Creating a supportive learning environment on Blackboard

Instroduction

  • Teachers often wonder how they can create a supportive learning environment on Blackboard. 
  • This article will introduce features in Blackboard which you can use to create a supportive e-learning environment and engage students starting from the very beginning of the term.  

Course Entry Point

The welcome page introduces the course, the teacher, and TA. Students can grasp the basic information at a glance once logged in the course. 

For more:

Discussion Board

You could set up space for students to introduce themselves and know each other. You could then have a better understanding of your students (e.g. their background knowledge, the reason why they take the course, etc.) 

For more:

Announcements

You could welcome your students and let them know that it is time to take part in the online activities (e.g. the self-introduction forum, go through the video and documents before class) using Announcement. You can also send a copy of the announcement as an email to all course members.

Some teachers set the Announcement page as the Course Entry Point.

For more:

Groups

You would like to set up groups for students to discuss and collaborate with their groupmates. 

For more: Blackboard Help: Create Groups

Web conferencing 

You would also like to schedule real-time web conferencing sessions for Q&A or discussions with students.

The following tools are available at CUHK: