Watermark was a proud Premium Sponsor of Blackboard’s recent annual conference, BbWorld 2021, during two 3-day sessions in July. Key conference topics included teaching and learning experiences, the latest EdTech trends, data and analytics, student success, institutional change, accessibility, product integrations, and community engagement.
Watermark was pleased to host a special Flash Session on Wednesday, July 21, titled “The Missing Piece: Integrating Blackboard into Your Assessment Cycle with Watermark,” and presented by Associate Product Managers Stacy Becker and Emily Mayer.
Watermark’s presentation emphasized the seamless integration with Blackboard and two core products from the Watermark Product Suite: Student Learning & Licensure (formerly Via) and Planning & Self Study. The main advantage? By integrating Watermark solutions with Blackboard, you will surface a complete, 360-degree view of your institution. Valuable information that is stored in Blackboard literally “connects the dots” in your assessment of student learning, throughout the entire assessment cycle.
Watermark knows and understands how challenging it is to get a holistic view and connect data stored in multiple systems, and to translate those findings into action. In addition, it’s frustrating for faculty to spend valuable time providing the same information multiple times throughout the year. It’s challenging to have slow turnaround time getting feedback from all students, making it difficult to react quickly and make informed decisions. The result? An incomplete view of student performance.
Watermark’s presentation helped the BbWorld 2021 audience consider how Student Learning & Licensure assesses and supports learning where it happens, surfacing insights on student progress toward accreditation standards outcomes and program benchmarks. A major advantage with this solution is both students and faculty have a single URL for both teaching and learning, eliminating duplicate work so that students can complete their assignments within the context of the course, and faculty easily complete assessments from Blackboard. Common rubrics are shared and aligned to outcomes and standards, resulting in progress on standards for accreditation and program outcomes. Assessing and tracking student learning outside the classroom – from mentors, with student input, inspires and informs the best possible student placement, and tracks and measures progress over time for a more complete picture.
The presentation pointed out that leveraging Watermark’s Planning & Self Study provides the flexibility needed to quickly add results to assessment plans, so there’s more time to act on them. This solution offers quicker, easier collection of results and increased engagement throughout the assessment process. Results import automatically, captured in Blackboard; duplication of effort is eliminated by easily importing assessment results directly into assessment plans. Action plans can then be created while viewing data, and continuous improvement plans can also be viewed while completing program reviews. All program needs are captured and managed in one location, creating collaboration on accreditation, with shareable results.
When integrating Watermark with Blackboard, you’ll surface more insights throughout your assessment cycle, have more impact with meaningful teaching experiences, resulting in highly successful student learning outcomes.View the entire Watermark presentation here. Interested in learning more about the new Watermark product names? Read the new product names announcement here.
