Lecture / On Ground

Most faculty members are experienced in both principles and practices for their face-to-face courses. Given both the exposure to new technologies and the necessity of the COVID pandemic to quickly transition online, it is strongly recommended you have some form of Learning Management System (LMS) use for your course. Additionally, using Blackboard in lecture courses is helpful in unforeseen circumstances, like campus closures, to maintain your course schedule without significant disruption.

• Store syllabi, handouts, files, links, etc. in Blackboard
• Store multimedia in Blackboard
• Links to Open Educational Resources [OER] 
• Links to publisher content
• Links to lab materials

• Create discussions in Blackboard
• Expand discussions from in-person to online in Blackboard
• Design Journals or Blogs in Blackboard
• Use web conferencing for communications [i.e. office hours]

• Create assignments in Blackboard for students to submit
• Create, deploy, and grade tests, quizzes, surveys and quiz pools in Blackboard

• Create announcements in Blackboard
• Grade all student deliverables in Blackboard
• Offer students feedback in Blackboard
• Manage attendance in Blackboard
• Run an accessibility report and check accessibility of Blackboard content

• Create a weekly calendar to share with students as to what content you will cover in which week. Note holidays, changes in schedule etc.

Tool Usage in Blackboard for Lecture Courses

Discussion Tool

The Discussion tool is less frequently used in lecture courses, with the level of engagement afforded by proximity. However, faculty may want to consider an initial welcome discussion for students to familiarize themselves with the discussion tool.

Assignment Tool

Regardless of your mode, the assignment tool is an excellent addition to any of course. The assignment tool to collect, review and manage assignment submissions is both a fantastic time management and organizational feature. Faculty will not need to carry around papers or keep track of the date and time of submissions.

Test Tool

Since classroom time is dedicated to in-classroom activities, providing tests and quizzes in the classroom is still the way to go. However, creating a column in Blackboard to track the grades is a helpful way to keep track of student grades. 

Grade Center

Using the Blackboard Grade Center may be a great time management and organization tool for keeping track of student grades. Even if you don’t want to take submissions using the Assignment tool or having students take online tests, you can create columns to track grades. Students will be able to see grade progress throughout the semester. Faculty can use the Blackboard Grade Center to calculate grades to submit to Web Advisor. 

Use of Synchronous Tools

Unless the course has been specifically granted a synchronous component, faculty must not require mandatory online sessions or their classes. Specifically for lecture courses, depending on the comfort level of the class community, a faculty member may conduct solely on-campus office hours, a combination of in-person and online office hours or fully online office hours.