Lessons
What are the Lessons in Blackboard?
Most Blackboard classes at CTC are designed to look and feel the same across all courses and fields of study.
Usually, all Protective Services (Criminal Justice) classes have eight (8) lessons containing:
assigned reading from a textbook or OER - this can include one or several chapters
lesson assignment - likely chapter questions - usually short answer or essay questions.
lesson discussion board - a topic for discussion will be provided, which can include a new story, article, or topic requiring students to post their thoughts or answer questions and respond to other students.
Usually, there will be exams scheduled, and the most common number in Criminal Justice (CJ) classes will be four (4) major exams. These major exams will usually be at the end of one of the Lessons, and an exam may cover one or more Lessons in the class. Whether a final exam is comprehensive will be up to each individual instructor. In my classes, I usually don't have a comprehensive final exam per se, but the material usually builds upon itself. My 4th exam is during final exam week. So, for scheduling purposes, it is a final exam, but it will likely primarily cover the last few lessons of the course.
Courses I Teach
There are several types of classes offered at CTC, but the main two types are:
Face-to-face classes - Students meet in person at a CTC classroom on a set schedule.
Online classes - Students attend classes online through Blackboard. My classes are usually all OLL, meaning there is no required meeting time or live lectures through Zoom or Blackboard. There can be exceptions when specific issues arise or if I need to explain a concept better, but it will not be a required meeting in an OLL class I teach.
What is the difference between the same course taught online versus face-to-face?
Online classes do not have required meeting times, in-person lectures, and the usual in-person interaction between students and instructors. Therefore, online classes usually include required assignments that may not be present in face-to-face classes. As you can see from the examples below, this variation can affect the point value of exams and writing assignments. However, both types of classes operate on a 1000-point scale.
Generally, all courses in Protective Services (Criminal Justice) include the following for online classes.
Generally, all courses in Protective Services (Criminal Justice) include the following for Face-to-Face classes.
