Every semester, students wait until the first day of classes to find out what their courses will be like, what will be expected of them, and how they can be successful. The first week of the semester becomes a firehose of information for students that results in lost details. Other students are still adjusting their enrollments, particularly when course schedules or expectations conflict, and they have to catch up to their classmates. Fortunately, there is a simple fix: open your course early in the learning management system (Blackboard, at NIU), so that students receive information early and can explore before the semester begins.
Why You Should Open Your Course Early in Blackboard
Adapting James M. Lang’s advice for How to Teach a Good First Day of Class, here are 4 quick reasons why this can help your students:
- Curiosity – Simultaneously spark curiosity in the course’s subject matter (one of the easiest ways to increase motivation for learning) and satisfy students’ curiosity about the course itself. This will help to reduce anxiety and the number of emails you receive with questions prior to the first day of classes.
- Community – A sense of belonging and connection to others is important for creating a strong learning environment. You can humanize yourself to students through an introductory video or informal biography and start the process of connecting students to one another through an introductions discussion (or video discussion).
- Learning – Help students prepare themselves for learning with some content or activities that spark excitement or curiosity. Try a metacognitive activity where students reflect on their interest or prior knowledge about the subject, give them a chance to share what they already know, or challenge them with the types of problems they’ll be able to solve by the end of the semester.
- Expectations – You can help students succeed by sharing expectations early, such as by posting a syllabus and course schedule in your Blackboard course. This goes a long way to reducing anxiety about the upcoming semester.
We recommend opening the course a few days to a week early and sharing at least the syllabus and course schedule. You can hide most of the content of the course by hiding content areas on your course menu in Original Course View or by using the visibility settings on individual content items. It also helps to have a clear page with instructions for how to get started, the one included in the optional course template that you can request from the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning.
How to Open Your Course Early in Blackboard
When you request your course in Blackboard, you can specify a date when you would like the course to open to students. Once that date is set, you can still change it with the new Course Availability Settings tool. You can access the Course Availability Settings in 3 locations:
- From the Tools tab on the base navigation, click Course Availability Settings
- In Original Course View, in the Control Panel, click Course Tools and then click Course Availability Settings
- In Ultra Course View, in the Details & Actions panel, click View Course & Institutional Tools and then click Course Availability Settings
This tool lists all of your courses and identifies whether they are available to students. You can also edit the availability or course start and end dates, if you want to open the course to students.
For a course to be open to students, it must be set to Open and either today must fall between the start and end dates or the availability type must be set to Continuous.
Learn more about course availability.
