Best Practice in Teaching General Physics Courses

General Physics I & II are a requirement for both Science and Engineering students, and approximately 1000 students are taking this course every year at United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). In the Department of Physics at UAEU we have introduced the course by using a coursemanagement software "the Blackboard (BB)". Besides putting the regular lecture power point slides and continuous communication with students through BB, we have established a very elaborate database of assignments for students to take at the end of each chapter. Using the embedded technology in BB, students are allowed to take the test more than once with varying questions so that the students learn in each trial of the test. In this paper, we present an accumulated data showing the effect of this method on the students’ learning, students'-instructor interaction, and we propose an optimum way of students’ assessment for courses of this size and type.