We have created a Brightspace shell  (basic structure) for LEH 250. You can modify it to make it work for your section. You will be able to import it into your section, as well to rearrange, add, and subtract from it as makes sense for you. We want you to do this! This is why we have built the template in a modular way. With a few exceptions in the college success pillar, you can employ this material in any order.

Introduction to the Brightspace course shell

Lehman uses the Brightspace Learning Management System. A common “course shell” in Brightspace will be loaded into your individual Brightspace course. This is a starting point for you.

Below are three areas incorporated in the course design:

• being a college student (which is the course textbook/10 Things plus assignments and room for you to add additional work)
• being a college scholar (which is where you share your disciplinary knowledge and course theme with your students)
• practicing your scholarly skills (which is the deep dive project)

These are called modules in Brightspace. We strongly encourage you to work within this three module framework.  Too many modules on the course homepage is visually overwhelming, especially when using the Brightspace mobile app (Pulse).

At minimum you need to:

• Add your instructor information so students know who you are and how to contact you in the Course Information module.
• Upload your syllabus in the Course Information module.
• Add your deadlines and dates throughout the three pillar modules.
• Incorporate your disciplinary content into the three pillar modules.

Other things you can do if you wish

• Redefine the order and structure (for example create a week by week structure).
• Set up special activities and events, such as a library visit, advisor visits and activities for your disciplinary content.
• Create a discussion board or voice thread.
• Add your own banner and play around with other Brightspace Options.
• Create your own assignments..

And of course much more.

We do expect you to cover the “becoming a college student” material, which should be about 1/3 of the course. However, you can spread it out, compress it, or change the order.

This shell gives you a framework; it’s yours to modify.

A few important things about Brightspace

• Assignments (but not quizzes or many other items) are also directly available from the Assignments link in the horizontal menu. Keep in mind, that assignments not inside a module will not display to students.
• When creating content  that you want to grade –like assignments, discussion boards or quizzes–make sure that you select the option to have them in the grade book,

Three Pillars

In this section, we present the three pillars separately; in part to explain our working model. In many cases, you can integrate the pillars in various ways based on your model for the course. For example, the library pieces from academic skills clearly can be used in the context of your disciplinary content. The college reading material applies to whatever you are reading in addition to their other courses. We have, in many cases, created minimal content on a topic that we encourage everyone to do, but you may want to go into more depth on it. We do ask that everyone use some variation of the student success project and the deep dive. Of course, every section of 250 should address the common student learning outcomes and the institutional learning outcomes as explained in the “Characteristics of a Lehman Graduate” material.

The course template envisions three main pillars of content and learning objectives.

1. The first is highly structured and involves introducing students to Lehman College, its systems, and opportunities. These materials are contained in highly structured  submodules which should require only minimal course time and that students complete on their own as homework. You are free to expand or further explore some or all of these into your time with students.
2. The second group focuses on academic skills such as information literacy (e.g. using the library), time management, and note taking.
3. The third section focuses on disciplinary content. In the design of your course, this is where you bring in your background, training, and research interests.

These sections need not be sequential. It is up to you to remix as you choose.

You will need to add your “secret sauce” to the template, but the skeleton will be there.

Many things that you do in the course will tap into two or more pillars, and that is great. It is up to you to determine how much you will do that. Feel free to place things in a different order or to combine two or more together in ways that work for you.

The only exceptions are that you should have students complete the SPARC, and they should also do Understanding Yourself as a Learner unit.

There are also several common elements that we ask you to assign. Among other things, these elements will let us assess whether the course goals are being achieved.

1. College success plan (midterm project).
2. Disciplinary content: Sources
3. Disciplinary content: Deep dive project, including presentation.

Architecture of the Course

We have endeavored to create a course template that takes advantage of Blackboard features and works around some of its limitations. We explain how to use some of these in a later chapter.

We have included a brief welcome announcement, but we encourage you to update this with something more personal.  This is something that it can be good to do prior to the start of the class.

Make sure that you are tracking which students have not attended or handed in work.  Intervening early with those students can have high impact. 

College Success Skills

Chapter

Submodules corresponding to chapters in the 10 Things You Need book.

• Getting started with Lehman Life
• Context matters
• Know your new community
• Learning is hard work
• Change is ubiquitous
• Wellness is challenging
• Slow down
• Conflict is inevitable
• Being honest and authentic matters
• College is not about your opinion
• Success may surprise you

Lightning Community Certificate

These are self contained and students should be able to do them on their own, although a brief introduction by the instructor will be helpful.

• SPARC
• Handshake
• Library
• Club Central
• Brightspace Nano Course

Academic Skills

Chapter

• Library
• Reading in College
•  Writing in College
• Academic Integrity
• Yourself as a Learner

Disciplinary exploration and learning

Chapter

Deep Dive (common framework across all sections)

Bring your own content !

Options

You can choose to put these together in ways that make sense in your individual courses. They should not be viewed as a week by week plan, though the template can be used that way, to some extent. The individual chapters of this book exploring each of the pillars go into more detail regarding implementation ideas. You can also decide not to employ some of these, but we ask you to keep the overarching course goals and outcomes in mind.

The shell and preparing for assessment

In order to assess whether LEH 250 is achieving both its course learning outcomes and the institutional learning outcomes we ask you to consider two things.

First, if we gave you a check list of the learning outcomes, at the end of the semester could you check a box indicating that you had addressed those outcomes? Would a student who passed your course with a B or better agree?

Second, if we looked at a sample of “artifacts” from your students who got at least a B, would they reflect foundational level mastery of information literacy, oral communication, and leadership potential? For this reason, we ask you to use some version of the assignment involving creation of an annotated bibliography, the oral presentation, and impacting your community. However if you come up with alternative ways to address these goals, please do.

More details about assessment will be shared during the semester, but our goal is to reduce the burden of assessment for LEH 250 faculty while facilitating the likelihood of having good and useful data to share and continue to develop the course.