Brainstorming Project Ideas

While you may wish to write out all of your lecture notes for your students to read, you should consider other options for content delivery. Because you cannot see their faces or their raised hands, you would do well to devise a variety of means for the students to recognize, assess, and interact with the data.

Think of all the ways you might set up projects. You probably won't use them all, but try to brainstorm the subject. Here are a few suggestions. For more resources, see the links in the menu at left.
  • Prepare a list of web sites which address the issues to be examined in your course. You can provide a brief description of each site or ask for students to evaluate their usefulness.
  • Set up a discussion board forum for each topic. This will keep the discussion focused and will give the students a great place to look when they are studying for exams.
  • Set up a discussion board forum for each week of the term. You can set the availability of these to keep students on schedule.
  • Divide the class into small groups each with its own discussion board and virtual chat room. This allows students to develop a working relationship with each other. You can monitor everything that they write.
  • Assign students to locate web sites which deal with specific topics. Students can be graded on the number and quality of the sites that they locate. This accumulation of sites can act as a resource for the class.
  • Have students debate in the virtual chat room. They can prepare notes ahead of time, then copy and paste those into the chat box. You can monitor the debate and make comments and assessments throughout. (This requires speedy fingers!)
  • Use a Learning Objects wiki (accessible in Blackboard) to allow students to construct webpages dealing with the course content.
  • Set up the capability for each student to have a journal (using Learning Objects journal through Blackboard). If you require 30-40 entries over the course of the term, both you and the student will be able to observe progress in thinking and content acquisition.
  • Have students construct charts or graphs and post these using Blackboard's digital dropbox. After you inspect them, you can post them for the class to see.
  • Set up a "scavenger hunt" which requires students to find pictures, ideas, or charts online and post links to these. This could be a group project or an individual quest.
  • Have students develop online "tours" of interesting information using either scanned photos or links to web sites.
  • Have students keep a journal. This can be posted to their Blackboard homepage, so that anyone can see it, or sent to you by email.
  • Keep a discussion board forum for reflective essays in which students can describe the effect of the course materials on their own practices, habits, and attitudes.
  • Send each student an email every time he or she turns in work, even if only to say, "I got it and will grade it soon."
  • Correct papers prepared in Word © by using the underline and comment features. Save the graded paper with a new name and return it to the student as an attachment to email.
  • Make use of the Blackboard tutorial and the Information for Instructors course which shows up on your Blackboard welcome page ("My Institution").
  • Communicate with other WBU online instructors to share ideas.