Category:Groups Collaboration
From BbInstructorWiki
Blackboard makes it easy for students to collaborate online sharing materials, projects, assignments and study sessions. Collaboration can be open to the entire class as well as for specific groups of students working on a common task or project. Break down the class into collaborative units to support group work on the Control Panel, using either Manage Groups, Advanced Group Management, or Batch Allocate Groups (see below for more information on the differences between these).
Some types of collaboration may involve all course users, such as “Peer-to-Peer Help”. Create a group that includes all the students to provide such an environment.
Groups can be set up any time during the course and can be managed dynamically throughout the course by adding, removing and modifying them. Groups can be given access to different tools such as Chat and Discussion Board so that each group can have its own areas to work in.
Group projects, study sessions, peer review and round table dialogue are some examples of how the Discussion Board can be used to encourage collaboration. This threaded message board organizes postings under topic headings or Forums. Creating student centered forums on topics relevant to the course allows students time to read and consider what others have posted before composing a response.
Setting up Groups within a Blackboard Course
There are a couple of alternative methods of allocating students to groups, which make this process easier especially when dealing with large class sizes.
- If you prefer to see all users listed on the screen and allocate them to groups via checkboxes, please read the article on how to use the Advanced Group Management function.
- If you prefer to allocate to groups by uploading a spreadsheet (this is slightly more complicated but highly recommended for very large class sizes) please see the article on how to Batch Allocate to Groups.
