share to Google Classroom:

The Google Classroom assignment creator will open with the new assignment details automatically populated:

Edit the Title, Instructions, Attachments, Class and Students, Points, Due date, and Topic as you like, keeping in mind that changes made to the Google Classroom assignment will not change any details in the BrainPOP assignment. 

When you are ready, choose Assign.

Assigning a BrainPOP Science Investigation

Because BrainPOP Science is designed around multi-part investigations rather than individual activities, using the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) science model, assigning a BrainPOP Science Investigation works a little differently.

• What's an Investigation?

You can Assign a Science Investigation from the Investigation page. Learn more here:

• Assign a Science Investigation

Next Steps

Now that you’ve created your first assignment, you can find out more about managing, editing, and grading assignments in Managing Assignments.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can my co-teachers view and edit my assignments?

Yes! In BrainPOP classes, no teacher in a co-taught class is the "primary" teacher. All co-teachers have equal privileges to view and manage the class and its assignments. Learn more about co-teaching in BrainPOP.

Can my admin view my assignment and student scores?

Not at this time. Only teachers and students in the class an assignment belongs to can view the assignment, and only teachers in the class can view all of its student scores. (Students can view their own scores.)

Can I include features from multiple BrainPOP products in a single assignment?

Yes! An assignment using BranPOP, BrainPOP Jr., BrainPOP ELL, BrainPOP Español, or BrainPOP Français can contain activities from any them.

BrainPOP Science assignments can only contain BrainPOP Science Investigations and Individual Resources.

Can I save an assignment as a draft and assign it later?

Not at this time. Although we previously offered a feature that saved draft assignments, that feature has been retired. Instead, we recommend using the Scheduled Date to create assignments in advance, which can be edited before they are published to students.

Can I assign Print Only activities such as Graphic Organizer and Worksheet, or Just for Fun activities in BrainPOP Jr. such as Pop a Joke or Belly Up?

Not at this time. As a general rule of thumb, only activities where the student can provide responses using their device can be assigned.

Some exceptions include the Movie (when assigned without Pause Points), or certain BrainPOP Science activities like Related Reading which may not always include response questions. Non-response activities that are assignable will be marked complete when the student finishes them, without scoring individual questions.

Can I assign one assignment to multiple classes?

Yes! You can select multiple classes when you create your assignment. If you need to assign the same activities to a class after creating an assignment for a different class, you can choose Duplicate from the assignment's drop-down menu on your Assignments page: