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"What Do I Need to Do to Get an A?"
Posted December 5, 2018
By: Laura Million
Faculty, do you have students asking this question at the end of the semester? It's an unfortunate truth that some students wait until the end of the semester to check their grades and realize that they are not doing as well as they thought. Blackboard's Retention Center is one tool that can help faculty quickly identify and communicate with students who are falling behind (i.e. not logging in, missing deadlines, or falling short of specified course benchmarks), which can be an especially useful tool for those teaching condensed courses such as Winter Session or 8-week sessions. It shows faculty the following "at-risk" markers:
- Course Access - This alert is based on the date users last accessed your course. Students who have not logged in for a defined number of days trigger an alert.
- Course Activity - This alert is based on students' overall activity within your course. Students who are below a defined level of activity trigger the alert. For example, you could set an alert to show when students' participation in weekly discussion or blog activities falls below 20% of the class average.
- Missed Deadlines - This alert is based on a defined due date for an assignment, test, or survey. Students who do not complete an assignment, test, or survey by the due date trigger an alert based on the option you choose.
- Grades - This alert is based on a defined score for any grade or calculated column in the Grade Center. Students who score above or below the defined threshold for a specific grade item trigger an alert. For example, the Retention Center can display total grades columns that grades below 69% to identify students that are at risk of failing.
If you are interested in using this tool, access the Retention Center from the Evaluation menu in your Blackboard classes. You can customize the default Retention Center rules by following these steps. If you have any questions, please contact ITS at help@siue.edu or 618-650-5500.
