ASUI Faculty Senate Representative Lindsey LaPrath stood before Faculty Senate this week, prepared to review the resolution she had first proposed months before.
The ASUI Representative first presented the issue to Faculty Senate several months ago. The proposed legislation would mandate all instructors post grades to the University of Idaho Blackboard Learn site (Bblearn) to allow students to have a common place where they could go to check their grades for all their classes.
“Since I last brought this topic to you guys, (ASUI has) done a lot of research, and taken all of your questions and concerns, and tried to answer them as best as we could,” LaPrath said.
LaPrath said UI paid more than $250,000 for Bblearn this fiscal year, and that ASUI would like to broaden its use to get the most out of the expense.
“Through student polls and surveys, we have found that students collectively want to see Blackboard more utilized on campus,” LaPrath said. “With this increased usage we”ll hopefully be able to help teachers as well with quite a bit of professional development and help on campus for instructors who are wishing to use this technology.”
LaPrath said a big reason this topic is important is the transparency it creates between teachers and students. This transparency, she said, will allow students to frequently know how their grades are doing, which in theory will help them achieve a higher standard in their education.
“There were over 6,000 Bblearn pages that were not enabled (in 2015),” LaPrath said. “Taking into consideration that there are things like directed study, internships, research – that you wouldn”t expect to see a Blackboard Learn page for only totaled 1,131. So we are still missing over 5,000 Blackboard Learn courses that would fit the criteria to be turned on.”
Faculty Sen. Yun Chung of the College of Business and Economics suggested some of these sites might be doubles of the same course, though that was acknowledged to have been accounted for by the Distance and Extended Education staff who helped collect the information.
Faculty Sen. Stephan Flores of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences asked if the students themselves had looked at the different options for grading that the instructors would have if this mandate were in place. LaPrath said that the Distance Education staff along with Information Technology Services (ITS) had helped ASUI explore the methods that are used by teachers to import grades, as well as the tools that would be helpful to them.
Faculty Sen. Allan Caplan of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences asked what updating grades more frequently would do to promote students” learning, as well as how it would address students” concern that teachers often don”t post grades.
LaPrath said the transparency of knowing a grade in a class more often than just at midterm and after finals allows students to understand how they are doing in a class, and when they need to alter their performance to get a more desirable grade.
“It will open up the discussion of where students are struggling to come in and talk with their instructor to get more help,” she said. “I think that will help their education and learning experience.”
Will Meyer can be reached at [email protected]