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Best Practices

Check Your Course Before they Wreck Your Course!

Before You BeginBefore you give your students access to your course, go through it with Edit Mode off and/or use the Student View button to make sure all your content and tools are accessible and easy to find.

Note: Use your course’s navigation menu because students can’t navigate via the Control Panel.

A few things you should be looking for are:

  • When a student enters the course do they know where to go and what to do?
  • Are the items in the Nav Menu clear? For instance, ‘Content’ means anything to a new student. It would make more sense to them if it was more specific, like ‘Course Materials’ or ‘Modules’
  • Are all the tools you want the students to use linked from the Nav Menu or a Content Area? An easy way to check is by looking at the Nav Menu in Edit View.
  • Can all the Tests and Assignments be taken and submitted?
  • Do links to other places on the web work?  (YouTube videos can be pulled down in a blink of an eye and web content can disappear at any time).

Other things to check while in Edit Mode:

  • Links to hidden tests and assignments are not broken. Its good practice to re-deploy all your tests (if you’ve copied the course) to ensure that the links are correctly attached to the Grade Center.
  • The Grade Center columns are correctly displayed to students (hidden or revealed) and the weighting and points possible are correct.
  • Be sure due dates on items in your course are correct (these can now be changed easily by dragging and dropping with the Calendar feature in My Blackboard.
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Giving Your Students Directions on their learning journey!

ImageWhen you travel somewhere for the first time, doesn’t it seem to take a little bit longer to get there than it does to return home?  Whether it is unfamiliar surroundings, difficulty reading the map or the GPS isn’t up to date, it can be frustratingly slow to travel to new places.

Think of your online course as that new destination for your students.  How would they describe their navigation experience?  Would they say that once they travel into your course that it is difficult to find their way back?  Would they say that the course links were easy to find and use?  Would they be frustrated trying to make it to their “destination”?

Connecting your course by organizing and clearly naming your navigation elements will save your students and ultimately you time when putting together your online course.

Below are steps you can take to connect your course and save time for you and your students:

  • Use Dividers and Subheaders to visually organize your course’s navigation menu (hint see the Teaching Online and Putting it Together Subheaders in this course.
  • Append the text (Click to Open) on titles for content folders, learning modules, lesson plans, web and course links.
  • Make the content item Blue if you want your students to click it
  • Chunk your course content as you would teach it in your face-to-face course.  For example: Put all Chapter content in chapter folder with different sub-folders for each chapter.
  • Place a Course Link at the bottom of a unit a study so that the student can navigate back to where they were before easily.
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Moderating Posts in Discussion Forums? Now there is an ORIGINAL thought!

Discussion Forums GraphicOne of the best communication tools used in online, hybrid and face-to-face courses is the discussion forum. The benefits of forum use are widely published in academic circles. Some examples of these benefits are:

  • allowing the student to reflect and respond thoughtfully to a discussion question
  • allow them to apply that same kind of critical thinking to a peer’s posting
  • enables students who might not otherwise responds in a live classroom environment to have a “voice”

As envelopes are pushed in the distance education arena, we are discovering some things that need to be addressed.  Having taken a few online courses for my Master’s degree and in working with faculty in their courses, I’ve noticed a trend when it comes to some student postings in what are supposed to be well reasoned, interactive back-and-forth discussions.

Students are waiting to see what their colleagues post and then creatively copy-pasting their own discussion board posts. Instead of doing the leg work of coming up with their own thoughts about whatever it is they are supposed to be posting, they are rehashing their colleague’s posts.  There are thoughts as to why this may be happening, but that is subject for a different post.

The challenge then becomes one of encouraging the interaction and critical thinking you want in a discussion board while maintaining the academic integrity of original thought.  Forum moderation presents itself as a workable solution.  Forum moderation allows the instructor or designated reviewer to approve the post before it is seen by the rest of the class.  So, with this in mind here are the steps to promoting original responses in discussion board postings:

  1. When creating the forum be sure to ensure that your force moderation of posts.*
  2. Assign a due date for the creation of discussion threads in response to your discussion question.
  3. Do NOT publish/moderate the posts until after the due date.
  4. Turn off post moderation once the due date is reached (you can also disable the ability of the students to add new threads)
  5. Have a separate due date for replies to original postings.

By following these steps, the students make their posts, completing the first part of the discussion assignment (the part when you want them to reply with their original thoughts) without being able to view the posts of fellow students. Then, when you open the discussion back up for reply the are free to build off of each others’ ideas and continue to interact.

This does entail a little more work on the part of the forum moderator (professor, instructor, TA), but can really go a long way to ensuring the integrity of student discussions.  This solution does not have to be utilized on every discussion forum in your course, but can be leveraged for when you want to ensure the student’s thoughts are original.

*Some Learning Management Systems do not have the ability to moderate posts, so another solution may be in order.
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You Gotta Know when to Blog’em?

Gambler

Please excuse “The Gambler” reference in the Post topic, but a recent session at the Blackboard World conference in New Orleans got me thinking about this topic.  Throughout the course of any given semester I get the following question asked me often:


“So I want to use these great tools you keep telling us about, but how do I know when to use a Blog, Discussion Board or Wiki?”

Trying to find the right answer to that question sometimes feels like trying to explain what wind is without being able to feel it.  I generally like to have examples in front of me.  However, in an effort to put my thoughts into writing, let’s start by giving some origin statements and move into concepts and features for each:

BlogsBlogs:

Blog is short for Web Log.  It is an author-centered document that is generally administered by one user or a small group.  Comments (discussion) is encouraged, but the main thrust is the blog post.  The purpose of the Blog is to share a “log” of events or to journal.  It could chronicle a reading, media object, event or personal insight.  Blogs are generally presented with the most recent posting first as well as a calendar list of other posts and an archive.  Blogs (like this one) tend to be more conversational in nature and are designed around text and media.  Once you make a post you tend to move on to the next one unless you need to make an edit or read comments.  Each post is owned by the person who made it.

Blogs nowadays have a plethora of features including: subscription, archiving, widgets (plugins that link blogs to other social media (twitter, facebook, etc.), listservs.  They also allow tagging, categories and the ability to customize how they look.  Thanks to tagging, blogs are easily searchable. They also tend to be media-rich.

Discussion BoardsDiscussion Boards:

Spawned from ye olde Bulletin Boards.  They are usually topic centered given a discussion prompt by teacher/moderator.  They can be administered by the instructor or group depending upon how roles are defined. The boards are reply driven meaning postings and replies make up the structure of the Discussion Board.  Discussion boards are primarily used to discuss topics posited by the instructor self-generated by a group.  They also fulfill a support function (Course Q&A, Virtual office).  Depending on the type of discussion activity, posts can be formal or conversational.  This type of activity is also static in that posters don’t go back and re-edit their posts, they just continue posting in the thread.  Poster’s own their own posts, but roles can be assigned to make participants, moderators, managers, graders etc..

Discussion board features are not as exhaustive as Blog or Wiki features, but they do allow file attachments, are very collaborative and easy to navigate.

WikisWikis:

Wikis get their name from the Hawaiian word “wiki wiki” which means “quick”.  Boiling the concept down is a collaborative web document or webpage.  They are generally document centered, project based items.  They are administrated by all of those involved in the wiki. Comments can be employed when needed but are not part of the main thrust.  You use wikis to create documents, projects, resources, case studies, portfolios, etc..  The wiki organization and design is dependent upon whatever method the individual or group decides.  Wikis are subject to constant change.  They can be created, shared, edited and re-edited over and over (think Wikipedia).

Wikis today come with many features and facets including: comments, archives, widgets, rich-media experience, WYSIWYG web interface. It looks and feels like a webpage so navigation and construction is very straight forward.

That’s great, but when do I use them?

Blogs:

Blogs are good for reflection or for journaling.  They offer chronological list of postings.   They are also good for podcasting, photoblogs and posting from mobile devices or “moblogging”.

Discussion Boards:

Good for topic based discussions, opinions and response driven assignments.

Wikis:

Project based assignments, repository-based assignments, portfolios, case studies, course documentation, collaboratively produced study guides, group work.

I hope this helps some of you put when and where to use these tools into perspective.

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Blackboard World 2012 – Thoughts upon Leaving

I sit here this evening after a tremendous  Blackboard Client Appreciation party where I might or might not have one an HD video camera for dancing.  Check @jspradlin to be sure.  I am reminded of the vibrant community of users that get a chance to interface in an f2f environment after.  This community is what makes what we do great.

This community involves CIOs, Sys Admins, Instructional Designers, Faculty, Students, vendors and @Blackboard Staff who work in concert to provide an environment where students of all ages and life long learners in a professional environment can communicate, connect and collaborate in ways that are native to them.

You see ultimately, the job I’m responsible for is to equip our faculty so that they can help our students learn how to think critically, and to be well-rounded productive members in society. Blackboard and the Blackboard community just makes my job easier, and for that I am grateful!

I look forward to Vegas in 2013 where we get to do it all again!

Sincerely,

Jacob Spradlin
Official Blackboard World Blogger 2012

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BbWorld Blog: Beyond the Bells and Whistles – Exemplary Courses and Best Practices

7/12/2012 2:50pm | Room 273

Subject: Focus on importance of pedagogical best practices.  Discuss design and teaching principles behind the ECP rubric; the impact of exemplary courses on the student experience; and how the ECP and its rubric can be used for individual course improvement, faculty training and professional development.

Exemplary Course Program – http://www.blackboard.com/catalyst

What is it? – core of program is a rubric:

Course design

  • Goals and Objectives
  • Student Engagement
  • Content, Org and Clarity

Interaction and Collaboration

  • Learning and COurse Grade
  • Vareity of tools

Assessment

  • Alignment w/ objectives
  • Formative and SUmmative

Learner Support

  • Orientation and training
  • Technical and Pedagogical

Design Standards:

  • Sound Instructional Design
  • Quality Matters Rubric

Practices Exemplary

  • Extensive interaction
  • use of of multimedia
  • Mastery based exercies

Interaction

Faculty Information – includes picture weekly office hours through blackboard IM, Expectations
Discussion Boards – Each week different discussion board faculty must seed each discussion (first reply) Weekly graded assignment
Live Classroom – Every class has live classroom link (trainings offered to faculty)  Faculty who Commit to doing 3 live sessions they are offered a stipend
Feedback & Grades – Consistent, responsive feedback.  Rubrics for every assignment.

Media
Module Content (videos & podcasts) and accessibility.  Every piece of audio and video content has transcript.

Mastery Based Exercises

Check your Understanding Exercises – use Adapative release
Mastery exercises – for a grade 10 questions, take it unlimited and no due date.

Advanced Photoshop

Course Design
Projects & Interactive Rubrics.  project base course design.  The way each week is laid out is identical.

Assessments and Rubrics – Can be accessed in several different locations (Course information, and Gradebook)

Leave feedback when you score in your Interactive Rubrics!

Introductions to Computers –

Course is active, collaborative and authentic – design principle.

Dashboard Announcements – Frequently used features. Schedule your announcements to release ahead of time.

Label everything as Required, Recommended and Optional. Allows more content in front of the students without it overwhelming them.

Task List – Use the Date management screen to set dates of when things open close and when they are required.

Automated Notification from Agents console of the Early Warning System.  Entire course is Project Driven.

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BbWorld Blog: Documentation Tips and Tools, Brought by the World’s Foremost Expert in the Field: YOU!

7/12/2012 1:45pm | Room 270

Subject:  The academic communities we serve need help using Blackboard; how can they screw things up all by themselves?! No, they need our help. But our staffs are small, our audience big – documentation is a necessary evil.  Questions include: What does the academic community need most; tools for the creation of  & venues for the dissemination of help material, how are staff resources best allocated for creating support tools, and how are those tools kept current? The person best equipped to share this wisdome is YOU. We are stronger together than we are apart.  The second in a series of discussions on the subject.

Birds of a feather session, roundtable discussion.

Session Leader: Robert Harris From William Patteson in Wayne New Jersey.

Concerns:  Reaching out to students.

Venues for getting support to students(all varieties), faculty & staff.

  • Web pages
  • Short videos on youtube (you tube site)
  • Blackboard Courses
  • Blogs, Twitter, Facebook pages

Menu catgorization: students, faculty, videos, pdf, non-blackboard

uiw.edu >more quicklinks >training & tutorials.

Built into course tab a module that brings in twitter feed.
Training tab built into Blackboard.  Documents stored in content repository.  Different modules on main page.

Leveraging Blackboard as a part of a larger strategy to connect different constituencies.

Using Collaborate to facilitate training.  Use collaborate to train student staff.  Weekly meetings with lab assistants, managers.

Lynda.com has useful documentation as well.

Link to all of the Blackboard On-Demand stuff.

Collaborate Wednesdays – highlighting different features on a weekly basis.  Grass roots approach to encouraging attendance.

Camtasia 8 is a useful tool for training videos.  Has copy/paste feature. Easy transcript.

The addition of Articulate, Raptivity, Soft Chalk.

Atomic Learning 1/2 price of Lynda.com.  Has all the training videos done for you.  Using Khan Academy to create a Blackboard area.

Documentation User group in Coursesites.com – Contact Robert Harris

Use adaptive release to ensure concept mastery.

Need Academic Administration Will Power (Provost level) to require mandatory training.  Get Faculty to train faculty or Mentors.  Team up with faculty leaders!

Stipends can also help.  Get administrators to lead the training when possible.

iPad Users Group.  Appalooza!

Onlive – Comes with explorer browser so you can get flash (iPad changing app)

Online Pedagogy Course – 4 week Online education.

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BbWorld Blog: Wikis, Blogs, Forums, Journals- Which One Do I Use & Why?

7/12/2012 | Room 276

Deborah Prickett
English Instructor
Jacksonville State University

Rewrote mission statement to be a “learning centered” university.   Doing a lot of challenge based learning in the English Department.  Offering many hybrid courses.

Forums:

  • Prompts or not
  • Replies when required
  • Checking for posts that respond
  • Students – not continuous Engagement
  • Grading Fast and easy

Discussion forum keeps track of all comments(replies) in Gradebook.  Blackboard Blogs & Wikis do not.

Blogs:

Individual Blackboard Blogs are better Chunked.  Put them together so that they are easier to grade.  This professor created an individual blog for every chapter.  Great for multimedia input (videos, pictures, charts etc).  Great for older students.

Students are used to looking at blogs.  Blogs are more visual.  Forums have Tree Structure.

*Tip:  Have your students decide how the assignment will be graded: A student created Rubric!

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Bb World Blog: Rubrics – Why and How to Best Use Rubrics in Blackboard

7/12/2012 | 8:30am

Subject: Learn the benefits of using Blackboard Learn’s interactive Rubrics.  This presentation will also include how-to instructions and some best practices.

Objectives

  • Define academic rubric
  • pros and cons
  • learn how to use
  • best practices and pitfalls

We are using clickers to see where we wall stand on grading and rubrics.  Great concept!

Rubric
Any established mode of conduct or procedure; protocol.

Academic Rubric
Explicit set of criteria that’s used for assessing students’ work.

Pros of a Rubric

  • promotes consistent, accurate and fair descriptive assessment
  • Promotes self-reflection and self-assessment in students (leads to higher quality work)
  • Enables comparison of works across settings (use criteria in several assignments throughout the year to help assess progress in how they are doing to achieve goals)
  • Rubrics reduce need for clarification. (Time Savers)
  • Promotes Formative Assessment

What does a rubric look like?
Holistic Rubric – applies to the whole of the assignment. Not broken down by criteria.

General Rubric – Contains criteria that are general across all tasks.  Clarity of Description 35% Opinions %35 References %10 Structure/Gammer %25

Analytic Rubric – Breaks assignment down by criteria along several dimensions.  Puts it into specific things you want the student to do.

Cons of a Rubric

  • Too specific, too detail oriented (easy for this to happen)
  • Not appropriate for all situations (algebra for example – calculate correctly or not)
  • Time Consuming
  • Do not capture complexity and creativity of some works

Steps to create Rubric

  • Dtermine learning outcomes
  • keep it short 4-15 items
  • each rubric should focus on a different skill
  • Focus on how students express learning
  • Evaluate only measurable criteria
  • reevaluate the rubric

Building Rubrics:

  • Ctrl Panel > Course Tools > Rubrics > Create Rubric
  • Supply Name and Description
  • Complete Rubric details (columns are levels of achievement and rows are criteria)

Rubrics can be exported and imported through Blackboard.

Adding Rubric to Assignment:

  • Go to assignment > Edit
  • Section 3 – Add Rubric (select rubric, create new rubric, create from existing)
  • Select the Rubric(s) you created and want to use
  • Set points from Rubric to points from assignment (only works for Points based rubrics)
  • Click OK
  • You can then delete, view and edit rubric as well as change type (grading, secondary eval), show rubric to students (make sure to say “yes with rubric scores”)

Grading with rubric

  • Grade Center
  • Go to assignment
  • find student Grade attempt
  • Click View Rubric Button
  • Check the appropriate check box for what the student accomplished in terms of levels and criteria
  • You can give feedback on specific criteria
  • Points are automatically totaled

Get the impersonate student building block from Oscelot.

Student – goes to My Grades > View Rubric

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