Teaching Online? How to make Blackboard Activities more interactive with Adaptive Release

9th April 202011th May 2021 WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Panopto, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) 5 Comments

Following the move to online teaching, this blogpost is intended to give you some ideas about how to make your Blackboard Course Site more interactive for students. In the first of this series of blogposts, we’ll be looking explicitly at a feature called Adaptive Release.

The move to online teaching, if anything, shows us that Blackboard is a powerful learning tool that can be used for a wide variety of learning activities and not solely as a place in which materials are accessed, lectures are watched, and assignments are submitted. Key to the design of online and digital learning is thinking about what activities you want your students to be doing in addition to what resources they need access to.

One of the most powerful, yet underused tools, in Blackboard is Adaptive Release. Adaptive Release gives you the opportunity to release content based on a series of rules. The most common of these is to limit content based on dates and times or by a user or group of students, but you can also use Adaptive Release to release content after students have completed a certain activity or reviewed certain materials.

For example, if you’ve got two lectures that students have got to view but you don’t want them to move straight onto the second lecture without having assessed their understanding of the first lecture. Additionally, understanding the content of the second lecture might be dependent on the content covered in the first lecture.

If you’d like to limit moving onto the second lecture:

Create a Panopto link to Lecture 1 in Blackboard as usual
Create and deploy an online test in Blackboard that assesses the knowledge and understanding of the content in Lecture 1 focusing particularly on the understanding that students need to know to build on the content in Lecture 2
Create a Panopto link to Lecture 2 in Blackboard and use Adaptive Release on the link so that it’s only released when students have undertaken the test

Adaptive Release such as the above scenario links to a Grade in the Grade Centre. There are a number of rules that you can apply. For example, you could set the rule so that students have to get a specific mark in the test before they are able to see the content to demonstrate their understanding.

In this scenario, you can ensure that students have gained sufficient knowledge and understanding from the content whilst also creating an environment that responds directly to their activity.

Monitoring Student Engagement while teaching online

27th March 202011th May 2021 WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Other Tools, Training and Support, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) 7 Comments

Distance Learner Banner

This blogpost aims to provide you with information on some useful tools in Blackboard that can help you monitor student engagement. This was initially produced for a Distance Learner forum but the tools discussed apply to teaching online. In addition to providing some guidance on Blackboard tools, there are also some resources on student engagement and teaching online at the end of this document.

Statistics Tracking

Statistics Tracking is a useful way for you to monitor how many of your students have engaged with your course materials. This tool is available in Blackboard.
How do I track students’ use of items in my Blackboard Module?	https://faqs.aber.ac.uk/index.php?id=628

Review Status

Review Status ask learners to mark that they have a reviewed a piece of content. This will allow you to track where learners are with their modules and their items.

Using Review Status places the emphasis on giving students their own review status.

What is the Review Status in Blackboard?

https://faqs.aber.ac.uk/index.php?search=2869

Adaptive Release

Adaptive release gives Instructors a flexible way to control which items in a Blackboard module are available to students. You can customise your material to fit the needs of individual students or groups. This is especially useful if you have both core and supplementary materials. For example, you might want to release supplementary material only to those students who score poorly on an assessment, but not to the whole class. You can set up a path of contingent prerequisites, such that students cannot see more advanced material until they have viewed the introductory material. You can make material available only for the time period when it is relevant, such as before or after a laboratory practical. You may also wish to make material available only to a selected group of students, perhaps releasing information to a group of students on their group project topic.

How do I use adaptive release to control when items in Blackboard are made available?

https://faqs.aber.ac.uk/index.php?id=582

Irwin, B. et al. 2013. ‘Engaging students with feedback through adaptive release’. Innovations in Education and Teaching International. 50: 1. DOI: 10.1080/14703297.2012.748333. Pp. 51-61. Last Accessed 21.10.2019.

This article looks at the impact of using adaptive release for releasing student feedback. The aim of this approach was to encourage students to engage more fully with their feedback. Using adaptive release in this way can also be used to engage students with their learning tasks.

You can use adaptive release via the grade centre and the completion of a test or quiz, for example, to release the next unit to students. Not only that, you can also use it to hide content once it’s completed.

Resources on Student Engagement

Blessinger, P. & C. Wankel. Ed. 2013. Increasing Student Engagement and Retention in e-Learning Environments: Web 2.0 and Blended Learning Technologies. Bradford: Emerald Publishing Limited. Last Accessed: 18.10.2019.

Especially:

Starr-Glass, D. 2013. ‘From Connectivity to Connected Learners: Transactional Distance and Social Presence.’ Pp. 113-143

This publication looks at how technology can be used to engage students. The edited collection provides lots of guidance on learning technologies in teaching.

As the editors identify, ‘any technology, novelty or technical sophistication alone cannot guarantee engagement of learners. These technologies should be used in a purposeful and integrated way and within an appropriate theoretical framework germane to the teaching and learning context’ (2013: 5-6).

One chapter of note is Starr-Glass (Pp. 113-143) who emphasises building a learning community and offering opportunities for collaboration as a way to engage students who are studying at a distance.

Starr-Glass uses Michael Moore’s theory of transactional difference to look at the repercussions of separating the learner from their peers and instructors. The author encourages learners to rely on more than just the technology. Distance Learning also seen as an early form of learner-centric activities.

Starr-Glass argues that we are now at a Fifth Generation of Distance Learning (2005- ) – The intelligent flexible learning model (2013: 118). This is characterised by access to technology environments where ‘[l]earners are viewed as knowledgeable, self-assured, and capable of accessing informational networks’ (ibid.). Opportunities for creating communities amongst peers are also explored.

Krull, G. & J. M Duart. 2019. ‘Supporting seamless learners: exploring patterns of multiple device use in an open and distance learning context’. Research in Learning Technology. 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v27.2215. Pp. 1-13. Last Accessed: 18.10.2019.

We often think about content of Distance Learning courses but we don’t necessarily think about how our students are accessing their content. In this article, Greig Krull and Joseph Duart look at how students make use of multiple devices. They used semi- structured interviews to analyse their findings.

Their findings suggest that students studying via distance learning tend to work in multiple locations (private and public) ‘demonstrating the potential for seamless learning’ (4).

The study also found that students had access to between 2 and 5 digital devices for learning. On average, students used 3 devices for learning (4).

As the authors indicate, ‘[a]n area for future research is how educators can better support students using multiple devices and how to reduce any potential ‘seams’ in their learning experiences’ (10).

Meyer, K. 2014. Student Engagement Online: What works and why. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Last Accessed 21.10.2019.

Meyer examines online learning against a context of retention in Higher Education. Of most interest, might be the section on Experiential and Active Learning (p. 28).Meyer also discusses the importance of fostering an online community amongst learners to encourage engagement with resources. The monograph borrows the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to consider how you might engage students in online learning.

These include:

1. Level of academic challenge

2. Active and collaborative learning

3. Student-faculty interaction

4. Enriching educational experience

5. Supportive campus (online) environment

(7-8)

Teaching Tips: Teaching and Learning Continuity

19th March 202011th May 2021 WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, E-submission, Other Tools, Panopto, Training and Support, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

General Points

Provide clear and easy to understand instructions. This cuts down on the number of emails and queries you will receive.
Use the technology that you and your students know and can use. Remember that you can include links to our FAQs in your Blackboard course to help your students.
If you are using your own computer, check that you can do everything you will need to do. If you have any questions you can contact is@aber.ac.uk. These FAQs will help you:
- Working from home: https://faqs.aber.ac.uk/index.php?id=1547
- Teaching and Learning Continuity: https://faqs.aber.ac.uk/index.php?id=2922

Further resources

View the excellent set of resources in the ACUE online teaching toolkit:

See guidance from UK Copyright Literacy on Copyright, Fair Dealing and Online Teaching at a Time of Crisis.

Manage your content

Active learning at a distance: Think about the learning tasks that you want students to carry out, not just the content covered. Make sure that the tasks are made clear to the students. If the learning task is clear, it will promote active learning even at a distance. For example, a somewhat vague learning task would be to read three articles. A more active task would be to read the three articles and evaluate their arguments relative to each other, or analyse data across several sources to identify patterns, etc.
Accessibility: Apply principles of good accessibility practice to your PowerPoints, Word documents, and other materials.
- Apply ALT tags to images in any materials.
- Ensure that speaker notes are included in your PowerPoint files and upload the PPT file into Blackboard. Do not just upload a PDF. This gives students another channel to get all of the information you want them to have.
- Use plain English as much as possible. If your students don’t understand something well, they won’t be able to ask you during lecture.
Make sure that your Blackboard course is easy for students to navigate. They should be able to find the relevant material for each week easily and quickly.

Reading materials: Ensure that all reading material is accessible through Blackboard. Use Aspire reading lists. If some material is only available in print form (e.g. books in the library), find alternative e-books or online sources they can use instead.
Adaptive Release: You can use Adaptive Release so your materials appear at set times. Try and avoid too many complicated adaptive release rules as they can make it difficult work out why a student can’t see documents.
Box of Broadcasts is an excellent resource for TV and radio material. You can arrange recordings of upcoming material or use previously broadcast programmes.

Blackboard Tests and Surveys

Tests are an excellent way for students to check their understanding of a topic and help you know more about their progress.

Be sure to include feedback on right and wrong answers, so that your students can learn from the formative quiz.
You don’t have to give the correct answer but can give links to readings, or further resources to help learn the material.
Write questions that help your students engage with the material, rather than just remembering facts. You can write questions that require them to analyse material, work with scenarios, and do calculations etc.

Discussion Boards

Discussion boards are an excellent way to run a remote seminar. They allow students to engage at times that work for them. They are also familiar to many.

Activities: Provide activities for the students to engage with on the discussion boards – set starter questions that require them to actively engage, for example analysing data, comparing articles, summarising their reading, creating questions from the materials they have read.
Guidance on engagement: Provide guidance for students on how you want them to engage with the discussion boards.
- For example, you could ask them to write their own posts, and comment on others.
- Tell them how often you want the students to engage and how often you will engage.
- If you are running a thread for each seminar, you may want to keep the discussion going for a week and then start a new one at a set time.
Guidance on writing:
- Do you want them to write formally or informally?
- Should they reference their reading?
- Short posts are better than essays – the aim of discussion boards is for students to interact rather than just post their essays

Blogs, Wikis and Journals

Blogs and Journals are a good way of students to document an ongoing process or practice – for example a reading journal. Students can use text, images, video etc. Blogs are visible to all class members, and Journals are private between the student and the instructor.

Wikis are good for group work. They can be used by all the class, or you can split into groups, and each group can have a wiki. Students can use text, images and video, and you can see each student’s contribution.

Give students clear instructions about how to use the blogs, wikis or journals. Tell them what you expect: how often you want them to contribute and how often you will engage with them.
Example contributions can be useful to help students understand what you expect.
You can make comments on posts to provide feedback.
All three types of activity can be graded if you want to use them as an assessment method.

Panopto Recordings

Panopto recordings are a good way of presenting information to your students along with PowerPoint slides. You can re-use recordings you have already made, but if you are making new recordings specifically for continuity purposes, bear the following in mind:

Make your videos shorter than a standard lecture. Students will find it easier to concentrate on shorter videos.
Link the recording to a learning activity for your students. Encourage active listening with questions, or other activities.
Make the PowerPoint and speakers notes (if you use them) available on Blackboard.
If you are still working on campus, use teaching rooms or AU equipment to create Panopto recordings. If you are experiencing problems with installing Panopto on your own equipment, consider re-using recordings you have made in previous years until these have been resolved.

Panopto Quizzes

Quizzes are a good way of breaking up your recording, similar to the way you would use questions in a lecture

Write clear questions that will help your students engage with the recording actively.

Teaching and Learning Continuity

18th March 202011th May 2021 WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, E-submission, Panopto, Training and Support, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

Distance Learner Banner

This FAQ outlines the e-learning tools available to staff to provide teaching and learning continuity

Information Services guidance for working from home can be found in the FAQ here

Human Resources (HR) guidance for working from home can be found on the HR website here

We recommend staff and students use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browsers

Blackboard as a Learning Environment

What can I do?	How do I do it?
Familiarise yourself with Blackboard	See our Getting Started in Blackboard Guide If you do not see all your modules see our FAQ on how Staff are enrolled on modules See our Blackboard FAQs
Manage your learning content effectively	See our FAQ on uploading files and content to Blackboard See our FAQ on managing your links and folders See our Checklist on making your documents accessible See our Teaching Tips
Use Announcements within Blackboard to communicate with the students on your module	See our FAQ on adding an announcement in Blackboard
Let your students know how to contact you by adding contact information to your profile	See our FAQ on adding Staff information to a Blackboard module
Use Blackboard tests and surveys for formative assessment	See our FAQ on Creating a test or survey in Blackboard See our guidance on tests and surveys See our Teaching Tips
Enable students to engage with yourself and each other via a discussion board	See our FAQ on adding a discussion board to your Blackboard module See our guidance on discussion boards See our Teaching Tips
Utilise blogs, wikis and journals for student reflection and collaboration	See our guidance on blogs See our guidance on wikis See our guidance on journals See our Teaching Tips

E-submission

What can I do?	How do I do it?
Familiarise yourself with using Turnitin for E-submission	See our Quick Start Guide to Turnitin See our Turnitin FAQs
Create Turnitin submission points for your students to submit their assignments to	See our FAQ on creating a Turnitin submission point
Mark Turnitin submissions and provide feedback online	See our FAQ on marking assignments in Turnitin

Lecture Recording

What can I do?	How do I do it?
Install Panopto on your own computer so you can make recordings from wherever you are working	See our FAQ on installing Panopto on your computer
Check your microphone is working	See our FAQ on checking your microphone is picking up sound
Make a Panopto recording	See our FAQ on making a Panopto recording See our FAQ on re-using recordings you have previously made See our Teaching Tips
Add quizzes to your Panopto recording	See our FAQ on adding a quiz to your Panopto recording See our Teaching Tips

Virtual Meetings

What can I do?	How do I do it?
Familiarise yourself with using Skype for Business for Virtual Meetings.	See our Skype for Business Guide See our guide for Learning and Teaching Activities using Skype for Business.
Install Skype for Business on your machine	See our FAQ on installing Skype for Business (Windows) See our FAQ on installing Skype for Business (Android) See our FAQ on installing Skype for Business (Mac)
Arrange a meeting or virtual teaching session	See our FAQ on how do I set up a meeting or video conference using Skype for Business

For further help and guidance please see the E-learning webpages and our Guides and Documents webpage

Practice Organisations available for all teaching staff

26th February 202011th May 2021 WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Training and Support Leave a comment

Practice Modules We have created Practice Organisations for all staff with teaching roles. These organisations are spaces where you can try out the many different features of Blackboard and preload materials without working on a live Blackboard module.

To access the Practice Organisation, log into Blackboard, and scroll down to My Organisations. You will see your practice module with the code PRAC_username.

If you build something in your practice organisation then you are able to copy content over into a live module. We’ve got the following FAQs for copying:

In addition to this, there are many more FAQs and Guides to support your use of Blackboard, in addition to further information on our website.

As these are practice courses, they don’t contain enrolments and there are certain items that can’t be copied, such as:

Turnitin submission points
Items that have adaptive release enabled
Any assessed items linked to the grade centre
Blackboard groups

You are welcome to use your practice course at any time. Practice organisations are not subject to Blank Course Copy and the content will rollover every year.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Blackboard Tools for Group Work (Blogpost 5): Assignments

15th January 202011th May 2021 WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

Group Work Banner

Blackboard Group Assignments for Instructors

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Assignments/Create_and_Edit_Assignments/Group_Assignments

Before assigning group work

You don’t want students to see group activities as busy work. If group work doesn’t enhance your learning objectives and provide value, consider alternative teaching techniques. Only use group work for projects an individual student can’t do as well alone and finish in the intended amount of time.

Research shows that students work harder when others rely on them. To encourage this interdependence, create group assignments that require the students to divide the work to meet the goal, question and challenge each other’s ideas, and share feedback and encouragement.

Before incorporating group work into your course, consider these questions:

Will the group work further my course objectives?
What introductory material or group resource information can I provide to help students succeed?
How will the groups be formed?
Will students be involved in planning the groups?
How will I assess students’ learning and maintain individual accountability? Will I require a group deliverable?
How will I handle concerns and problems

Blackboard Group Assignments for Students

Some Considerations Before you begin

A course group must exist before you create group assignments for it.

Students who are enrolled in more than one group that receives the same assignment will be able to submit more than one attempt for this assignment. You may need to provide these students with an overall grade for the assignment.
Students who aren’t enrolled at the time that a group assignment has been submitted don’t have access to that submission. These students only see that the submission occurred.
Students who you remove from a group can’t see the group assignments. They can access their submissions from My Grades.
If you edit the assignment between creation and the due date, the entire group may lose any work already in progress.
If you delete a group from the assignment after students have started an attempt but before submission, they’ll lose access to the assignment and lose their work.

You create a group assignment in the same way you create an assignment for students to complete individually. When you create a group assignment, a gradebook item is created automatically. You can create group assignments in content areas, learning modules, lesson plans, and folders. The group assignment appears in the course area where you create it and on the group homepage.

A few notes on marking Blackboard Group Assignments

When marking a group assignment using Inline Grading, the overall mark given will automatically be submitted for all the students in the group and will become visible in the Grade Centre. However, you can modify individual students’ marks if you need to.
Individual marks cannot be applied in the case of anonymous group assignments, as it won’t be possible to identify individual students.

Blackboard Tools for Group Work (Blogpost 3): Wikis

13th January 202011th May 2021 WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) 2 Comments

Blackboard Wikis for Instructors

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Interact/Wikis

Wikis allow course members to contribute and modify one or more pages of course-related materials and provide a means of sharing and collaboration. Course members can create and edit pages quickly, and track changes and additions, which allows for effective collaboration between multiple writers. You can create one or more wikis for all course members to contribute to and wikis for specific groups to use to collaborate.

All course members can use the wikis tool to record information and serve as a repository for course information and knowledge. A course wiki is a vast source of information compiled by course members. Wikis can help build a community of collaboration and learning. Social interaction increases during the exchange of information.

Benefits of using wikis

Wikis can help course members build a shared repository of knowledge. As the knowledge base grows over time, you can expect the wiki to have some degree of seriousness and permanence.

With dedicated use, you can use wikis for these educational purposes:

Provide an easy to use environment for communication
Promote collaboration rather than competition
Foster a social and interactive approach to learning
Build partnerships where you can benefit from the strengths of others
Increase network building, trust, and negotiation skills
Provide support and prompt feedback
Provide a one-stop area where information is searched, updated, and accessed easily and quickly
Increase and enhance the possibility of creativity, spontaneity, and innovation through the application of reflective thinking

Blackboard Wikis for Students

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Student/Interact/Wikis

A wiki is a collaborative tool that allows you to contribute and modify one or more pages of course-related materials. A wiki provides an area where you can collaborate on content. Course members can create and edit wiki pages that pertain to the course or a course group.

Instructors and students can offer comments, and your instructor can grade individual work.

image of wikis

See our Aberystwyth FAQs on Wikis:

faqs.aber.ac.uk and search “Wikis”

Blackboard Tools for Group Work (Blogpost 2): Blogs

10th January 202011th May 2021 WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard Leave a comment

Blackboard Blogs for Instructors

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Interact/Blogs

A blog is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended to share with others. Most blogs also have a commenting feature, so that people can respond to one another’s thoughts. Blogs encourage students to clearly express their ideas. Blogs also address the need to expand various aspects of social learning. From the instructor’s point of view, blogs are an effective means of gaining insight into students’ activities and provide a way to share the knowledge and materials collected.

In Blackboard Learn, instructors create and manage blogs, and only enrolled users can view and create entries and comments in them. Similar to journals, you can use blogs for a graded assignment or gather opinions and information without assigning a grade.

Blackboard Blogs for Students

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Student/Interact/Blogs

A blog is your personal online journal. Each blog entry you make can include any combination of text, images, links, multimedia, mashups, and attachments. Blogs are an effective way for you to share knowledge and materials created and collected in the course. You can post entries and add comments to existing blogs. Use your blog to express your ideas and share them with the class.

As the owner of a blog, you can create entries and your instructor and classmates can add comments. A course or a group can also own a blog. In the group area, all members of a group can create entries for the same blog, building upon one another. Any course member can read and comment on a group blog, but can’t create an entry if the user isn’t a member of the group. Your instructor can also offer comments and grade entries.

See our Aberystwyth FAQs on Blogs:

faqs.aber.ac.uk and search “Blogs”

Digital Education Group

Aberystwyth University

Category: Blackboard

Teaching Online? How to make Blackboard Activities more interactive with Adaptive Release

Monitoring Student Engagement while teaching online

Statistics Tracking

Review Status

Adaptive Release

Resources on Student Engagement

Teaching Tips: Teaching and Learning Continuity

General Points

Further resources

Manage your content

Blackboard Tests and Surveys

Discussion Boards

Blogs, Wikis and Journals

Panopto Recordings

Panopto Quizzes

Teaching and Learning Continuity

Blackboard as a Learning Environment

What can I do?

How do I do it?

E-submission

What can I do?

How do I do it?

Lecture Recording

What can I do?

How do I do it?

Virtual Meetings

What can I do?

How do I do it?

Practice Organisations available for all teaching staff

Statistics Tracking

Review Status

Adaptive Release

Resources on Student Engagement

General Points

Further resources

Manage your content

Blogs, Wikis and Journals

Blackboard as a Learning Environment

What can I do?

How do I do it?

E-submission

What can I do?

How do I do it?

Lecture Recording

What can I do?

How do I do it?

Virtual Meetings

What can I do?

How do I do it?

Blackboard Group Assignments for Instructors

Before assigning group work

Blackboard Group Assignments for Students

Some Considerations Before you begin

A few notes on marking Blackboard Group Assignments

Blackboard Discussions for Instructors

Blackboard Discussions for Students

See our Aberystwyth FAQs on Discussions:

Blackboard Wikis for Instructors

Benefits of using wikis

Blackboard Wikis for Students

See our Aberystwyth FAQs on Wikis:

Blackboard Blogs for Instructors

Blackboard Blogs for Students

See our Aberystwyth FAQs on Blogs:

Blackboard Groups for Instructors

Blackboard Groups for Students

See the Aberystwyth FAQ on creating groups: