{"id":5595,"date":"2022-06-23T08:52:08","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T07:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/humteachlearn\/?p=5595"},"modified":"2026-10-14T14:46:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T13:46:46","slug":"benefits-formative-blackboard-quizzes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/humteachlearn\/2022\/06\/23\/benefits-formative-blackboard-quizzes\/","title":{"rendered":"The benefits of regular formative Blackboard quizzes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"PanagiotisIn previous years, students needed to attend one 1-hour seminar per week solving exercises complementing the lecture content. Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) from across the School served as seminar leaders. The variation in the teaching approach and style among the seminar leaders did not result in an optimal result in terms of teaching experience, while also adding a substantial workload to the course co-ordinator by having to co-ordinate 10-15 GTAs.<\/p>\n

How did you address the challenge?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Immediately after each (offline) lecture an online blackboard quiz (in some weeks more than one) was made available for students to practice the topics covered during the lecture. Formative blackboard quizzes, a discussion board forum, and weekly drop in sessions were used in place of seminars to provide formative feedback.<\/p>\n

Due to the quantitative nature of this course, the weekly quizzes predominately involved calculated numeric questions in which students were presented with a problem\/ question that requires a numeric answer. Following the submission of their answer students received immediate feedback in the form of the correct answer and detailed instructions of how to derive the correct answer (i.e., algebraic calculations). Students could interact with the instructor, check their understanding, and seek advice when they recognize that their understanding was incomplete via a dedicated forum as part of the course Blackboard discussion board. This forum was monitored and moderated by the course leader and a GTA.<\/p>\n

A weekly on-campus drop-in session (attended by both the course leader and a GTA) was scheduled to ensure students could physically meet us and seek support in case they needed more help. The drop-in took place on a School\u2019s computer cluster as students needed to use spreadsheet software for some of the questions.<\/p>\n

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\"graph<\/strong>Students were asked to what extent they agreed with the statement:  \u201cThe Blackboard course space supported my learning\u201d<\/p>\n

Results are shown in the chart. (N = 101\/385 (26.23%); M= 4.63; SD= 0.66)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some of the comments from students:<\/p>\n

\u201c[\u2026] exercises were helpful and the blackboard discussions were the best way to ‘fix our problems’ of understanding the topic.\u201d
\u201cI like the fact that he gave us a lot of quizzes to practice\u201d
\u201cquizzes are very helpful for the exam\u201d
\u201cthe homework is very effective for me to get higher marks\u201d
\u201cthe Blackboard weekly practice online tests were clear and provided thorough explanation of every topic\u201d
\u201cI really valued the Maths surgery and online practise tests\u201d
\u201cI especially think that practice quizzes are very useful\u201d
\u201cThe quizzes give excellent and timely feedback\u201d
\u201cThe quizzes really helped understand the topic better\u201d<\/p>\n

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Setting up a blackboard quiz can be intimidating at first but it pays off.
Make sure you get familiar with the blackboard nuances before embarking on the exercise.<\/p>\n

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School:<\/strong>\u00a0Alliance Manchester Business School<\/p>\n

Discipline:<\/strong>\u00a0Business and Management<\/p>\n

Academic:<\/strong>\u00a0Panos Sarantopoulos<\/p>\n

Course:<\/strong> BMAN10960 Quantitative Methods for Business and
Management<\/p>\n

Cohort Size:<\/strong>\u00a0385 students<\/p>\n

Themes: <\/strong>Enhancing learning with technology<\/p>\n

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Ref: 063<\/pre>\n
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