Effective Blackboard Layouts

My Preferences

When you view these examples altogether, no wonder students say they get a little confused and find it hard to follow multiple classes-- I'm confused just looking at all of them! 

Truth be told, I've probably tried all of the above. I think in terms of units and with subfolders, but I've found that it can be confusing for students. While I know exactly what topics fall in which units, it's not self-evident to students who don't know the subject as well as I do. 

So for the last could of years I've been using Lehman College's Bb template with the weeks and dates clearly visible from the sidebar menu. This structure has the advantage of being clear to everyone what module to be viewing.

While the full name of each week's module isn't visible in the sidebar, I do give the module a topic name.