Author: Jim Julius

Fall 2019 Workshops

Registration

MiraCosta faculty no longer need to sign up for Flex activities in advance. After attending a Flex workshop, record your participation on your Flex transcript under the “Record Activities” tab, selecting the “Scheduled Activities or Workshops” activity type. Visit the Flex website for more information.

Archives

After Flex week, go to the Workshop Archives to see recordings and resources from workshops below that were held online.

Fall 2019 Workshops

A full updated list of all Flex workshops can be found at:  Fall 2019 Flex Workshops

Friday August 8, 2019

Canvas Open Lab

10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Karen Turpin and Jim Julius
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: Hands-on in OC 4611 & Online via Zoom

This workshop is designed to give you open time to work with Canvas in a collaborative, supported environment. Attendees may be in-person in the computer lab, or online from anywhere, with opportunities to interact with fellow participants and Canvas experts. This workshop is intended to be useful for anyone from beginners to advanced Canvas users, and is open entry/exit – show up anytime and stay as long as you like. Come with your Canvas questions and your fall classes-in-progress!

The “New” Canvas Gradebook

1:00 PM – 1:50 PM
Karen Turpin
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: Hands-on in OC 4611 & Online via Zoom

Until now, the “New” Canvas Gradebook was optional – now it is THE Gradebook in Canvas. Join us as we dive deeper into the functionality available in the new Canvas Gradebook. Filtering, sorting, custom colors, view/hide unpublished assignments, and manual adjustments will be explored. Basic assignment setup along with tips and tricks for an organized and effective gradebook will be covered.

Canvas Basics

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Sean Davis
Audience: Beginners
Format/Location: Hands-on in OC 4611 & Online via Zoom

This hands-on workshop is designed to give an overview of the basic tools to get started with Canvas. Learn how to set your homepage, design rich content pages, build a module, create assignments, post announcements, review your student roster and create groups, edit your profile, message students, and record grades using SpeedGrader. Participants will have time for hands-on work applying what they have learned, so make the most of this workshop by bringing documents and text to add to your Canvas course.

Monday August 12, 2019

MiraCosta DE Handbook & Course: A Sneak Peak

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Jim Julius
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: Online via Zoom

In spring 2019 while on sabbatical, Jim Julius drafted a Distance Education Handbook for MiraCosta. This handbook brings together all the essential information for faculty who teach online and hybrid classes at MiraCosta, along with some key recommended practices. The DE Handbook is built in Canvas, and can be used as a reference, but it will also be usable as a mini-course, with a badge awarded to those who complete all requirements. This can help faculty gain proficiency with the MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines, and district policies and procedures related to distance education. Come get a sneak peek at this resource, and provide your feedback to make it as useful as possible.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Studio: Video within Canvas!

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Eric Robertson
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: Online via Zoom

Studio (formerly known as ARC) enables instructors and students to easily create and use webcam and screencast video within Canvas. You can also create discussions that are based on videos. Join Eric Robertson for a demonstration of how he’s used this tool to support his MiraCosta online oral communication classes.

Studio Training

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Instructure Experts
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: Online via Zoom

Studio is a video tool within Canvas, from the creators of Canvas (Instructure). In this session, Instructure trainers will provide an overview of how faculty can use Studio as a tool for engaging students with video, viewing student video interaction, and creating and assessing video-based assignments. We will explore different use cases for Canvas Studio in the classroom. You may view the full session agenda.

Canvas Accessibility (Beginner)

7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Liezl Madrona (CCC Accessibility Center Expert)
Audience: Beginners
Format/Location: Online via Zoom

“Accessibility” = student usability. Can your students easily access and quickly navigate your content to gather the information they need? Learn the top four simple things you can do in your course to create an inclusive course for all of your students! Take advantage of Canvas’ tools to create an equitable learning environment, and learn about the different ways to approach inaccessible external documents like Microsoft Word Docs, PDFs, and PowerPoints used in your course.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Unity Prep Time

1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Sean Davis, Joyful Teacher in Residence
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: C3 OC1253 Teaching and Learning Center

An opportunity for full time and associate faculty to hang out together in the new C3 Teaching and Learning Center and work on course materials for their classes — syllabi, activities, rubrics, quizzes, anything and everything teaching related. Come celebrate, cultivate and connect as you prepare for the coming semester.

CE Faculty Dinner Date: Starter – Engaging, Appealing Canvas Classes

3:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Liezl Madrona
Audience: Exclusive to CE Faculty – Please sign up in advance
Format/Location: OC 4612

Meet Liezl Madrona, an instructional design expert available to support MiraCosta CE faculty this year. In this session she will guide you through hands-on activities to help improve your Canvas skills with:

  • Class navigation/organization
  • Visual design
  • Instructor-student interaction
  • Student-student interaction.

CE Faculty Dinner Date: Main

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Liezl Madrona
Audience: Exclusive to CE Faculty – Please sign up in advance
Format/Location: OC 3609

For CE Faculty who also attend the CE Faculty Dinner Date Starter and/or Dessert. Enjoy dinner and discussion while also seeing faculty demos of a variety of MiraCosta Canvas classes. You may also set up follow-up consultation and support with Liezl Madrona.

CE Faculty Dinner Date: Dessert – Equity-minded online teaching and learning

6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
MCC Faculty with Liezl Madrona
Audience: Exclusive to CE Faculty – Please sign up in advance
Format/Location: OC 4612

Even if you’re not teaching fully online classes, this session will stimulate your thinking about design and teaching strategies that are equity-minded – that remove barriers to success that many students may experience in a traditional educational environment. You’ll consider practices that experts recommend to enhance the success of disproportionately impacted students, and you’ll hear from MiraCosta faculty about tools, techniques, and pedagogical strategies they’ve used in Canvas to support these kinds of practices.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Equity-minded Online Teaching and Learning

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Sean Davis, Jim Julius, and faculty
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: Online via Zoom

Even if you’re not teaching fully online classes, this session will stimulate your thinking about design and teaching strategies that are equity-minded – that remove barriers to success that many students may experience in a traditional educational environment. You’ll consider practices that experts recommend to enhance the success of disproportionately impacted students, and you’ll hear from MiraCosta faculty about tools, techniques, and pedagogical strategies they’ve used in Canvas to support these kinds of practices.

NameCoach & GRA: California’s Gender Recognition Act 

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Sean Davis
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: Online via Zoom

(SB 179), signed into law on October 15, 2017 and in effect in 2019, makes it significantly easier for all transgender people who are living in or were born in California to obtain identity documents that reflect their genders. This workshop will focus on specifics about the law and how to cultivate a more inclusive environment in your Canvas course using the NameCoach.

Canvas Accessibility (Advanced)

7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Liezl Madrona (CCC Accessibility Center Expert)
Audience: Intermediate/Advanced
Format/Location: Online via Zoom

Take this Advanced Canvas Accessibility workshop to learn about the last two things you can do in your course to create an equitable learning environment. Learn how to use color effectively with free color software to ensure your graphics are readable. Use videos that you own or that someone else owns? Join Liezl, our guest CE instructional designer, as she walks you through more tools and resources to add to your course design toolbox!

Friday, August 16, 2019

Tour the C3 Teaching and Learning Center! (after All College Day Lunch)

Starting at 1pm
Sean Davis (Joyful Teacher in Residence)
Jim Julius (Faculty Director of Online Education)
Karen Turpin (Online Instructional Technologist)
Liezl Madrona (Instructional Designer for Career Education)
Audience: Everyone
Format/Location: C3 OC1253 Teaching and Learning Center

Celebrate. Cultivate. Connect. Join us for the C3 open house. Check out this awesome faculty space that includes the Pedagogical Lounge, Collaboration Studio, and Technology Application & Discovery Lab.

Online Ed Summer 2019 News You Can Use

Happy summer, everyone! I’m back from sabbatical – huge thanks to Sean Davis who filled in wonderfully for me this spring. Here I have two quick, important updates that can’t wait for fall semester:

eTutoring Links Have Changed

Hopefully you are aware of eTutoring, which is available at no cost to all MiraCosta students year-round, including summer. If you’re teaching now, please check miracosta.edu/etutoring to learn more, and please share this link with your students if your discipline is supported.

On July 1, the organization supporting eTutoring changed. With that, the links to eTutoring changed as well. If you would like to provide your students with direct access to eTutoring in your courses, the key links are now:

ARC is now Studio

Studio is a really great video tool that’s integrated inside of Canvas, which MiraCosta began piloting this spring when it was known as ARC. You’ll see Studio in the global Canvas menu (on the left). Studio is also integrated into Canvas’s Rich Content Editor toolbar:

With Studio:

  • Faculty and students can easily record webcam and screencast video within Canvas
  • Faculty and students can create and manage a library of videos for use in Canvas (and even to share outside of Canvas)
  • Faculty can create discussion activities that are based on video (discussion comments are tied to specific points in the video)
  • Faculty get data on student viewing of video
  • Faculty can add quiz questions into videos; students respond while watching the video; results go directly into the gradebook
  • Students can submit video assignments; faculty can provide feedback directly on specific moments in the video
  • Videos can be automatically captioned and the captions can be easily edited

See MiraCosta’s Studio intro to learn more, and/or dive into the full set of Studio Guides.

– Jim

Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Director, Online Education

Academic Integrity and Canvas Exams

Though cheating is certainly not unique to the online environment, many instructors have  reasonable concerns about opportunities for students to cheat online. These concerns may include:

  • inappropriate access to resources when completing an online assessment
  • copying answers or text found online
  • sharing answers with other students
  • contracting with a third party to complete online classwork

There are many approaches to decreasing the likelihood or ability for students to cheat in the online environment.

Course Redesign ideas:

  • Consider including more formative assessments and activities, and making high-stakes objective assessment a smaller portion of the overall course grade.
  • Get to know your students to help them be more personally invested and to help you recognize individual student voices.
  • Integrate and encourage student use of institutional support resources such as tutoring as part of the learning process.
  • Design assignments that enable/require students to include unique, personally meaningful perspectives and details.
  • Consider combining or replacing objective tests with other methods of assessment, such as projects, collaborative work, writing assignments, and personal reflections.
  • Consider designing tests as open note/open resource so that you do not get caught in an “arms race” with students.
  • Multiple choice and essay questions requiring application of skills and knowledge rather than simple factual recall are harder to cheat on.
  • Consider requiring students to turn in drafts of projects and written work (for feedback from instructor and/or peers) well in advance of a final due date.
  • Include a variety of student-to-student interactions and group activities. For group work, ensure that assessment practices don’t allow non-contributing students to receive the same grade as other group members.
  • Alter assignments and tests from semester to semester.

Proctoring: For objective assessments critical to the learning outcomes for an online course, consider using the MiraCosta Proctoring Center. For students at a distance, the Proctoring Center can help to establish proctoring in other locations. [Note: during spring 2021, the Proctoring Center will have limited availability. Consider using Zoom to proctor objective online assessments yourself.]

Code of Conduct and Instructor Leadership: Discuss with students the reasons why academic integrity is important. Emphasize the benefits (and pleasures!) of truly engaging with course material and learning, rather than focusing on grades. Have students sign or even jointly develop a statement summarizing the expectations and requirements for academic honesty. You might also refer to MiraCosta’s

  • Standards of Student Conduct, AP 5500
    Students must refrain from engaging in … Cheating, plagiarizing, or engaging in other academic dishonesty
  • Academic Integrity policy, BP 5505
    MiraCosta College highly values academic integrity. At the core, this means an honest representation of one’s own work. MiraCosta College also promotes the approach that education is best accomplished as a cooperative, collaborative enterprise in which students are encouraged to work with and learn from each other. The line between academic integrity and collaborative education is not always easy to define and may vary from one discipline to the next and from one instructor to the next. Many aspects of cheating and plagiarism are universally recognized, while others are subject to debate. This policy provides some broad, general guidelines and allows instructors to be more restrictive according to their preferences and practices. Examples of academic dishonesty include but are not limited to:
    A. Cheating: Copying from another student or using unauthorized aids or persons during an examination.
    B. Plagiarizing: Copying someone else’s work or ideas and misrepresenting them as one’s own.
    C. Falsification: Making up fictitious information and presenting it as factual or altering records for the purpose of misrepresentation.
    D. Facilitation: Helping another student to cheat, plagiarize, or falsify.

You might include a question on exams that has students agree to the code of conduct and/or that has students indicate that they have completed the exam on their own without using prohibited resources.

Making Canvas Exams More Secure

When conducting tests through Canvas, the following methods can further reduce the risk of cheating. Note that as of fall 2020, Canvas has two different tools for conducting tests – Quizzes (the original) and New Quizzes. New Quizzes is still being developed; at this time it has both advantages and limitations (view a comparison and/or a New Quizzes FAQ) compared to the original Quizzes tool, but it is expected to eventually fully replace the original Quizzes. Canvas guides for both Quizzes and New Quizzes are given for each item below as applicable.

  • Availability Window – Restrict the availability of the test to a specific date/time range. Quizzes | New Quizzes
  • Time Limits – Limit the time a student can spend on a test once they start it. Quizzes | New Quizzes
  • Disallow Multiple Attempts – Multiple attempts is a great option for a “mastery” quiz where you want students to retake it until they achieve a certain level of proficiency; this isn’t typical of a summative, high-stakes assessment. Quizzes | New Quizzes
  • Delay Per-Question Feedback (Quizzes only) – Providing students feedback on each question can help them learn; delaying the availability of this feedback until after the test availability window is over can help ensure the integrity of the exam. Quizzes [As of spring 2020, if feedback is built into a New Quizzes assessment, it is provided to students immediately and cannot be delayed.]
  • Answer Randomization – Answers to multiple choice questions can be randomized/shuffled so they are presented differently for different students. (Note: In Quizzes this is one setting for the entire quiz; in New Quizzes this is a per-question setting.) Quizzes | New Quizzes
  • Present Questions One at a Time – This can make it more difficult for students to “collaborate” if questions are also randomized. An additional option can prevent students from going back to previous questions, which can further strengthen the integrity of the exam, but can also frustrate students who legitimately realize they made a mistake on a previous question and wish to correct it. Quizzes | New Quizzes
  • Shuffle Questions (New Quizzes only) – This will present the quiz questions to students in random order. New Quizzes
  • Question Randomization with a Question Group/Item Bank – Drawing questions randomly from a pool (or pools) can make it even more difficult for students to productively share questions during an exam. Keep in mind that if your pool contains more questions than the number of questions you are drawing from the pool to go into the exam, you need to be careful about maintaining consistency of the questions within the pool (both in terms of outcomes measured and difficulty of the questions). Quizzes | New Quizzes
  • Calculated (Formula) Questions – Formula questions can include a range of values for one term/variable. Thus, the same question will have unique answers across different quizzes, but the question can still be auto-graded. Quizzes | New Quizzes
  • Require Presentation of ID – if you are not using a physical proctoring center, but you would like students to demonstrate that the person taking the test is the person enrolled in your class, one suggestion is to have students record a brief video holding a picture ID next to their face. If you use Proctorio, this step can automatically be included when enabling video proctoring; if you don’t, you could add an Essay question that directs students to access their webcam through the Rich Content Editor and record this. Of course, this requires students to have a webcam (and still wouldn’t prevent the student from doing this, then having someone else complete the rest of the exam). Quizzes | New Quizzes
  • Restrict Computer Activity During Exam – Technology such as Proctorio enables faculty to require that student’s computer and browser are “locked down” during an exam, preventing students from opening other browser windows or applications, taking screen captures, etc. This requires specific technology on the student computer. Note that Proctorio works only with Canvas Quizzes, not New Quizzes.

Countdown to Canvas: 6 weeks to go

Please be sure you have extracted everything you need from Blackboard and Moodle, since access to those systems ends on June 30. See Considerations in Leaving Blackboard and Moodle for more details; for quick guidance on downloading class gradebooks and archives, see directions to do so for Blackboard or for Moodle.

Further, please consider carefully:

  • Are there old courses that you haven’t taught for some time, but you don’t want to leave behind? Don’t forget those!
  • Are there old courses that someone else in your department taught, but that person has since left MiraCosta, and your department has permission to reuse course content? If so, contact Karen Turpin (kturpin@miracosta.edu) for assistance in bringing such content over to Canvas.

Finally, if you are still getting up to speed on Canvas, keep in mind:

  1. The plethora of great locally-developed and selected Canvas resources available to you.
  2. The 24-7 instructor hotline for Canvas support – it remains available throughout the summer: 1-833-345-2890 and is your best option for quick “how do I do this in Canvas” or “why isn’t Canvas doing what I think it should do” types of questions.
  3. The TIC will be closed for its transformation into the brand-new Teaching & Learning Center during the first part of the summer, but Karen and I are working and available to you throughout the summer – feel free to contact either of us with questions that go beyond what the Canvas hotline can provide.

 

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