Using the Blackboard Assignment Tool

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The Assignment tool is, without a doubt, THE MOST DIFFICULT TOOL TO FIGURE OUT IN BLACKBOARD. It is powerful, however, it is tricky. It is also confusing to grade. It is suitable for short essays and papers, not quizzes or discussions.

You can weight grades. You do this through the grade book. There is an option at the top of the grade book to weight each grade individually.

Once you get the purpose and the way to handle this you will be fine, but is not intuitive. It is not intuitive for the students either. You will help your students when you give good directions.

Also – you can give feedback with your grade. I don’t know if students look at the feedback, but you can give it to them.

 I now realize I need to tell students where to find the Grade book.

1.      What type of comments should be in the instructor reply in the Blackboard assignments? I would say anything you would normally tell the students in a face-to-face class. If you have them upload a file with their answers then you can use the “track changes” feature of Word (it’s under the Review button in Word 2007) to comment inside the paper. Then you upload the paper for them. Alert them that the Blackboard Assignment is there. You need a calendar somewhere in the course that gives dates needed. You can include an announcement about the assignment. Unfortunately, announcements are often missed. Be sure to move the current announcement to the top of YOUR announcements (just use the little numbered box in front of the announcement) but the institution will always be able to put an announcement higher than yours.  

2.      Warn students about the ! so they don’t think it is a 1. One student was very upset that I only gave her a 1 in the assignment until I reassured her.

3.      Put the Blackboard assignment inside the folder for the week or unit. Once you have deployed it becomes hard to move.

4.      Once you make a comment on the assignment the student can no longer reply to you there. They would have to email you. That’s why I wish Blackbaord had a Journal feature where there could be a conversation. It’s in the newer versions of Blackboard. Now I include my email in my comments. Yes, I have given students my email in the Syllabus and the faculty profile, but I repeat it at the end of my comments.

5.      Is the assignment is appropriate for multiple choice questions? The answer is NO.

Blackboard has a “quiz” feature that will allow us to do that. 

6.      Notice that when you develop a Blackboard assignment it goes DIRECTLY INTO THE GRADEBOOK. You do not have to manually do this, which is a big plus. The grade you assign is automatically added to the total grade.

7.      You can give an example of what you want students to do in the assignments. I like this idea. I know some educational psychologists (especially Ellen Langer from Harvard) believe that giving an example limits students but I disagree. I have been in classes as a student and remember thinking: “What does that teacher want?” When I tried to pin down the assignment I was often told that I had to “be creative.” That’s ok but then I would not want points taken off because of creativity. What I often do is ask students who have submitted good work if they would allow me to use their answers as examples. I give them credit. So far, no students have refused this. They seem happy to do this. By law, you cannot use student work unless you request because it is copyrighted once it is entered by the student. 

8.   There are positives and negatives in giving students a guide to the length you expect. Look at this from a student's viewpoint. If I am asked a question I have no idea how long the answer should be. Personally, I believe it is fair to give them some guidance in this issue.

9.      Students have problems with APA. There are web references you can refer them to if you wish. There is the Flash tutorial  http://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/basics/index.htmhttp://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/basics/index.htm and the Citation machine http://citationmachine.net/ . If students do their assignments using the iPad there is no facility for italics. I wonder what APA will do about this.