This academic year the eLearning department at NCCC is focusing on providing training and workshops to support our new Online Course Observation/Effective Online Teaching Behaviors self-evaluation guide. Each month we will focus on one of the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education with a specific focus on Online Teaching. December will focus on Principle 3 which is to “encourage Active Learning.”

Active learning methods engage students in the learning process by encouraging them to discover, process, and apply information.  In an online course, student activities to support this would be active uses of writing, speaking, or other forms of self-expression, opportunities for information gathering, synthesis, and analysis in solving problems, engaging in collaborative learning, and reflecting on their learning.  Below are a few articles you can read to learn more and I invite all NCCC faculty to join us for our live sessions via Zoom.  We will showcase examples of active learning tools such as reflection journal assignments, resource curating and sharing, and collaborative learning spaces.  See this document for the session schedule and log in information.

Suggested Readings:
7 Things You Should Read about Instructional Strategies for Active Learning

Simple Techniques for Applying Active Learning Strategies to Online Course Videos

This trick is for those of you using the Blackboard Grade Center.

As the semester is winding down we are constantly getting the question “What are my grades” or “How am I doing”.  In the Blackboard Grade Center the faculty view is showing all students grades making it hard to sit down with a student and go over their grades.

Blackboard has a quick feature that you can use to hide all rows except one.  To do this go the Bb Grade Center, point to the students last name and an arrow will appear to the right of their name.  Click the arrow and select “hide other rows”. This will show only the one students data. To display all the rows again go back to the student’s last name click the arrow and select “Show All Rows”.