Before I started up full-time here at BU MET, I did the “adjunct shuffle”, in addition to quite a bit of tutoring, in order to pay my bills each month. Along the way, I taught at a school that required all of its instructors to make a weekly announcement in Blackboard (our web-based learning management system), in which coming due dates, events, class topics, etc. would be mentioned.
This school had quite the list of rules, and I definitely remember how I reacted when I learned about this requirement: “Oh my goodness…another administrative burden?!? Just leave me alone and let me teach!” Over time, though, I actually grew to like this one; in fact, I’ve kept it as a part of my toolkit, and still use it to this day.
In all of my classes, I post one Blackboard announcement every Monday, which sits on the class Blackboard page as a reference, and also goes to each student via e-mail. I don’t commit to sending it out at any particular time on Monday — I just get it out there at some point on Monday, day or evening. The information it contains is almost always contained in the syllabus anyway, so it has more of a reinforcement function than an “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” function.
Here is an example that I randomly plucked from a Marketing Analytics class from last Spring:
Team 654,
Greetings, and I hope your weeks are off to a good start. Here’s what’s on tap for us this week (all times Eastern):
- Your two responses to Discussion Board #3 are due this evening by 11:59 p.m.
- Your initial post to Discussion Board #4 is due by Thursday evening at 11:59 p.m.
- The window for Quiz #2 will be this coming weekend from 9:00 a.m. Saturday until 11:59 p.m. Monday. I will clearly define the scope of Quiz #2 during the Live Session on Thursday. Live Classroom Session #4 will be Thursday at 8:00 p.m. in our usual classroom Zoom room. The project prompt will be posted prior to that session, and I’ll say more about it then.
- Homework Assignment #2 is due by 11:59 p.m. on the 17th.
- Facilitator-led Session #4 will be Friday at 8:00 p.m., also in our usual classroom Zoom room. Karl will take us on a tour of A/B Testing, which is a truly fundamental marketing analytics concept.
- As per the weekly routine, I’ll next hold Office Hours in the main classroom from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. next Sunday night, the 16th. I’ll also stick around after the classroom session on the 13th and after the facilitator session on the 14th in case there are any Homework 2-related questions.
- Solutions for the next round of individual exercises are now posted. They are optional, but they’re a very good source of additional practice and a way to round out your skill set.
Students are free to ignore this if they wish to (as noted above, the information in these weekly messages is already available elsewhere), but several students have reached out to me after courses have ended to mention that they appreciated these weekly updates.
Across the semesters, I’ve learned that these check-in/update bullet points are helpful not just for them, but for me as well. In any given semester, I could have anywhere from 4 to 6 courses (yes, it has happened!), with as many as four unique preps. That can be every bit as crazy as it sounds, so setting a few minutes aside every Monday to take stock of each one, and to itemize the salient topics/due-outs in a list format greatly helps with keeping me organized and on-track, too.
GoodWaveData 