Class Engagement is a popular topic among instructors at many education levels. Common questions include: How is Class Engagement defined? Why is Class Engagement so important? How will my class and I benefit from better Class Engagement? What can I do to improve Class Engagement?
Well, that’s a lot of questions. In this post, I’ll tackle that last question. There are many tools and techniques you can use to improve class engagement, but one of the easiest is to implement an out-of-class discussion board. The Discussion Board built into Blackboard combined with the Blackboard mobile app is perfect for creating an engaged class outside the classroom.
To get started, you must first create a discussion forum and make the first post. The forum can be titled anything, but making it relevant to the course and sound like something you’d write is important. The best way to “break the ice” is to make sure to share a “Welcome” post.
Next, make sure all students download the Blackboard app to their mobile devices. You might use the last few minutes of one class to help students do this. If you need help explaining the app to students, here is a short video overview.
Then be enthusiastic about it! Encourage your students to post in Blackboard and explain that you genuinely care about their thoughts and want to help them make the most out of your class. Students won’t be enthusiastic about the idea if you aren’t.
Make sure your students understand that they can use the app to proactively ask questions, share their thoughts, and help each other.
Check in with your students by sharing posts and asking them to reply by commenting. For example: “How is class going for you so far? What is working for you? What isn’t? Please reply by commenting.” If you aren’t sure how to share posts, here is a short video that shows you how to. Some popular faculty posts are “what should I stop, start, continue doing?” or “which topics are you struggling with the most?”.
Be sure that the forum allows anonymous posts. There is a correlation between anonymity and post volume. Many students do not feel comfortable sharing what they don’t understand if they risk looking bad or sharing feedback that might affect how their instructor perceives them.
Go beyond the simple discussion by creating and deploying Surveys (basically an ungraded test). Check in with your students using surveys. For example: “How useful did you find today’s exercise?” “Useful, somewhat useful, not useful”. If you aren’t sure how to create and share surveys, here is a short video that shows you how. Surveys are also anonymous.
Give them an incentive to post. At the end of the semester, you can run a report for User Activity in Forums. Tell your students that you will give extra participation points to the top engagers. Students are not used to feeling connected with their professors outside of class and while engaging and reflecting about what they are learning is in their best interest, they need to get in the habit of it. It has been found that the best way to incentivize them to so is to reward students who post the most.
Hopefully that’s enough to get you started. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!
Until next time…
Fight the Good Fight!
