Trustee raises concerns about Blackboard use

Catherine Engstrom-Hadley
Staff Writer

Blackboard use by WCC faculty members might be up by 16.8% overall since 2016, but that number is not high enough for some.

“Why isn’t the goal 100%?” asked WCC board of trustees member Richard Landau at the January trustees meeting. “This is the worst data I have seen in my 16 years on this campus.”

The school set a goal of 75% gradebook usage by fall of 2020.

“We think it’s important that all of our students get continuous feedback and know what their grade is in every single class,” said Kimberly Hurns, vice president for instruction at the meeting. A recent change at the college was automatically establishing a Blackboard site for all WCC courses.

English instructor Mary Mullalond uses Blackboard and considers it to be a helpful resource. She said her students appreciate the transparency in always knowing what their grade is and using Blackboard also allows students to catch if there’s an error in the gradebook.

The new gradebook goal shoots for faculty to achieve high usage levels on Blackboard. High usage means consistent activity from faculty and students and weekly gradebook activity. High usage is currently 46.9%, which is a 38.6% increase from 2016.

“Students think they are doing great in a course, then the professor catches up and the student realizes ‘oh my god, I thought I was getting an A and I was getting C,’” Landau said. “It’s demoralizing; it drives people away.”

Mullalond said her faculty colleagues continually give students feedback about their grades and assignments, but there are many ways of giving that feedback.

“The college has never required or mandated the faculty use Blackboard before, so no, not all faculty use Blackboard because no one’s ever asked us to—it’s always just been an option,” Mullalond said. For some classes, such as a yoga class, it might just not make sense to use Blackboard for grades, she said.

However, part-time and adjunct faculty members will soon see a new requirement to use Blackboard to post grades and upload first-day hand-outs, Mullalond said.

Kaden Fulcher is a sophomore student who has been burned by poor Blackboard use in the past.

“I had been checking with my professor half the semester about my grade and he said it was fine. Then over Thanksgiving break when all the grades were entered, I was super behind,” Fulcher said. “I had to scramble to make my grade. I don’t know if the professor knew how bad it had gotten.”

Currently, grades are submitted through a separate system from blackboard. However, that system is set to change and instead use Intelligent Learning Platform that will allow grades to be updated from Blackboard to the college’s system.

Other students feel differently about Blackboard and choose to monitor how they’re doing in class themselves.

“I don’t really use Blackboard unless I have to. I track how I do on tests and papers and know where my grade is,” said student Erin Ross. “If students aren’t doing this, will Blackboard really change that?”

Trustee Ruth Hatcher said that students should know based on their performance and the work they are handed back whether or not they are failing, with or without seeing their Blackboard grades.

“I think faculty do give students feedback on a regular basis without Blackboard,” Hatcher said.

At the end of the meeting, Landau asked for a dedicated email box to be set up for students to submit Blackboard complaints.

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