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. The following resources and tutorials can help as you create your plan!

Character presenting some ideas.

Classes, Lessons & Resources

  • Canvas
  • Screencast-o-matic
  • Cranium Cafe/Classrooms
  • Webex
  • Google Meet
  • Zoom Pro
Person connecting with students

Connect with Students

  • Canvas
  • Cranium Cafe/Classrooms
  • Webex
  • Google Meet
  • eMail
Character giving a thumbs up.

Assignments & Activities

  • Canvas
  • Cranium Classrooms
  • Google Hangouts/Webex with built in activities

Character pondering a math problem.

Quizzes & Exams

  • Canvas
  • Respondus Lockdown

Review this instructional tool comparison to guide your plan.

Tutorials

Learning Management System (LMS)

Maricopa Community College District uses Canvas for online instruction and learning. Canvas can be used for content delivery, assignments, discussions, assessments, and more. The following resources will help you get started with your Canvas course.

Lecture Capture

ScreenPal can be used to record screen presentations such as your powerpoint lectures with your audio voice over.

Remote Teaching

Three options for live or synchronous instruction are currently supported, Cranium Classrooms/Cafe, Webex, and Google Meet. The following training resources will help you get started with staying connected with students. They are compared here for you.

The following playlist will help you get started with Cranium Classroom or Cafe.

The Maricopa Center for Learning and Innovation (MCLI) has compiled a playlist of Webex tutorials for your reference.

Exam Proctoring for Online Courses

Respondus® LockDown Browser + Monitor is a set of software tools that promote academic honesty when taking online tests via a LMS such as Instructure Canvas.

Recommended Pedagogical Practices

  • Be mindful that remote instruction during a pandemic is not the same as online learning. Online learning has expectations for technology and timeliness.
  • When considering what content to include, keep it simple and focus solely on the course competencies and the essential skills you have scheduled to cover during this time.
  • Keep things simple. If you conduct live remote meetings during your regular class meeting times. You can record the live meetings and make the recordings available for students who cannot attend in person. Another option is to create recordings that are not live and can be posted in your Canvas courses.
  • When conducting live or recorded sessions, do not worry about background noise, animals in the background, editing, etc. These are extreme circumstances and students will not mind. It may even add some levity.
  • Please consider the following regarding your students:
    • Students may struggle with technology
    • Many students will be accessing your course via phone, as they did not sign up for an online class and cannot be expected to procure wifi, computers, etc. at short notice.
    • Students may have their entire family home, with competing needs for their technology as students and adults working from home.
    • Some students may fall ill and be unable to participate, use compassion.
    • Given the situation, some students may be working more hours which could interfere with live remote instruction.
    • Students will be under stress given social isolation, loss of jobs, family members home, etc. Please use compassion.
    • Reach out individually to students that are missing virtual classes or not completing assignments. This may be a sign they are experiencing accessibility or other challenges.
    • Ask students how you can help them during this transition and experience.
  • Use slides and screen sharing within WebEx and Google Meet to make sure discussion questions are visible to students who may have a slow Internet connection or who may struggle to hear the audio for the initial question.
    • On your first slide, display an agenda at the start of the class session so that students know what to expect of the shared time together.
  • Use the chat
    • Moderate discussion, i.e., “call on” a student with a comment to speak, to help them break into the conversation. 
    • For larger classes, assign someone to moderate the chat and make sure important questions and comments are addressed. Even for smaller classes, it may be worthwhile to ask a student (or two) to take on special roles as “chat monitors” to voice if there are questions that arise that the instructor has missed.
    • You might use the chat to troubleshoot technical problems. For example, if a student is having trouble connecting via audio or video, the chat might be a space for you as the instructor or for fellow students to work together to problem-solve. This may, again, be an opportunity to assign a student to a special role, especially if you have students eager to help on the technical aspect of things. 
  • Using Google Hangouts
    • Since all of our students have Maricopa Gmail accounts, it is easy to use Google Hangouts Meet for synchronous sessions. According to Google, “Hangouts Meet is Google’s latest video conferencing app which allows up to 250 people to connect. ” It allows you to share your screen, record your meeting and more.
  • Rethink your classroom activities to make the class more interactive even if Webex or Google Hangouts students don’t have ideal connections and aren’t able to hear and see everything perfectly.
    • Have students write and comment together on a shared Google Doc. 
    • Try using Google Forms or a 3rd party tool like PollEverywhere to collect student responses, and then share results with both in-person and online students. 
  • Consider making discussion questions available in advance in Canvas, or via email, etc. so that students can access the questions if screen sharing does not work. If sharing slides in advance, share as PDFs, as students will be able to access the material on their phones.

Canvas Course Templates

Are you using Canvas for the first time? Let us help you get it set up. We have created two “templates” that you can import into your Canvas course and customize for your sections. To do this; Download the course file to your desktop then you can upload the Canvas export package to your Canvas course section. These course templates are set up using Cranium Cafe/Classroom. You can use these same templates with Webex and Google Hangouts Meet by simply changing the links. Please reach out us if you would like assistance with this process.

MCC CTL Canvas Course Templates

Template 1:

Designed for instructors teaching virtual in person sessions with assignments in Canvas.
Template #1 Tutorial

Template 2:

Designed for instructors teaching in Canvas including instructional materials, assignments, virtual in person office hours, and/or virtual in person instruction.
Template #2 Tutorial

Announcement Templates:

You may use these Canvas Announcement templates to inform students about tools that you are using for office hours and in-person virtual instruction.
Cranium Classroom (ConexED) Canvas Announcements
Webex Canvas Canvas Announcements
Google Hangouts Meet Canvas Announcements