1. Is It On the Test? Blackboard Assessment Strategies
November 8, 2016
3:15 pm – 4:15pm
Room 415 – Fourth Level

2. Montgomery County Community College
Contact Information
Montgomery County Community College
Blue Bell, PA
Marie Hartlein Associate Professor, Computer Science

3. Today’s Topics: Common Assessment Problems
Assessment Techniques and Ideas
How to Streamline Assessment Feedback
A few tips every student and instructor should know
Open Discussion

4. Problem 1 - Is It On the Test?

5. Problem 2 – The Solutions are Available

6. Problem 3 – The Balancing Act

7. Solutions Assignments are a significant portion of the grade
60-65%
Show the current grade to students at all times
Use the features of your LMS to streamline grading
Assign a wide variety of assignments
Design assignments with more critical thinking
Design assignments where solutions cannot be copied or downloaded
Design good discussion questions
Use tools provided by your textbook publishers

8. Blackboard Grade Center Weighted Grade

9. Blackboard Grade Weighted Grade
Create a calculated column
Select Weighted
Edit the column
Set weights

10. Blackboard Grade Weighted Grade

11. Blackboard Grade Center Student Notification

12. Creating Blackboard Assignments
To create, open the folder to contain the assignment, select Assessments, Assignment.
Use SafeAssign to review assignment submissions for plagiarism potential and create opportunities to help students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase. SafeAssign is effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool.
SafeAssign compares submitted assignments against a set of academic papers to identify areas of overlap between the submitted assignment and existing works.
Each group submits one collaborative assignment and all members receive the same grade. You can create a single assignment and assign it to all groups, or create several unique assignments and assign them to individual groups
The Self and Peer Assessment Building Block is a tool designed to give students the opportunity to review the assignment and work of their peers against a set of defined criteria. Self and Peer Assessments can help distribute the workload and ensure that students receive feedback from several individuals.

13. Blackboard Assignments Student View
Use SafeAssign to review assignment submissions for plagiarism potential and create opportunities to help students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase. SafeAssign is effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool.
SafeAssign compares submitted assignments against a set of academic papers to identify areas of overlap between the submitted assignment and existing works.
Each group submits one collaborative assignment and all members receive the same grade. You can create a single assignment and assign it to all groups, or create several unique assignments and assign them to individual groups
The Self and Peer Assessment Building Block is a tool designed to give students the opportunity to review the assignment and work of their peers against a set of defined criteria. Self and Peer Assessments can help distribute the workload and ensure that students receive feedback from several individuals.

14. Blackboard Assignments Overview
Assignments can incorporate…
Instructions to the student
The ability for a student to submit a file(s) with comments.
Display and Due Dates (you can decide if they will be different).
Integration of the assignment with the calendar and the gradebook.
The ability to use grading rubrics.
SafeAssign (now integrated into assignments and you can use it to review submissions for plagiarism potential).
Grading Anonymously (an option for the instructor to grade without seeing student names) and delegated Grading (if you have TA’s).

15. Assignment Ideas Create an annual newsletter Create a budget
Create their address book
Create an invitation to an event of their choice
Create a flyer
Research a car they would like to purchase and analyze financial details

16. Assignment Ideas Design a database which is useful to you
Analyze, select and justify a computer system
Research a future technology trend and create a presentation.
My Final Project – Starting a Business

17. Grading Blackboard Assignments

18. Safe Assign Report
Use SafeAssign to review assignment submissions for plagiarism potential and create opportunities to help students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase. SafeAssign is effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool.
SafeAssign compares submitted assignments against a set of academic papers to identify areas of overlap between the submitted assignment and existing works.
Each group submits one collaborative assignment and all members receive the same grade. You can create a single assignment and assign it to all groups, or create several unique assignments and assign them to individual groups
The Self and Peer Assessment Building Block is a tool designed to give students the opportunity to review the assignment and work of their peers against a set of defined criteria. Self and Peer Assessments can help distribute the workload and ensure that students receive feedback from several individuals.

19. Grading Rubrics
Grading Rubrics help in both grade calculation and consistent feedback.
Course Tools >>> Rubrics – Create or modify the rubric
Modify the Item in the Gradebook so it is linked to the rubric.
Show some rubrics

20. Grading Rubrics

21. Grading Rubrics – Student Feedback

22. Other Time Saving Hints

23. Graded Discussions Discussions can be graded very quickly
Some of my favorite questions
Pick an end of chapter question
Have students explain how they will apply the material learned
After reviewing the videos posted for this week, find one additional video or resource that you found helpful in mastering this material.
All discussions require a reply to other students with specific requirements

24. Graded Discussions

25. Blackboard Discussions

26. Have Students Research Resources
I use the following videos in my lecture now…

27. Data Anyone? WolframAlpha.com http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Examples:
Try ‘Worlds Biggest Data Breaches’

28. Publisher Tools

30. Course Overview Quiz

31. Do You See What I See? (Tried & True)
Snipping Tool
I show this tool to students Week 1
Built into Windows 7 and Windows 8
Capture, annotate, save your entire screen or potions of the screen.
Keyboard Shortcuts (Mac)
Capture screen (Shift-Command-3)
Capture selection (Shift-Command-4)
Grab (.tiff format)
Snipping Tool—link to one-minute video
Jing—free version from the makers of Camtasia, $14.95 for Jing Pro, excellent product, lots of excellent tutorials
Katie’s suggestion: you can edit the keyboard shortcut to include just one key on the keyboard instead of 3. To do this: Click the Apple in the top left hand corner of the Mac screen. Click System Preferences... Click Keyboard Click the tab for Keyboard Shortcuts On the left, click Screen Shots Click on the shortcut you want to change. Tap the tab key so that the shortcut sequence is editable Tap the shortcut key you want (Ex. press F15 which is in a similar position to the PrtScr button an a Windows Machine) Close the window and try it out.

32. Locating Files
+ E

33. Course Setup – Date Management
Date Management is used to change display and due dates for your course.
Packages and Utilities >>> Course Copy
Tools >>> Date Management – select the best date adjustment option.

34. Course Setup – Date Management

35. Blackboard Student Preview
Enter Student Preview is a new button in the top right corner.
View the course from the student perspective.
Can review postings, take quizzes and view the gradebook as a student.
Very helpful in confirming content visibility!

36. Blackboard Student Preview
Exiting Student Preview gives you the option to keep or delete the preview user and all the user data.
In Student View you can do the following student activities:
View the course from the student perspective
Submit assignments and take tests
Create discussion posts
View student tools, such as My Grades
Blackboard captures all data associated with your activities, such as submitted assignments and discussion posts.

37. Blackboard Version and Features
Enter your Course and select the Announcements tab.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on Installation Details.

38. Discussion