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Published on Leave a comment on Suggested Feedback for Underperforming Students

by Karen Nichols

As a followup to my previous post on discussion boards, I thought I would outline some best practices for responding to underperforming students.  All too soon, we'll begin a new academic year and it's so important to stay on top of our students' status and provide help to them, especially if they are struggling.  In a recent issue of Faculty Focus, Dr. Maryellen Weimer offers suggestions for feedback based on why a student is not doing well.

For the student who just isn't trying, she recommends offering alternate assignments and trying to find ways to engage that student.  When I'm teaching French online, I do tell my students to make suggested alternatives or I may give more than one choice for an assignment, but that is still not enough motivation sometimes.  When a subject is required and a student has no interest in it at all, what feedback do you give to help them?

For the student who lacks self-confidence, Dr. Weimer recommends focused feedback.  Be descriptive and specific--not evaluative.  Focus on each individual task that the student must complete and celebrate the progress with that student.  Learning a new language can be quite overwhelming for many students and getting them focused on completing the task at hand can be tricky.  When a student tries to read a paragraph in French and only understands 20% of it, s/he must be shown skills to apply to figuring out the other 80%.

There are other reasons for underperformance such as not possessing the requisite skills to be taking the class (you're trying to take French 1020 without 1010 because you had French in kindergarten?) or a student just can't grasp a certain concept (verb conjugation--what's that?).  In all of these cases, Dr. Weimer's article gives good tips on how to work with your students to help them improve their performance and hopefully succeed.

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Published on 3 Comments on Bb Accessibility Tip: Headings

by Janice Florent

This is the first in a series of blog posts that is a follow-up to my recent Accessibility in Education post where I wrote,

Even though you may not have a student with a disability currently enrolled in your course, there are a few things you can do when creating content that will save you time later when you do have a student with a disability. This is not wasted time as you will find some students without disabilities will take advantage of accessible content as well.

This post will focus on "Headings." A good heading structure is an important accessibility consideration. Headings should be used to indicate main points and sub-points on a page. Like an outline, heading levels should appear in logical and consistent order.

Headings allow screen reader users to easily navigate through the page and can make the page more usable for everyone.

When creating documents, many people do not use true "heading styles." For example, when creating a heading, they simply change the font type, enlarge the font size, change the color, make it bold, etc. When this is done, the document has no real structure that can be detected by a screen reader program. While visual learners can scan the page for text that stands out from the rest, users who rely on a screen reader are not able to "see" these elements.

The correct way to provide structure for accessibility purposes is to use heading styles. Listed below are instructions on applying heading styles in MS Word, PowerPoint, and the Content Editor.

Add heading styles in MS Word document:

  1. Click on the Home tab.
  2. Highlight the text.
  3. Click on the appropriate heading selector in the styles panel (e.g. Heading 1 for top-level heading).
image of MS Word ribbon showing headings

Add heading styles in PowerPoint:

Using slide layouts will ensure that files have correctly structured headings and lists, and proper reading order.

To assign a Slide Layout:

  1. Click on the Home tab.
  2. Click on New Slide.
  3. Choose the desired layout from the slide options menu.
image of PowerPoint ribbon showing slide layouts

Add heading styles in the Content Editor:

  1. Highlight the text.
  2. Select the proper heading level from the style selector (e.g. Heading for top-level heading; Sub Heading 1 for a subheading of the top-level heading, etc.).
image of Content Editor showing style selector

Note: When creating heading styles always use the proper heading level. Create uniform headings so that a screen reader can navigate the content and can understand how it is structured.

Additionally, you can customize styles.
Learn how to change styles in MS Word 2013
Learn how to change a style set in MS Word 2010
Learn more about PowerPoint 2013 slide layouts
Learn more about PowerPoint 2010 slide layouts

The National Center on Disability and Access to Education developed Accessibility Cheatsheets to assist anyone who is creating accessible content. These free resources are catered to less-technical individuals.

Published on Leave a comment on Civil Rights leader DeRay McKesson to keynote Rising Tide X conference

For Immediate Release August 4, 2015:

The organizers of Rising Tide, the premier annual new media conference in the GulfSouth, are proud to announce that civil rights activist DeRay McKesson (@deray) will deliver the keynote speech at Rising Tide X (#RTX), Aug. 29 at Xavier University.

Since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, McKesson has used social media to amplify protest and advocacy against oppressive systems. In the past year he has become one of the most widely-recognized civil rights leaders of his generation. His keynote, scheduled for 2pm, will highlight a full day of multi-track content at Rising Tide X.

Rising Tide organizer Mark Moseley said, "Part of Rising Tide's mission is to use technology to transform advocacy into action. No one has done that better over the past year than DeRay McKesson. He is at the forefront of an innovative digital movement to expose and resist systems of racial oppression. We thank him for accepting our invitation and look forward to his speech and presence in New Orleans on August 29."

Fortune magazine rated McKesson #11 on its list of “World’s Greatest Leaders.” The Los Angeles Times hailed McKesson as one of the “new civil rights leaders,” and New York Magazine profiled him in May and said he helped build the "nation’s first 21st-century civil rights movement."

For more on @DeRay, see his bio page.

Rising Tide X will be free admission. Organizers aim to have free lunch for attendees, as well, but this will be contingent on the amount of donations received on the RTX Go Fund Me page.

The 10th annual Rising Tide New Media Conference will be held from 9am-5pm at the University Center at Xavier University of Louisiana, 1 Drexel Drive, New Orleans, Louisiana 70125 on August 29, 2015.

Contact:

Mark Moseley
RTX organizer
oystersliq@gmail.com
504-481-5407

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Published on Leave a comment on Expanding Our Scope

by Bart Everson

Spirostar I

Xavier faculty certainly do a lot to advance the University's mission.

That's why here at CAT we are excited to be expanding the scope of our support for Xavier's faculty. Our newly revised mission is focused on "the development of faculty across all career stages and areas of professional responsibility."

Read our complete statement of Mission, Vision & Values.

Photo credit: "Spirostar I" by Heartlover1717

Published on Leave a comment on Podcast Back in the iTunes Store

Somewhere along the way, our podcast fell off the listing of podcasts in the iTunes store. But we're back!

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Published on 3 Comments on Accessibility in Education

by Janice Florent

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This law was enacted to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.

It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content. Statistics show that 12.9% of students have a disability. One in twenty-five incoming freshmen have some form of cognitive disability. These students have neurological challenges processing information. *

Forty to sixty percent of undergrads and nine percent of graduate students choose not to report their disability and will just struggle through their courses.*

Chances are you will have a student enrolled in one of your courses that has a disability and has chosen not to disclose that information to you.

The Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS) was designed with accessibility in mind. While Blackboard is accessible to persons with disabilities, uploaded content may not be.

Instructors should make a conscious effort to make sure content is accessible. Even though you may not have a student with a disability currently enrolled in your course, there are a few things you can do when creating content that will save you time later when you do have a student with a disability. This is not wasted time as you will find some students without disabilities will take advantage of accessible content as well. Additionally, if you usually copy content from one course to another you will be one step ahead because your copied course content will already be accessible.

Also for cognitive disabilities it’s important to build flexibility into your courses. This is done by using many modes of information and creating a clutter-free learning environment.

In an upcoming series of blog posts I will provide information on things you can routinely do when you create content and setup your courses to make it accessible.

*Source: https://help.blackboard.com/en-us/Accessibility/Accessibility_in_Education

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Published on 1 Comment on The Ultimate Guide to Discussion Boards!

by Karen Nichols
I know that a few of us in CAT have already posted suggestions and hints for success in using discussion boards. But I just have to share this guide with you from the Teaching Effectiveness Program produced by the Center on Teaching and Learning at the University of Oregon. Licensed to share through Creative Commons Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online Discussions (choose the discussionboard.pdf) is an 11 page how-to document that is chock-full of information, resources, research and examples. It is the best attempt I've seen yet that successfully pulls together the myriad pieces of what makes discussion boards work. A bit overwhelmed when I saw "11 pages," I soon discovered that it's actually an easy read. I would love some feedback from you to see if you find this resource as wonderful as I do.

is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike3.0Unported License.

Published on Leave a comment on Mix It Up: Strategies for Blended Learning

by Janice Florent

blended learning infographic

Blended courses (also known as hybrid courses) are courses where a portion of the traditional face-to-face instruction is replaced by web-based online learning. For blended learning to work well it entails more than simply replacing class time with online course elements.

In a Faculty Focus article, Rob Kelly writes,

When the online and face-to-face components complement each other as integrated activities in each setting, there is a clear purpose and students understand the relevance of both modes.

In the article, Rob goes on to give the following recommendations for how to successfully integrate the online and face-to-face modes of a blended course:

  • Start with the learning goals. Is there something that's going to support the learning outcome particularly well face-to-face or online or by using some combination of the two?
  • Make careful modality decisions. Select the right mix of modalities (online vs face-to-face). Consider the affordances of each modality and the workload/logistics.
  • Be deliberate in providing opportunities for interaction. Just because a communication tool or technique is available does not mean that you have to use it.
  • Reinforce one modality in the other. Be explicit in making the connections between the two modalities by acknowledging and extending the interaction in each.

Creating a blended learning course may not be appropriate for all courses or all instructors. The biggest benefit to a well-designed blended course could be a much improved teaching and learning experience.

You can read more about blended learning strategies in "Blended Learning: Integrating Online and Face-to-Face Courses" and "Strategies for Teaching Blended Learning Courses, Maybe You (and Your Students) Can Have It All" articles.

Image credit: "blended learning graphic overview" by jodieinblack licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Published on Leave a comment on Two Ideas to Foster Student Collaboration and Engagement

by Karen Nichols

Sue Frantz just posted two items in her Technology for Academics blog that you may find useful in a variety of settings The first post offers up a great way to foster student collaboration no matter what modality you're using to deliver your course. Dropbox has a new feature that allows others to deposit files into your Dropbox account via a URL. Sue Franz does a great job explaining the how-to part in the blog, so let's think of ways we can use this feature called File Requests. If you give your students a group project and they are each responsible for a part of the project, they can then deposit their contribution into the Dropbox of their other group members. Once complete, the group can in turn deposit their final project into your designated Dropbox. I can also see applications for this feature when collaborating with colleagues at a distance.

 Collaboration
Collaboration

Sue Frantz' second post centers on engagement. In this instance, ParticiPoll works in a face-to-face setting when you want to use polls and embed the polls in your Power Point presentations. How cool is that? Again, the Technology for Academics blog post explains the how-to. In addition to using it in class, wouldn't this be a useful feature to add engagement in a conference presentation? I've just attended two conferences back to back plus a virtual one this week and the polling attempts were not 100% successful. I want to experiment with this polling app myself for an upcoming conference, but also to see if we can adapt it to be used virtually or at least via Blackboard Collaborate.

Polling
Polling

So if you find you have a little free time on your hands this summer, I recommend checking out Dropbox File Request and Participoll. Let us know if you do and what you think of these two tools.

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #138: Videos Redux

Video is one of the most powerful, motivating, and visual ways to learn. You can use videos to promote critical thinking and active learning.

There's a big difference between watching a video and learning something from it.

Emily A. Moore, M.Ed., instructional designer in the online learning office at Texas State Technical College – Harlingen Campus, gives suggestions to help increase the educational effectiveness of an online course video. Read more in her article, "From Passive Viewing to Online Learning: Simple Techniques for Applying Active Learning Strategies to Online Course Videos."

Video can easily and effectively be incorporated inside your Blackboard courses to provide just-in-time feedback and/or to build in spontaneous interaction.

You can ask students to create videos to demonstrate learning. If you are interested how to use videos to demonstrate learning, read my “Video Assignments” blog post. This blog post also covers how students should go about linking to their videos in Blackboard.

PowerPoint slide with a video assignment

There are several ways to add videos to your Blackboard courses. Blackboard supports embedding and/or linking to video from many other systems and solutions. Sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, or other video repositories can be embedded easily by switching to html mode in the Content Editor and then pasting in the embed code.

image showing Embed Video using HTML code

The benefit of embedding video into a course is that it enables the students to stay within the context of the course and within the sequence of instruction, rather than linking out away from course content.

Another way to add video to your course is to upload the video file (i.e., MPEG/AVI, QuickTime, Flash/Shockwave, Microsoft .asf and .wmv formats).

Video files are generally large files. Each Blackboard course has a 1.25 GB maximum course size limit. Your course size is total of your uploaded video files sizes along with the size of all other course content, including content uploaded into your course by your students.

It is a good idea to embed or link to videos rather than uploading video files to your course to help you to stay within the maximum course size limit. You can upload your videos to YouTube, Vimeo, or other media server and then embed or link to the video within the course as explained above. Detailed instructions on recording, uploading, and sharing videos on YouTube can be found in the "Want more information?" section below.

image showing Build Content

When adding video files, it is a good idea to include links to any browser plug-ins or media player files that users will need to view the videos.

Note: Video Everywhere, which previously allowed you to upload YouTube videos directly into the Content Editor, is temporarily unavailable due to a change in the Google authentication process. Blackboard is working on a fix for this. We don't have any word on when this feature will be available again.

Want more information?

Simple Techniques for Applying Active Learning Strategies to Videos
Best Practices for Posting Video Announcements
Creating Mashups
Embed Videos into Your Course
How to Create Audio, Image, and Video Links
Video Assignments
Record, Upload, and Share Video on YouTube
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
Try these Blackboard How-To documents.
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.