The Schoolcraft College Instructional Design team (From left to right: Jason Kane, Bernadette Bacero, and Kaylynn Mortensen) was selected to present at the Anthology Together EdTech Conference at the Walt Disney World Swan Resort July 11-14, 2022. Our Session Once Upon a Time in Blackboard: Top 10 Tarantino Teaching Tips was a fun homage to the films of Quentin Tarantino while offering insight into best online teaching practices.
In this presentation, the Schoolcraft College Instructional Design team will send you on the path of the righteous man with ten tips for leveraging Blackboard as a vital instrument for improving teaching and learning online, explored loosely through the lens of master filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. Topics will range from how Blackboard assists in classroom management issues like plagiarism as well as ways Blackboard welcomes the incorporation of big picture trends like OER and gamified learning.
It would be impossible for me to capture the humor and extemporaneous nature of tying Quentin Tarantino’s film repertoire to best online practices, so instead I’ll give a quick summary of each film’s educational takeaway.
Chapter 1: Avoiding Academic Heists
Create authentic assessments that ask students to do more then just regurgitate content information. The 21st century is here, and students will find ways to cheat no matter what. Instead, ask students to create something that illustrates their learning in a way that’s authentic and aligned to the content while also personally relevant to themselves.
Communicating with students is incredibly important when building rapport. Explain to students what they’re learning and why they’re learning it. Explain how the assessments are for their benefit rather than a checkmark on a list. If you have honest conversations with your students and provide them with appropriate support, they’ll rise to the occasion!
Chapter 2: Timing is Everything
Chaos and a non-linear structure doesn’t mesh well with an online class. Instead, focus on an intuitive streamlined design that ensures your students are learning the content they signed up for instead of how to navigate the LMS/the nuances of what you want but haven’t explicitly said.
Take further advantage of your LMS’ calendar tool! Students like to have the big picture so they can balance their time. Asynchronous online classes require students to carve out the appropriate amount of time in their day, but that’s hard to do if they don’t know what’s coming around the corner.
Chapter 3: You Have One Job…
Don’t throw the kitchen sink into your online courses. Help your students by providing a manageable workload. So many of us are incredibly passionate about our areas of expertise, and everything feels so very important. But cut down the course bloat. What do the students absolutely need to know? What can you classify as “Explore More”?
When designing any course, also consider cognitive overload. Always communicate deadlines, spread out due dates, and utilize tech support whenever possible. If you have a major course project that will be due at the end of the semester, consider breaking it up into smaller chunks sprinkled throughout. Not only will it take some stress off your students come crunch time, it’ll also make grading a smidge easier for you too.
Chapter 4: Discussion with a Mission
Have you ever had an online discussion that felt like it was in a coma? Or a discussion that went completely off the rails and students were no longer aligned with course content?
Discussions are an incredibly important part of online learning, but facilitating purposeful discussions is still an important skill for any educator’s toolbox. To keep your discussion on track, consider the following suggestions:
- Open-Ended Prompts
- Instructors guiding and monitoring discussion
- Highlight excellent student contributions
- Encouraging creativity in response mediums
Chapter 5: Accessible-Proof
Course Accessibility means that you are designing your course to be as usable by as many students as possible. It doesn’t just mean students with disabilities. True accessibility means that everyone in your course can benefit.
S.C.U.L.P.T. was created by the Worcestershire County Council and serves as a great entryway into designing your course with accessibility in mind:
- Structure – the way content with documents is organized
- Color and Contrast – Poor use of color and insufficient contract can have an effect who can access digital content
- Use of Images – Always include alt-text or mark images as decorative for students who use screen readers.
- Links – Avoid “Click Here” at all costs. Links should always have a descriptive title for where it’s going.
- Plain English – Writing should avoid technical jargon and/or acronyms, especially in directions and rubrics.
- Tables – Define column headers, don’t split or merge cells, never use blank cells, and never nest tables.
Chapter 6: Write Your Own Story
Open Educational Resources are “materials for teaching and learning that are are either in the public domain or have been released under a license that allows them to be freely used, changed, or shared with others.” –EdWeek.org
Benefits of using OER include:
- Revising and remixing only the course material that is relevant to your course
- Remove price barriers for students (OER = Free!)
- OER are considered by faculty and students who use them to be as good or better than commercial texts
Chapter 7: Gcollaboration (The G is silent)
When students collaborate on a common goal, creativity, confidence, and self-esteem build as a result. Impossible tasks become possible. Collaboration lends itself best to gameful design: building a story, providing roles, making decisions, sharing a goal, etc.
Some ideas to consider:
- Role-Play Discussions
- Escape Rooms
Game-based collaboration can intimidate many educators. “The point is to learn “X” not how to escape a fake room.” Let’s be honest, do you want to eat spaghetti and meatballs every day for your entire life? Most likely not. Similarly, students enjoy a change up now and again, and the change of pace will often stick out in their minds!
Chapter 8: Have a Damn Good Reason
Everything you design, teach, and include should be there for a damn good reason. (This might sound similar to our previous takeaway- awareness of cognitive overload).
One great way to ensure there is a good reason for what you include in your course is to make sure everything encourages either academic or professional growth.
Some places to examine instructional purpose:
- Curriculum
- Soft skills
- Reading strategies
- Research strategies
- Choice
Chapter 9: It’s the Little Things
Everyone needs a person they can depend on for support, and the best way of providing students with support is to provide good feedback. But how do we do that? Choose 2 of the 3:
- Timely
- Targeted
- Meaningful
No one has to tell an educator that it’s impossible to provide all three and maintain your sanity for very long. If you’re that rare person who can do all three, then you, my friend, are a superhero.
There’s nothing wrong with providing targeted and meaningful feedback, just let the students know how long it will take to grade. You should also balance your chosen 2 items against the importance of the assessment. Just remember to communicate to students what’s going on behind the scenes!
Chapter 10: Looking Ahead
What comes next in the fields of higher education and educational technology? It’s hard to say. (I’m still nursing broken dreams of Star Trek 4 by Quentin Tarantino.)
We’ll leave you with some concepts and questions to keep in mind…
- Ubiquity and openness
- Collaboration and emphasis on expertise and passion
- Breaking away from ‘we’ve always done it this way…’
We hope to catch you at another conference sometime soon! If you have any questions about the topics (or how on Earth we were able to connect these Tarantino films to pedagogy), please reach out to us by leaving a comment, finding us on Twitter, and/or LinkedIn.
Bernadette Bacero 
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