Discover Best Practices
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.
- Week Six - Get feedback from your students at midterm.
- Week Seven - Organize grading criteria in a rubric.
A rubric helps define your grading criteria and, if shared with students, can show them how their work will be evaluated and broaden their understanding of an assessment. Rubrics can be used for essays, papers, participation, presentations, projects, work groups, etc. List the criteria for the assessment and assign points according to their relative importance. See Instruction at FSU, Chapter 13
(256 Kb); then scroll to pp. 5 for examples and more information. Also: A quick search of Google using keywords "rubrics" plus the type of assessment to be administered (e.g., "class discussion," "groups," or "participation") will yield many examples. - 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.
