In 2019-20, approximately 21 percent of undergraduate students and 11 percent of post baccalaureate students reported having a disability (National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Facts, 2023). Disability Awareness Month offers an opportunity to increase awareness about the variety of disabilities students may experience and help break down misconceptions. 

Inclusive Experiences for All

Disability awareness includes addressing physical environments and improving accessibility in buildings, classrooms, and public spaces to ensure all individuals can navigate and participate fully. This might involve installing ramps, widening doorways, adding signage, or improving lighting. The Office of Accessibility & Disability raises awareness about the lived experiences of people with disabilities and highlights services for faculty, staff, and students at UMBC. 

Instructors play an important role in recognizing the diverse needs of students with disabilities while striving to promote equity and access for all. This includes creating inclusive learning experiences for students with disabilities and might involve providing assistive technologies, flexible teaching methods, or individualized support plans. 

Creating more accessible courses also requires consideration of diverse learning styles and approaches that result in engaging learning for all students. Strategies grounded in Universal Design for Learning principles can leverage technology in ways that help all students succeed. Key practices that support accessible course design include the following. 

Universal Design for Learning 

One of the most impactful ways instructors can support students is by using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines, a framework that aims to provide multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression for learners. UDL benefits all students, not just those with disabilities, because it offers flexible ways learners can access content and demonstrate knowledge. 

UDL is a key practice that supports accessible course design. Instructors can get started in any of the following ways:

• Review UDL guidelines that support offering multiple means of representation to learners by employing various formats such as text, audio, and visual materials to accommodate diverse learning preferences. 
• Foster engagement by incorporating interactive elements, discussions, or hands-on activities that cater to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. 
• Ask key questions about learner engagement, representation, action and expression when designing a module or unit in your course. 
• Implement UDL incrementally and intentionally. Refer to scholarly works like Behling & Tobin (2018) for guidance. They encourage faculty to think of UDL as “plus-one thinking about the interactions in your course” (p. 134). Is there just one more way you can help students stay on task, give them information, or demonstrate skills? 

This article focuses on Ultra's progress tracking tools and strategies for student identification, outreach, and support. It follows Part 1 - Course Design Best Practices in Ultra, which showcased features in Ultra to ensure your course is designed to optimize student learning and ensure they feel welcome and prepared.

As the semester enters week four, there is an opportunity to assess how students are doing in your course when it comes to participating, meeting deadlines, and completing discussions or knowledge checks. Did you know that Ultra offers a variety of reports and analytics that benefit both instructors and students in tracking individual progress?

Progress Tracking 

Instructors can monitor student progress through a variety of tools including options that support tracking by content item, submission activity, and test attempt. When tracking student progress in a particular set of content, instructors can filter by student and progress status, or select students and send an individualized message or reminder. In conjunction with early academic alerts, instructors can decide when and how to reach out to students by using details and insights from Ultra’s progress reports. 

Student View of Progress Tracking

Students can also leverage Ultra’s progress tracking capabilities to monitor their engagement with content, assignments, and tests. This feature provides visual indicators of student progress, motivating them to stay on track. Students can also see a summary of their progress within learning modules, making it easier to manage their workload and prioritize tasks.

Instructors who have not seen what the Student View of progress tracking looks like may want to go into “Student Preview” mode once the course is open and see how this appears. Each item has a status circle to the left of the item title. An empty circle means the student has not yet accessed content; a partially filled circle indicates the item has been opened or accessed through Ally; and a green check mark appears when the item has been completed. (See image below)

While in “Student View,” instructors can see that students may mark content items “complete” after opening them. This gives students a tangible way to keep track of their progress within the course. Assigned submissions will change automatically to denote completion. (See image below)

This article focuses on ways to leverage features in Ultra to ensure your course is designed to optimize student learning and ensure students feel welcome and prepared, especially at the start of the term. Part 2 will feature Ultra’s progress tracking tools and effective strategies for student identification, outreach, and support.

A student’s first impression of your course, and their learning opportunities throughout the course, are influenced initially by course design. A clutter-free environment helps students focus on the course and avoid confusion. In addition, students’ learning opportunities can be enhanced by using Blackboard Ultra design features to welcome and orient them within the first critical weeks of the semester and ensure they are on track and able to locate content, engage with one another, get help, and submit assignments.

During emergency-remote instruction in 2020, a survey of more than 500 UMBC courses taught by instructors who completed the PIVOT+ professional development program found students reported enjoying taking classes that were well organized and planned. More than 85% of students agreed or strongly agreed that PIVOT+ courses flowed in a logical format. About 90% of students agreed or strongly agreed that course requirements were clear, while 83% agreed or strongly agreed that assignment instructions were clear. 

Using the ‘Start Here’ Module 

Every Blackboard course shell at UMBC is created with a “Start Here” module already in place. Within this module are placeholders for the syllabus, instructor information, and eLearning and academic resources. This module can also contain critical orientation information to let students know what to expect in your course, how to navigate, help set the tone for the course, and provide opportunities to establish teaching and social presence (Quality Matters, 2024; Wengier, 2022).

Welcoming and Orienting Students

When it comes to designing the welcome experience for learners, Quality Matters General Standard 1: Course Overview & Introduction (HE Rubric, 7th ed.), offers researched-backed effective practices for orienting students to the course and instructor expectations for communication, feedback, grading, and use of Blackboard. 

In the QM-certified course AGNG 355, instructor Louise Murray (pictured above) includes a pre-recorded, narrated, and captioned PowerPoint to provide students with a visual tour of the course and communication expectations. This allows students to see and hear the instructor and complements the text Murray provides about email, phone, office hours, and response times. 

There are many ways to welcome and introduce students to your course, including steps you can take before the semester even starts, such as sending a welcome email or announcement. These messages can stay available for students through the duration of the course. 

Some instructors send a pre-survey to students before the semester starts to determine prior knowledge or experience. In addition, you may want to prepare a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) resource to address the most common student questions, share tips on time management, and remind students how to access technology and resources.

Consider that there are effective options to consider for welcoming and orienting students that create learning opportunities at the beginning of the course including:

• Accessing a welcome video or course tour (pre-recorded)
• Reading an instructor’s introduction
• Introducing themselves in a Discussion forum or VoiceThread 
• Using the “Ask the Professor” discussion forum to ask clarifying questions
• Completing a syllabus quiz

In the Quality Matters certified course SPAN 201 (pictured above) instructor Milvia Hernandez pre-records a brief video that complements text in Blackboard. More importantly, students can also see and hear Hernandez as she welcomes them in both Spanish and English and explains the course structure and cadence. 

About Quality Matters

Grounded in evidence-based practice research, peer review, and collegiality, Quality Matters (QM) is used by more than 40,000 educators and instructional designers worldwide to strengthen online and blended course design. 

At UMBC, 19 courses have earned QM certification for online course design and represent more than half of the QM-certified courses in the University System of Maryland.

References:

• Quality Matters. (2024, September 9). QM Rubrics & Standards. 
• Wengier, S. (2022). The start here module: Creating a first day impression in an online language class (EJ1346021). 
  

By Susan Biro and Peter Ariev