1. Blackboard Essential Elements
The following are terms associated
with this unit.

2. Objectives
When you begin planning for a course, you are often given
course goals and textbooks often have a list of unit
objectives. For individual lessons, you can provide students
with specific, measurable objectives that will lead them to
conquering the often larger unit and course goals
Best Practice:
• When organizing your course into chunks of
material, begin each chunk of material with an
introduction and list of student learning objectives. Let
the students know what they will know and be able to
do at the end of that lesson.
• Use an Item to complete this task and add an image
related to the content.
What you want students to know
and be able to do at the end of a
lesson.

3. Discussion Board
Unlike email, a discussion board allows the
instructor to create multiple conversations that
can occur across time. Students do not need to
be in the same time and can add to the
conversation when it is convenient for them.
Considerations:
• You can create topics for students to talk
about
• You can allow students to create their own
smaller topics around a broader topic.
A discussion board is a place
where you can have
asynchronous conversations
(forums) surrounding a variety of
topics.

4. Discussion Forum
When you want students to focus on one topic, you
can create the forum for them so they do not get
lost in the bigger Discussion Board. While the
Discussion Board holds all the conversations you
have create, the forum is one of the conversations.
Considerations:
• Within your chunked material, link to a forum
rather than the board to keep students on task.
• Students can still add different threads should
they want to expand a conversation.
A Discussion Forum is an
individual conversation that takes
place on a Discussion Board.

5. Bloom’s
Taxonomy
There are several verb lists available online that can
help you use Bloom’s to write your own learning
objectives for your students.
Considerations:
• Whenever you are designing a lesson, have a
Bloom’s verb list with you to choose strong verbs
that can measure if your students “get” the
material.
• Use Bloom’s to ensure that your students are
working toward the upper levels of Bloom’s and
not simply memorizing for a test.
• Use the Bloom’s lists to get ideas for creative
lessons.
Resources:
http://teaching.uncc.edu/learning-resources/articles-books/best-practice/goals-
objectives/writing-objectives
http://www.teachthought.com/learning/249-blooms-taxonomy-verbs-for-critical-thinking/
Created by Benjamin Bloom, the
taxonomy is the classification of
learning objectives from lower levels
such as remember and understand to
higher levels such as analyze and
create.

6. Grade Center
Your Blackboard Grade Center allows you to
customize your gradebook using points, percentages,
and weights. You can also link directly to a variety of
assignment types within your class.
Secure, web-based grade book.

7. Course Link
When you have chunked your material, you can use
course links to:
• Create a direct link to a discussion forum
• Create a direct link to a test or quiz
• Create a direct link to material that you would
like students to revisit
A link you provide for your students
that takes them somewhere else in the
course.

8. Test
When you create a test for students, you may want
to refer to Bloom’s taxonomy and use the variety of
question types available in blackboard to ensure that
students are demonstrating success at the higher
end of Bloom’s. Within tests, you have many options
including:
• Multiple choice
• Fill-in the blank
• Matching
• Short Answer
• Essay
• Hot Spots
• Formulas
Online evaluation tool that is graded
and can be used to determine student
understanding of material.

9. Survey
Surveys can provide you with valuable information
about where students are regarding content without
having to assign point values to the questions. As
with tests, you can create a variety of question
types:
• Multiple choice
• Fill-in the blank
• Matching
• Short Answer
• Essay
• Hot Spots
• Formulas
Online evaluation tool that is similar to
a test, but cannot be graded.

10. Pools
Pools do not have point values. Point values can be
added when you pull from the pool into a test or
survey.
Collections of test questions. You can
create a pool of questions that you
often use and then pull from those
pools when you are creating tests or
surveys.