Enhancing Face-to-Face Courses

Enhancing Your Course

A web-enhanced course meets like any traditional course in the classroom at a scheduled day, time and location. Seat time is not replaced, but components of the course are available to students online through Blackboard. Using Blackboard to web-enhance a classroom can help faculty and students in a variety of ways. Instructors can use Blackboard to manage the administrative tasks of teaching, like uploading and linking resources, maintaining a calendar, or providing grades and feedback. Some instructors use Blackboard's integrated media tools to supplement instruction, and others are keen to leverage the pedagogical possibilities of Blackboard for student activities, assessments, and collaborative work. Whatever you decide to do with Blackboard, the Online Learning team can help you make the most of your course enhancement for student engagement and success. Start with this Enhanced Course Checklist (see tab above) or jump right into the guidelines to get rolling:

Enhanced Course Guidelines:

• Start with Edit Mode On

  Click at the top right of your course.
  

• Syllabus

  Link your online syllabus. The document should be viewable in a browser, so this means an HTML page or accessible PDF. If your syllabus is an MS Word document, convert to PDF or upload to MHCC's OneDrive and link from there.

• Grade Center / Calendar / Attendance

  Use the grade center to track scores for all course activities. Adding due dates in your Grade Center columns will populate the Blackboard calendar tool and help students with time management. Attendance can be tracked and configured as part of the grade. Learn how to set up your grade center.

• Texts, OER, Web Resources, Original Content

  Link to web resources, videos or other open, free or shared content. This is a good platform for sharing original materials such as presentations or video that fill instructional gaps. As with the syllabus, avoid attaching slideshows in Blackboard. Instead, upload to OneDrive and link.

• Communication Tools

Use announcements, email or message tools to communicate. Take advantage of the integrated web conferencing tool, Zoom, to hold virtual office hours or conferences.

• Online Assessments

Use Blackboard to make the most of f2f time by moving quizzes outside of class. Online formative assessments allow instructors to establish and assess learning prior to meeting, and use class time for higher-order learning activities (analysis, evaluation, creation, synthesis) in team or group formats under their direction.

• Submitting Assignments

Students can upload assignments in Blackboard allowing the use of in-line commenting, video, and rubrics for grading and feedback.

Tips

• Attach MS Word documents only when students need to download a template for specific formatting. In all other cases, covert to accessible PDF or link to cloud-based Word docs in OneDrive for better viewing.
• Ditto PowerPoint presentations. Never attach ppt files to a tool or lesson, instead, link cloud-based ppts in OneDrive for better viewing.
• For content such as handouts or readings, choose files types that are viewable in a browser. HTML or PDF are best.
• Use due dates. Whether in course tools such as assignment dropboxes or in Grade Center columns, these are easily tracked by students in the calendar, grade center and through mobile apps.
• Use the tutorials to orient yourself with Blackboard tools
• Pay attention to file accessibility