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Discover Best Practices

Discover Best Practices

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Teaching Tips
It's never too early to start planning for the next term, whether it's the course syllabus or the course materials themselves -- including your Bb course site. Each link below provides timely tips concerning the corresponding week of the semester.

  • Week One - Use SPOT report to improve current course, block student access to copyrighted materials on last semester’s Blackboard courses, the first-day attendance policy for online courses, and assignments for recently enrolled on-campus students
  • Week Two - Get to know your students
  • Week Three - Use the Technology-Enhanced Classrooms
  • Week Four - Deter unoriginal work
  • Week Five - Help students maintain integrity in their papers and projects
    As students begin preparing their midterm papers, you may want to remind them about their pledge to uphold the FSU Academic Honor Code and review strategies for avoiding plagiarism. Many students are unsure about the ownership of web material and tend to see content from the virtual (and casual) space of the Internet quite differently from the content housed in the "protected" (and hallowed) space of a physical library. Discuss plagiarism in your classroom: (1) why students should avoid it; (2) how students can avoid it through organized research and proper citations; and (3) how they can integrate sources into their own work without violating copyright law or the Honor Code. Visit Turnitin (preventing plagiarism) for more information on how your students can submit their work to Turnitin through Blackboard.
  • Week Six - Get feedback from your students at midterm
  • Week Seven - Organize grading criteria in a rubric
  • Week Eight - Integrate "active learning" into your class
  • Week Nine - Place book orders online
  • Week Ten - Use a course calendar to manage your workload
  • Week Eleven - Design an online lesson for those days you have to cancel class
  • Week Twelve - Increase your students' research skills
  • Week Thirteen - Keep a teaching journal
  • Week Fourteen - Begin drafting next semester’s syllabus
  • Week Fifteen - Copy contents from your spring Bb course site into your summer or fall course site


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