How To: Using Blackboard to Foster Collaboration Across Classes

bb_logoElisabeth Benfey, a lecturing fellow, and Michael Malone, a professor of the practice, both in Theater Studies wanted to collaborate by sharing one common Blackboard site accessible by the students from the two different classes they are teaching.  They started by manually adding the students from one class into a Blackboard course site that was pre-populated with the roster from the other class, until they learned an easier way.

An instructor can request help from the OIT Service Desk or by phone 684-2200 and ask that course rosters from different classes be combined into one, already existing, Blackboard course site.  The system will be configured to have both or all (having more than two classes combined is possible as well) class rosters populate the one Blackboard site, and automatically manage drop/add.   To request a new Blackboard course site, go to our Blackboard support site, choose “Request a Site”  (Net id required) and include in the comments area your request to combine rosters from the classes.

This same principle of using one Blackboard course site to collaborate between multiple classes could be used to support any type of collaboration between instructors, including interdisciplinary work.   If you would like other ideas on how to collaborate across classes or disciplines, please contact the Center for Instructional Technology at learninginnovation@duke.edu.