Optimizing Brightspace: Tips to Enhance Your Course

A key component of CATT's mission is to provide resources and support to the campus community. Our Teaching Transformation team (T3) provides instructional and pedagogical support to help ensure you are equipped to create classroom experiences that promote student success. 

Maggie Grady plays a crucial role as the learning designer for teaching technology within CATT. In this capacity, she exemplifies the intersection of education, technology and instructional design. Her role encompasses a wide range of responsibilities, all aimed at enhancing the educational experience through the strategic integration of technology. As a learning designer, Maggie Grady collaborates closely with educators, curriculum developers and technology specialists. She serves as a bridge between these diverse stakeholders, facilitating effective communication and understanding between them. By doing so, she ensures that the technological solutions developed align seamlessly with the pedagogical goals and objectives of the institution.

As learning designer for inclusive pedagogy, Jeremy collaborates directly with faculty to support them in the development of equitable and inclusive pedagogical strategies to design and build compassionate, rigorous and supportive learning environments. 

As digital learning designer, Kevin has experience with online learning, educational technology, curriculum development and mapping, managing day-to-day course operations and providing direct support to students. 

In her own words, Roberta states: “I look forward to working with you, and providing tools to help you build a successful teaching career.  I am an advocate for professional development and believe that each of us have a responsibility to continue to learn and develop skills in our area of expertise. In the CATT department we offer support for you to deliver content using the best method to achieve the best outcomes.”

Discussion Forums: Encourage student engagement and collaboration through discussion forums. These can be used for class discussions, peer review, group projects and more. Brightspace Discussion Forums have a Ratings and Likes feature where users can rate and like discussion posts, providing a simple way to express agreement or appreciation for a contribution. This feature mimics social media and allows a gamification component to Discussion Forums. Here are some out of the box discussion board activities.

I believe every instructor should be utilizing the Visual Table of Contents which allows for a consistent and predictable organizational structure for students. As instructors become comfortable, they can add or revise specific visual table of contents features, such as brief descriptions, images and start and end dates. Utilizing these features creates a more dynamic learning experience.  

The Class Progress tool helps instructors monitor progress, prepare reports and stay connected with their students. They can track everything from access and grades to assignments and discussions. It's a fantastic way to keep everyone on track and engaged!

The Quick Eval tool – found on the NAV bar when first logged on to UB Learns (before navigating to your course) is a hidden gem. Quick Eval enables you to view all student submissions – from all of the courses you are associated with - that are ready for evaluation. Submissions made to Assignments, Quizzes and Discussions are displayed in a list and can be selected to take you directly to their assessment page.

Replace Strings enhances customization and personalization within Brightspace. Replace Strings refer to placeholders or variables that can be dynamically substituted with specific content or information. This functionality is particularly useful for tailoring the learning experience to individual learners, instructors or even specific courses. By strategically using Replace Strings, educators and administrators can create a more personalized and contextually relevant environment for learners.
Ex: Welcome {FirstName} becomes Welcome Maggie. Replace strings can be used in any HTML Editor within Brightspace. Replace strings are particularly useful within the following:

• Course Homepage Widgets.
• Custom Navigation Bar Links.
• Navigation Bars.
• Mail Templates.
• Grades when adding bulk feedback.

The consistent use of Discussion Forums is an excellent way to promote student engagement, however; both students and instructors must be committed to engaging with each other and, instructors must provide frequent and meaningful feedback, which can include a highlight summary of the week’s class discussion. 

I like the Groups tool in Brightspace as a way to make large classes feel smaller. An instructor can build groups in a variety of ways, including giving students the option for self-enrollment, whereby they can join a group that will be working on a project of particular interest. Additionally, when creating groups, instructors can create discussion boards where just those members and the instructor can see the conversation. Another great thing about Groups in Brightspace, is that you can easily recreate groups throughout the semester to give students an opportunity to expand their network.

Providing students with choices, for example, have 2 assignments with the same learning outcomes for the topic, students can choose which assignment is more interesting to them. Allow students an opportunity to submit an audio or video introduction at the start of the semester (P.S. you can do the same!).

Set Up Early Warning Alerts using Intelligent Agents. Brightspace enables you to configure early warning alerts based on specific criteria. For example, you can set alerts for students who haven't logged in for a certain period, have low quiz scores or haven't submitted assignments on time. Configure these alerts to be sent to both you and the students.

Brightspace has the Class Progress tool which allows instructors to monitor their students’ progress. This is an excellent tool to help instructors ensure their students are engaging with content and progressing toward the course learning outcomes. Instructors may also use Intelligent Agents to automate feedback directly from the Class Progress tool. 

The Insights Portal is a really cool tool that instructors can use to analyze how students are engaging in their course. Instructors can holistically view the engagement in their course and select on items they want to learn more about. By doing so, an instructor can identify students who are or are not doing what they need to be successful in the course. As an instructor selects items from the graphs, a table populates at the bottom of the screen with the names of students who fit those criteria, enabling instructors to easily reach out to students who may need additional support.

Rubrics are a great tool! Rubrics can be a valuable tool for helping students who may be struggling (really all students benefit), by providing clear expectations for assignments, discussions, quizzes and group work. Rubrics provide a framework that is structured and supports guidance and feedback.  As part of the assignment, a student can reflect on their work and submit a self-evaluated rubric. Rubrics help ensure consistency in grading, enhances the overall learning experience and outcomes of the course. Faculty can align assessments meet learning outcomes for the course.

Provide prompt feedback. Within the assignment or assessment, locate the feedback options. Brightspace provides various ways to add feedback, and video feedback is typically available as one of these options.

Utilizing multiple features might be helpful. For example, an instructor could use the Class Progress tool to monitor students’ progress. The instructor could then send a personal email using Replace Strings through the Classlist to specific students that may not have accessed specific content or achieved a particular score on a quiz to check-in and ask if they’d like additional resources and support.  

Release conditions are a great way for instructors to control the flow of content in their class. For example, a release condition could be applied to a quiz where a student must first view specific content to “unlock” the quiz. Or, if students are required to submit multiple pieces of a semester-long research paper, a condition can be set where students cannot view or submit the second piece until they have viewed an instructor’s feedback on the first piece.

I would suggest incorporating self-assessments in Brightspace. Self-Assessment offers several benefits for both instructors and students such as: promotes Active Learning, fosters Metacognition, enhances motivation, encourages responsibility, facilitates goal setting, identifies knowledge gaps, promotes reflection, provides feedback, increases engagement, reduces cognitive load and measures learning outcomes.

I like the Welcome Widget because you can greet your students at the virtual door to welcome them to the course. It’s a great way to introduce yourself to your students and get them excited about the course. Your course immediately becomes more dynamic and engaging and sets the tone for the rest of the semester.  

Incorporating any of the engagement tools to help foster connections and building bridges with students. Create an environment that promotes community building and a sense of belonging. 

Brightspace is a great LMS with many new features that were not found with Blackboard. The Pulse App is a great way to stay connected with your students. Replace Strings help to personalize messages to your students. I like how clean the Brightspace interface makes your courses look. Those are just a few that stand out to me. I encourage you to explore Brightspace features. Be patient with yourself, there are many features for you to use. As always, CATT is here to help. 

Be patient with yourself. Challenge yourself to try something new. Reflect on what is going well for you and your students, what may not be going so well and collect feedback from your students on how you might improve your course. Be open to improvement. 

I encourage instructors to try something new in their courses utilizing the UB Learns. Re-envision a component of course by moving it into the online space. For example, create a discussion forum for students to ask questions about course content, but have the students be the first responders and you, as the instructor, monitor for accuracy or to see if there is a muddiest point you should revisit in class. A little peer teaching can have a big impact on how students construct their understanding of new ideas.

Just like your students, instructors are at different comfort level of using Brightspace, don’t compare yourself. Instead evaluate how the first semester of using Brightspace is going, what is working, what needs improvement? Ask if the student is able to access the content easily, what is the flow of course organization? Next semester you can adjust and modify as needed, maybe add one or two of the advanced tools that Brightspace offers.

As we move through the fall semester and beyond, our Teaching Transformation Team is here to help you create the best course possible for your learners. They have a wide-range of knowledge on pedagogy strategies you can implement in your course. You are welcome and encouraged to reach out for instructional support and schedule a consultation with one of our team members today.