LargeClasses

=Tips for Managing Large Classes in Blackboard=

Teaching large classes is challenging, but Blackboard can help simplify the "behind the scenes" administrative tasks. How can large classes be divided into small groups to work online? What is the Early Warning System, and how can its notifications assist with managing large classes? What tools are available to organize assignment submissions? How can the Blackboard Grade Center be structured to simplify tracking grades?

Below is a list of tips and recommended best practices for efficiently managing large classes using Blackboard. Please feel free to add your tip(s) to the list!

Email
> Sometimes in large classes, a student may mis-use the Blackboard email feature to spam other students. To minimize this, you can turn off the ability for students to email all users with a single click. This is an option under "Manage Course Menu," then Modify Communication. > Email sent from Blackboard automatically has the course number in the subject line, which can help sort and identify email in your inbox. > At NIU, Blackboard email is sent to students' official university email account. It is important for students to check this email regularly.
 * 1) **Turn off "All users" email option**
 * 1) **Encourage students to use Blackboard to send email**
 * 1) **Remind students what email address Blackboard uses**

Discussion Board
> Set during forum creation, graded discussion forums simplify grading student posts and responses. The "Grade Discussion Forum" page organizes all posts by student rather than by thread. Faculty can quickly view all student posts and submit a grade from the same page. > In large discussion forums, it can be difficult to follow the thread of a discussion or to find a particular post. It can help to set guidelines for what students should use as the name or subject line for their postings. > It is very difficult to keep up with all of the postings for a large class. One technique is to identify specific students to function as discussion leaders. These students can pose discussion questions and respond to other students. The position can rotate each week or topic, and a group of students can divide the responsibility among themselves. > For very large classes, it may be more manageable to divide the class into smaller groups for discussion purposes. The faculty member can either create separate forums for each group within the primary discussion board or create individual discussion boards within the group areas that will only be available to the group members. More meaningful discussions can take place with fewer participants.
 * 1) **Graded discussion forums**
 * 1) **Set guidelines for subject lines**
 * 1) **Assign students as discussion leaders**
 * 1) **Use Group discussion boards**

Assignments and Assessments
> The Blackboard Assignment tool provides a single point of submission for students to submit their assignments directly through Blackboard. All of the submissions are organized by assignment and student in the Grade Center. The faculty member can also send comments or a file back to each student to provide detailed feedback. click [|here] for more information about the Blackboard Assignment Manager > [|SafeAssign] is similar to the Assignment tool, but it also checks the submissions for plagiarism by comparing it to a variety of resources, including websites, online journals, and the institutional database. SafeAssign provides a matching score and a detailed report that identifies where suspected material was found. Click [|here] for more more information about [|SafeAssign] > Online testing is better suited to low-stakes testing, because the risk of cheating can be decreased but not eliminated. However, with large classes, Blackboard's testing features are extremely helpful. For objective questions, like multiple choice, true/false, and matching, Blackboard can actually grade the tests automatically. Click here for more tips for assessing student learning using Blackboard or click [|here] for more information about creating a test in Blackboard.
 * 1) **Assignment Tool**
 * 1) **SafeAssign**
 * 1) **Tests and Quizzes**

Groups
Groups do not have to be tied to a group assignment or ongoing teams. For example, a group could be created for individual sections of a master course or for recitation/lab sections. If sets of students are assigned to a particular TA for grading, those students could also be assigned to a group. Besides the typical collaboration that groups enables, Groups are also the basis for other functions in Blackboard. > Smaller group discussions may be more meaningful and encourage more discussion. > Groups are also the basis for several filters in Blackboard. For example, once groups are established, materials can be released to only the members of a certain group using Adaptive Release. Group membership can also be used to set up a Smart View in the Grade Center. > When groups are officially created in Blackboard, that also enables Group email. Using Group email allows faculty and students to email all of the members of the group with a single click.
 * 1) **Utilize Group Discussion Boards**
 * 1) **Using groups enables other functions in Blackboard**
 * 1) **Group email**

Grade Center
> Extra columns in the Grade Center creates visual clutter that can make grading difficult. Hide or remove unnecessary columns to make the Grade Center easier to use. > View students in alphabetical order, numeric order by Z-ID, or by performance on an assignment/item. Click the top of any column to sort students according to that column. > Smart Views filter the amount of content visible in the Grade Center. A Smart View can consist of only a small set of users or only particular columns or categories of assignments. > Using our custom-built building block, NIU instructors-of-record can send grades directly from the Grade Center to MyNIU. Then, the instructor-of-record will need to log into MyNIU to review and finalize the grades.
 * 1) **Remove unneeded columns**
 * 1) **Sort by any column or item**
 * 1) **Use Smart Views**
 * 1) **Send Grades to MyNIU**

Other Blackboard tools:
> Create rules that identify students who may be struggling. View at-a-glance students who may have low grades on an item or overall, those who submitted an assignment late, or those who have not been participating online. > Offers a quick "at-a-glance" view of student performance. The dashboard displays all of the students on a single screen and includes the days since the students' last access, the number of discussion board postings each student made, the number of Early Warning System rules the student matches, and a link to the Grade Center.
 * 1) **Early Warning System**
 * 1) **Performance Dashboard**

Contributors
If you've shared a tip above, please add your name, institution, and email address to the list below so that we can publicly acknowledge your contribution. Thank you for sharing your tips!
 * Stephanie Richter, Northern Illinois University, srichter@niu.ed