Description:
Getting to know your students early on in a course is an effective way to start cultivating relationships and facilitating positive classroom environments. Creating a ‘Getting to Know You’ student survey within Blackboard can help you to understand your students strengths, interests, and educational backgrounds which will help you to build rapport with them and appropriately tailor your teaching approach for the term.
A survey activity is also a constructive way to determine the kind of supports they may need to be successful in your course. It also is an opportunity to invite students to share any pertinent information that would like you to know to ensure they feel welcome and included in your course. For example, you may give students the option of sharing their pronouns with you and you can model this practice by sharing your own pronouns in your introductory video or announcement. Also, you may want to ask students to let you know if they go by a different name than the one listed on the official class list.
Students may have privacy concerns so, where possible, you’ll want to offer individuals options in terms of the questions they answer and what they share. Utilizing the survey feature on Blackboard is a great way to ask students questions in a private context and store all the information you gather. You can also give students the option to record a video response to the questions and/or even add an audio file with pronunciation tips for their name.
Remember that relationships are reciprocal and your students will be more inclined to share a bit about themselves in you do the same! Consider posting a welcome video introducing yourself and the course to your Blackboard course site before the first day of class.