Every Brightspace course has the same layout, because we use the Saxion course template. We work with the Saxion course template on the recognisability of Saxion education. This has several purposes, namely:
- Meeting the needs of Saxion students regarding the unambiguous design of the LMS. The emphasis is then on user-friendly navigation in a course and clearly presented learning materials that are therefore easy to find.
- More processing capacity for students to get to work with the content, so that they do not lose energy in searching for learning materials.
- Facilitating exchangeable education such as minors, electives, specializations.
- Stimulating activating and blended education through a suitable structure.
The Saxion course template consists of the following components:
- the structure of the institutional homepage
- the structure of the course homepage
- the composition of the navigation bar
- the content structure within a course
Only the latter is important for migrating or developing a course yourself, because you will be using the content structure when transferring the materials. The other components are explained under “Getting started with Brightspace”.
The content structure consists of a module introduction, a weekly or thematic division, and the assessment. Optional in this are the library and the teachers' room. It differs per course whether this is used. These parts are explained below.
The content structure can be fine-tuned in consultation with the Brightspace project group within your academy, so that it fits your education as closely as possible. Think of the use of specific terminology, translations, working with learning curves, etc.
Layout
The Lato font is used for all texts (content, assignments, rubrics, etc.). The “Paragraph” is used for the default text. For titles and other headings you can work with h1/h2/h3/h4. The size of these parts is set centrally for Saxion.
The menu of a course environment consists of Units and Lessons with HTML documents underneath. Sometimes folders are used.
Structure
The standard layout of a course consists of the following Units:
- Module Information: Contains the most important information of a module, divided into Introduction and Organization (Pages).
- Weekly division/thematic division: This contains all content relevant to following the course. Think of educational videos, presentations, descriptions of learning activities, formative assignments, quizzes, etc.
- Testing & Hand-in Points: Here you will find the test information and the hand-in points will be placed.
- Library: This section is optional and contains a super cool overview of all documents, webinars, knowledge clips, web links used in the course.T
- Docentenkamer: This part is also optional. Here are documents intended for teachers.
Always leave the Docentenkamer on hidden, otherwise students can also view the documents!
For more information on how the Brightspace building blocks work, see the article: How do I structure my course with units/lessons/folders/content?
Module-Information
The chosen term within Saxion is “Module-information”. Here the student will find the most important information about the course, such as an introduction, learning results, initial information about the test, and necessary learning materials. The information is divided into two pages. These pages contain a fill-in format that you can use to describe the module information. This information will now sometimes also be available in Blackboard in the same way, but is sometimes also in separate Word/PDF/Powerpoint files. The starting point is that we place all module information directly in Brightspace. See the image below for this.
Weekly division/thematic division
Here you will find all content relevant to taking the course. This includes educational videos, presentations, descriptions of learning activities, formative assignments, quizzes, etc. Academies choose a weekly or thematic format, depending on their educational model. Below you can see an example of both structures.
In order to align with Saxion's educational vision and the vision on Blended Learning, it was also examined how the design of the LMS can contribute to activating and blended education. A format has been made available for this at lesson level as shown below. The format encourages you to think about a meaningful preparation, so that there is more room for interaction and deepening during the meeting. It is also encouraged to conclude a lesson with a processing part.
Assessment and submission points
The last part of the content structure is the closing. The term “Assessment and submission points” has been chosen for this. Extensive test information is available to the student in this section. This includes student instructions, number of ECs, method of testing, and scoring. A format is available to add all this information. The submission points with possibly linked rubrics will also be listed here. In principle, this is where the hand-in points of the summative tests are placed. The formative tests are listed in the content for the relevant weeks/themes.
Library
The library contains a collection of the learning materials used in this module.
This section is optional and can be used to provide an additional overview of all learning materials that you have placed in the various lessons. Please note that this is laborious, because you have to maintain it in both places. If you don't use the library, you can delete or hide it.
Docentenkamer
This information is invisible to students. Leave it on invisible too! Place information and files here that are only intended for teachers. Or describe what agreements you have made with each other about sharing files and other information. You can also share this information and files in Teams, for example.
Need more information and instructions about working with Brightspace? View the self-study course in Brightspace. In that course you will find more information about working with Brightspace and you will also find ideas and example solutions.