#blacklivesmatter
At MCC, the CTL and eLearning stand with #blacklives matter. We believe in a country that embraces diversity where everyone belongs. We reject racism in all its forms.
CTL Blog
Help Reach the 100% Completion Goal!
Current Completion
Are you teaching an online course this summer? Complete the eLearning at MCC Canvas course! This brief course will expose you to the MCC eLearning expectations, online syllabus requirements, communication strategies, and more! Apply new knowledge to your online teaching practice.
Help us reach our goal of 100% completion for summer instructors!
Online Teaching Professional Development
In spring 2020, many instructors transformed their instructional practice to emergency remote teaching. Well-planned online learning experiences are meaningfully different from courses offered online in response to a crisis or disaster. MCC will continue to expand online course offerings. All instructors teaching online or hybrid courses are invited to participate in this 2-part professional development series and plan or refine their courses.
- Attend both sessions and schedule a 1:1 consultation with a CTL/eLearning designer to show how you are applying the online course templates to your practice. You may attend the sessions in person (virtually) or watch each recorded session.
- Explore the CTL calendar for additional trainings.
Online Course Planning, Part 1
Each semester, instructors make decisions about their instructional practice. Course duration, modality, instructional materials, trends in the field, and more influence course planning. During this session, faculty will explore a three-pronged approach to course planning: What do you teach? Which instructional materials will you use? How will you evaluate student learning? These fundamental principles of course design should be applied to each new semester, especially when there is a change in the course modality (e.g. in person to online). Engage with a process to plan your summer online courses.
Live Online Sessions: Most Mondays and Tuesdays
Part 1 Resources
Online Course Design, Part 2
Effective online learning is relative to these seven dimensions: pacing, pedagogy, instructor role online, student role online, online communication synchrony, role of online assessments, and source of feedback. Leveraging tools in the college learning management system is also a key to success. During this session, faculty will explore a Canvas course template to inspire online course design. All participants will have access to use and adapt the template to their summer online course design.
Live Online Sessions: Most Wednesdays and Thursdays
Part 2 Resources
CTL Course Template Tutorial
Join any of these in-person (virtual) training sessions:
Megan Garvy’s Personal Room
https://maricopa.webex.com/meet/mgarvy | 969623571
Join by phone
+1-602-666-0783 United States Toll (Phoenix)
Access code: 969 623 571
MCC Online – Prepare for Summer 2020
MCC Online Summer 2020 Plan
SpeedGrader
Welcome to Masterpiece Canvas! In this episode we’ll be learning about how to use the Canvas SpeedGrader.
The SpeedGrader can benefit you in the following ways :
- All student work remains in the course page. No more downloading all of your student’s assignments to your computer.
- Student work is sorted by the student name and the name can be hidden for anonymous grading.
- Grade from rubrics to quickly give students feedback based on their mastery of each criterion.
- Give separate feedback to each student.
- Annotate corrections directly on the students submitted paper.
- Allow for mobile grading using the Canvas Teacher app on iOS and Android.
- More!
Check out these handy Canvas Guides for accessing and how to use the SpeedGrader!
This video will also give you an additional overview of Canvas SpeedGrader.
Tips For Using The SpeedGrader
The following tips can help you get started with the SpeedGrader and improve your grading workflow.
- Mute assignments while you’re grading so that students will all receive feedback at once when you complete the grading.
- Create a rubric and grade assignments using a rubric in SpeedGrader. Check out this Canvas rubrics slide deck for more tips!
- Leave feedback comments for your students.
- Use annotation tools to add comments to a student submission directly in SpeedGrader.
- Access the SpeedGrader through the Canvas to-do list or directly in an assignment or quiz.
You can learn more about the many things you can do with the Canvas SpeedGrader by visiting the Canvas Instructor Guides.
Online Quizzes & Exams
Welcome to Masterpiece Canvas! In this episode we’ll be learning about the benefits of online quizzes and exams and how to implement them in Canvas.
Some of the advantages of creating online quizzes and exams include:
- The ability to automatically randomize questions and possible answers.
- The ability to set a time limit and give a specific number of attempts for the exam or quiz.
- Instantaneous quiz or exam results for the students as well as the instructor providing rapid insight on opportunities for improvement.
- Many different types of questions as well as types of quizzes (surveys, practice quizzes, and graded quizzes).
- More!
Check out this handy Canvas Guide for creating an online quiz!
This video will also give you an additional overview of Canvas Quizzes.
Tips for online quizzes
The following tips can help you and your students be successful in completing and submitting online quizzes.
- Create a low-stakes quiz to allow students to practice accessing quizzes and become familiar with the quiz interface. Check out the student guide for Taking an online quiz.
- Setup a practice quiz to give your students an opportunity to check their knowledge on a topic. This type of quiz can be attempted multiple times. The practice quiz can show the correct answers after completion and guide students back to course content for additional learning.
- Setup a graded quiz with a finite number of attempts for exams. You can also set a time limit for the exam to be completed.
- Consider enabling the display one question at a time option for exams that build off previous questions.
- Use a variety of question types (multiple choice, short answer, matching, etc.)
- Be sure to check your questions for clarity, spelling, and grammar issues.
- You can provide accommodations for students by using the Moderate this quiz button.
You can learn more about the many things you can do with online quizzes in Canvas by visiting the Canvas Instructor Guides.
Accepting Assignments Online
Welcome to Masterpiece Canvas! In this episode we’ll be learning why accepting assignments online can be a valuable tool for us and how to setup your assignment in Canvas.
Accepting assignments online benefit us in the following ways:
- Assignments are turned in to a single location.
- The Learning Management System (LMS) manages due dates and flags late work.
- The LMS automatically identifies the assignment author.
- The LMS allows for online grading.
- More!
Check out this handy Canvas Guide for Creating an assignment online and enabling online submission!
This video will also give you an additional overview of Canvas Assignments.
Tips for online assignments
The following tips can help you and your students be successful in completing and submitting online assignments.
- Create a low-stakes assignment to allow students to practice submitting an assignment. Check out the student guide for submitting online assignments.
- Be consistent with assignment naming and include academic language. For example Assignment 1: Informative Speech or Assignment 2: Persuasive Speech.
- Be consistent with the assignment instructions. Include a description of the assignment and your expectations for full credit. A bulleted list is a very clear way to approach this.
- Don’t put due dates in the assignment title nor the assignment instructions. Canvas has an additional field dedicated to the due date and will automatically notify students when assignments are approaching their due date.
- Provide ample time for students to complete the assignment in a potentially new modality. This may be the first time your students are submitting an assignment online.
- Consider permitting various forms of assignment submission like file uploads and video submission.
You can learn more about the many things you can do with online assignments in Canvas by visiting the Canvas Instructor Guides.
Continuity of Instruction
Planned and unplanned losses of instructional time happen. Having a plan to recover that time and ensure continuity for students is essential.
Discussion Board Basics
By Lisa Young – Scottsdale Community College | 2012
Definition of discussion boards
Two quick videos that explains how discussion boards can be used to engage students:
Advantages of Using Discussion Boards in Hybrid Courses:
- valuable feedback
- connections seeing other point of view
- perspective
- validation
- stimulating responses – less terrifying
- not in real-time
- come to some conclusions/summaries
- can see specific evidence from the text and can refer to in F2f class
- can allow students to express themselves as needed
An article on building community with discussion boards.
Check out page 5 of this document for great discussion board resources.
Disadvantages of Using Discussion Boards in Hybrid Courses:
- discipline
- responses may be brief
- time and effort on part of instructor
Writing Discussion Board Questions
Tips for writing discussion board questions:
An article that will help you to identify the characteristic elements of critical thought, describe the features of online discussion that support critical thought, and explore the role of the instructor in facilitating successful online discussions.
Discussion Board Rubrics
Rubrics for discussion boards are useful as they provide a basis for grading students on their discussion board posts. Criteria can include participation, content, grammar, etc.
Samples of discussion board rubrics located at Maricopa’s Blended Learning site.
Spring 2020 Ideation Circle: Courageous Conversations About Race
Led by Megan Garvy
The Center for Teaching and Learning invites you to join us as we discuss and interact with the book Courageous Conversations About Race, a field guide, to explore topics of race and uncover our personal passion for equity work at MCC. This introductory session sets the stage for an ongoing series throughout the semester.
Join the first conversations of the semester:
January 9 9-11 AS175 S&D January 10 1-3 S280 RM