In preparation for the fall semester, the CFC is encouraging all instructors who are not familiar with Blackboard or who want to expand their use of it to take advantage of these online training sessions offered by Blackboard.
Due to increased demand for our services and our limited capacity, the CFC will not be conducting any Blackboard training sessions. We will be hosting a number of drop-in Q&A sessions but we are asking instructors to go through the training modules and/or attend the sessions provided by Blackboard before attending a drop-in session.
Blackboard is offering a full menu of webinar training sessions for all experience levels.
About the Webinar Series
Many of you had to quickly transition to remote teaching in response to growing concerns on the spread of the coronavirus. The journey to teaching remotely is a process, and we want to ensure you have the tools you need to be successful for both you and your students. Whether you are brand new to teaching online or looking to make some improvements to what you have started, we designed a set of webinars from basic topics to advanced. We added more topics to help you as you prepare for your next semester.
The Blackboard websiteprovides descriptions of each webinar, the dates being offered, and a link to REGISTER.
We still have a few more workshops available this week!
The end of the semester is quickly approaching and to help you prepare your final assessments for the online environment, we are offering research-based best practices segmented into four workshops. WCU does not have an online proctoring solution and, because of technology challenges and privacy concerns for students, the LMS Governance Committee, whose members include experienced online faculty, have voted not to adopt any online proctoring solution, including not requiring students to use Zoom or Panopto to video themselves while taking an exam (1). These workshops, which will be recorded, will be accessed from within the Blackboard Learn for Instructors course (2) in which all instructors are already enrolled. No need to sign up, just show up!
Additionally, the Educational Development Team is open for group or individual consultations to partner with you to complete this work. Go to https://affiliate.wcu.edu/cfc/partners-in-pedagogy/ to schedule with us!
Writing Better Exam Questions
The key to reducing cheating in online exams is to write exam questions that require knowledge application rather than knowledge recall. In this workshop, we will go through the basic steps of taking your existing exam questions and writing better questions.
At the conclusion of this workshop, you will be able to:
Identify question stems
Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to write higher-order thinking questions
Write questions that require application of knowledge instead of recall
Session Schedule:
Monday, April 20, 10 am
Tuesday, April 21, 2 pm
Wednesday, April 23, 1:30 pm
Thursday, April 24, 10:00 am
Designing Alternative Assessments
Faculty looking for alternatives to deploying a final Blackboard test will benefit from this interactive workshop. We will explore strategies for connecting prior student work to a final assessment, including the use of reflection-based narratives, photography, infographics, and student presentations. We will examine various technological tools with an eye towards those that are expedient and efficient for faculty use, including considerations for grading and student feedback. Faculty will be asked to share their ideas for their final assessment with peers.
At the conclusion of this workshop, you will be able to:
determine an alternative assessment strategy for your final exam
select a tool which is expedient and efficient for grading
identify various methods for providing student feedback
Session Schedule:
Wednesday, April 22, 10 am
Thursday, April 23, 1 pm
Friday, April 24, 1 pm
Creating and Using Rubrics for Faster, More Consistent Grading
Multiple choice tests are popular assessment techniques because they are simple to develop, quick to deploy, and easy to grade. Using alternate assessment techniques are marginally more challenging to develop and deploy but place a considerably greater demand on an instructor’s time to grade. Well-constructed rubrics can save an instructor a significant amount of time and still provide the students with meaningful feedback.
At the end of this workshop you will be able to:
Develop rubrics that measure the student learning outcomes of an assessment
Associate rubrics to assessments in Blackboard
Use rubrics in the Blackboard Grade Center to grade assessments
Sessions:
Friday, April 24, 10 am
(1) – LMS Governance Committee decision regarding online proctoring – can be accessed from within the Blackboard Learn for Instructors course.
The CFC is hosting additional open sessions for all instructors to learn how to effectively facilitate online learning and engage students using Blackboard and its general suite of tools. We will be offering these sessions through the following video-conferencing link:
We encourage maximizing asynchronous communication for almost everything. There are many great ways to use Blackboard Collaborate (or Zoom) for limited real-time communication. Here are some standard best practices (tried and true from more than 20 years of online teaching) to get you started and hopefully help you manage your and your students’ stress!
General best practices modified for this situation:
Use announcements in BB to send a message to the entire class. I suggest one per day with reminders and encouragement. Be sure to select the email option so each student will get an email with the announcement that will prompt them to access the course.
Email your students from within Bb because they are already enrolled and you won’t miss anyone.
To save yourself from feeling like you are chained to your laptop and answering a million emails, create a “Questions” discussion forum and encourage students to post and read/respond in that forum. Tell them not to email you unless it is personal nature, but all course questions are to be posted in the forum. Encourage them to answer other students’ questions to get the peer to peer collaboration going. If the answer is wrong or not quite right, you can post an encouraging and tactful correction. Check this Questions forum multiple times during the day.
Also, set specific ‘office hours’. If possible schedule these at the same time each day. Post the days & times in an announcement. Use Blackboard Collaborate or Zoom for these real-time, synchronous sessions.
Use Blackboard Collaborate to hold real-time, one-on-one tutorial sessions with any student who aren’t able to ‘attend’ office hours. Keep these short – 15 minutes max. If you choose to use Zoom, be sure to post the link in your Bb course in the announcements or Questions discussion forum.
The Coulter Faculty Commons has developed a planning organizer for faculty use for the remaining spring 2020 term.
The simple Word document contains weekly dates and boxes for each week remaining in the term. Faculty can use the document to notate “before” activities and “now” activities–to help them reflect on prior activities and chart a path forward, now that instruction is moving online.
Faculty can download the documents below. It comes in two forms–for a single course, and for a five-load course.
The CFC is hosting multiple open sessions for all instructors to learn how to access Blackboard and its general suite of tools. Due to new social distancing guidelines set forth by Human Resources established on March 16, we will be offering these sessions through the following video-conferencing link:
Dates and times are as follows:
Monday, March 16 – March 20 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
We already had three Collaborative Training sessions scheduled for Wednesday, March 18.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 9 am – 11 pm
Module 1: Collaborate Essentials
This module is designed to give participants a solid foundation, enabling them to successfully deliver live, interactive Collaborate sessions. Participants will learn about the key features and core functions of the Collaborate user interface. They will learn about session roles and how to effectively manage the communication tools, understand audio indicators, manage session and participant interaction, display the whiteboard and PowerPoint content, and record a session.
Identify key features and core functions of the user interface
Understand the communication tools
Utilize the whiteboard and display PowerPoint content
Please Login 10 minutes before the event to check audio.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 11:15 am – 1:15 pm
Module 2: Creating Engagement using Collaborate Web Conferencing
In this module, participants will build upon what they learned in the Essentials session. They will learn about the advanced Collaborate features and how to use them to support dynamic, interactive learning.
Review essential Collaborate tools
Discover the reasons for engaging the virtual learner
Recognize how to use the timer and utilize it to facilitate sessions and breakout groups
Understand breakout groups and how to facilitate small group collaboration
Please Login 10 minutes before the event to check audio.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 1:30 – 3:30 pm
Module 3: Increasing Web Conferencing Success
Ever wonder why some sessions seem to be effortless, while in others there are difficulties entering the session and getting participants to interact? In this session, moderators will learn best practices for creating interactive, problem-free Collaborate sessions. In addition, there will be an open Q&A forum designed to answer your questions on how to accomplish specific activities in your Collaborate sessions.
Differentiate between the Collaborate Original and Ultra experiences and effectively switch between the two
Understand the importance of using the best web browser to deliver successful sessions
Access Collaborate from a LMS or from the Collaborate server
Implement best practices for delivering problem free sessions
Develop interactive sessions to engage participants into active learning
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