Leveraging Ultra for a Learner Centered Course

A thoughtfully designed Blackboard course shell can be one of the strongest teaching tools an instructor has – reducing the cognitive load of procedural minutiae and instead focusing student attention on the content they are expected to learn. In this session, we will look at best practices for engaging students in a learner-centered course using the tools provided by Blackboard Ultra. 

Gabrielle Likavec
Central Michigan University

107D

Anthology Roadmap Session

Get an exclusive look at the upcoming Learn enhancements and feature releases from Senior Product Manager, Dr. Lisa Clark. Discover the new wave of innovation for Learn, including an overview of the newest Learn roadmap and an exclusive look at what’s next for Blackboard Learn. 

Lisa Clark
Anthology

109D

Week One Academy

Make a rapid impact with an intentional course design that immediately engages students and provides performance feedback right in the first week of the semester. Help students get going with a series of brief, out-of-class virtual activities that connect them to the course, capture their attention, and create a sense of urgency. Say goodbye to syllabus week and start the semester with a bang.

Amanda Buday
Grand Valley State University

117E

Supporting Students that Support Faculty

As GA’s at GVSU eLearning department, Landon and Mai supported faculty in their use of Blackboard and other university technologies. Once the transition to Ultra was announced, supporting faculty in the move to Ultra became a top priority. In this session, Landon and Mai will share lessons learned from the early part of the transition to Ultra, as well as how they leveraged their roles as students to better serve the university body.

Mai Mohamed Nour
Grand Valley State University

Landon Nalepinski
Grand Valley State University

119E

Accommodating the Accommodations: Utilizing Blackboard Ultra and Ally to Tailor the Learning Experience

When faculty receive an accommodation letter from the disability support office, they are often left to figure out how to make the accommodation work. Blackboard Ultra, along with Ally, provide tools to make the accommodating process easier. This workshop will demonstrate what the tools are, how to use them, and how all students in your courses can benefit from them.

Barbara Stevens
Grand Valley State University

121E

Roadmaps? Where we're going, we're gonna need roadmaps

Doc Brown's famous advice to Marty McFly was, "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." In this session, we'll go back in time to look at how Schoolcraft College made the leap from the past (Blackboard Original) to the future (Blackboard Ultra) - simultaneously launching over 99% of courses in Ultra in January 2023. We'll walk through the planning process, successes, pitfalls, and lessons learned. We'll look back in time, gaze into the future, and (hopefully) have a little fun along the way. After all, if you're gonna build a path to Ultra - you might as well do it with some style.

Adam Authier
Schoolcraft College

107D

Orienting Students to Blackboard Ultra!

Transitioning students from one LMS to another can be a daunting task for any institution. Online student orientations can easily become a secondary issue during an LMS migration. This can leave faculty wondering how to ensure students know how to use the tools in the new LMS. After this session attendees will walk away with a global institutional approach to how they can orienting students to Blackboard Ultra.

Stephanie Webber
Grand Valley State University

Justin Melick
Grand Valley State University

109D

Learn+Goals+Outcomes+EAC - Providing Efficiencies and Insights into Student Performance

This co-presented presentation will demonstrate and discuss what is called Blackboard's Assessment Solution and the efficiencies and insights this combination of tools, along with our services, can provide Learn clients. EAC is the single reporting, analytics, and visualization portal for excavating student performance data across rubrics with rows aligned to Goals embedded in courses, exams with questions aligned to Goals, or from rubrics used to review student work outside the course through Outcomes. We will showcase key functionality through references to our Michigan and surrounding state clients who are using either this inside the course (primary) and/or outside the course (juried) process leveraging Learn Original and Ultra to efficiently and effectively gather student performance data on their institutional, program, accreditor, and course level student outcomes. We will use some polling and audience engagement activities (with prizes) to ask the audience to reflect and comment on their institution's assessment and accreditation challenges and share ideas and ask questions for how Learn + Goals + Outcomes + EAC might help them meet these challenges. We will close the session with an overview (roadmap) of the EAC assessment analytics software within Anthology's larger data strategy and emerging client requests for competency based reporting, student skills insights, and helping students, instructors, chairs, and Programs better understand how to improve teaching and learning.

Ruth Newberry
Anthology

Christopher Heisen
Anthology

117E

5 Steps for Course Design with Ultra

Grand Valley State University has 2000 instructors who are transitioning their courses from Blackboard Original to Ultra, in serving a student population of approximately 23,000 students. Switching faculty to a new LMS has created an opportunity to rethink and recreate training and support for faculty members learning to build their courses. We have created a 5 Step process for building a course in Ultra, which focuses on pedagogy and practice, with faculty action items to complete for each of the 5 steps. The faculty training uses Backward Design, course mapping, and includes consideration for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and online teaching best practices. 

Kelley Senkowski
Grand Valley State University

119E

Hypothesis: Collaborative Annotation Tool for Blackboard Learn Ultra

Studies suggest the use of social annotation and the co-creation of knowledge encourages student engagement while raising awareness of the importance of open and collaborative practices. With Hypothesis, instructors can support student success by placing active discussions right on top of their course readings. In addition to learning about the pedagogical best practices for collaborative annotation, participants can expect to come away with a clear idea of how they can start incorporating collaborative annotation into their course.

Vincent St. Germain
Grand Valley State University

Judy Stearns Williams
Grand Valley State University

121E