We’re almost there! Let’s finish strong and (maybe?) think a little bit about prepping for spring online teaching 😅
Canvas End of Term
After Dec. 31, your fall Canvas classes go into read-only mode for you and your students, and move from the Canvas Dashboard to the Past Enrollments area of Canvas (select Courses at left in Canvas, then All Courses). If you wish to remove access to any of your course materials for your current students beyond this semester, you need to do so by Dec. 31. Review our Canvas end-of-term guide for details. It also discusses what you need to do if you have any students who will receive Incomplete grades, as well as what to do if you wish to close course access sooner than Dec. 31.
The SOAR (Student Online Academic Readiness) workshop returns in spring. In partnership with librarians, we’ve already lined up many workshop times for the spring semester. Please recommend this to your students as you build syllabi and welcome pages for your classes! As always, we’ll have Canvas announcements reminding students of sessions each week. And as always, you can check to see if your students have attended one of these workshops in order to incentivize participation.
The SOAR (Student Online Academic Readiness) workshop returns in spring. In partnership with librarians, we’ve already lined up many workshop times for the spring semester. Please recommend this to your students as you build syllabi and welcome pages for your classes! As always, we’ll have Canvas announcements reminding students of sessions each week. And as always, you can check to see if your students have attended one of these workshops in order to incentivize participation.
Happy break!
Jim Julius, Ed.D. Faculty Coordinator, Online Education
Each term, typically in weeks 1-3, 5, and 9, Online Education offers multiple 1-hour Student Online Academic Readiness (SOAR) workshop sessions open to any student. The list of SOAR sessions is available on the TASC Student Workshop site. Students also have an announcement in Canvas with upcoming workshop dates/ times provided. Note: Prior to 2022, this workshop was known as the Student Orientation to Online Learning (SOOL).
SOAR has the following outcomes:
Students will learn habits and attitudes of successful online students
Students will be able to effectively select and get started in online classes
Students will be able to navigate and use basic online education tools (primarily Zoom & Canvas)
Students will be able to access key online technical and academic student support resources
SOAR is typically offered in-person at the Oceanside campus and online, though during COVID and for spring 2022, all sessions are online. (It was offered in-person at SEC but attendance was extremely low.) Student attendance at SOAR is recorded in SURF so that instructors may require attendance or provide extra credit (instructors, see below for details).
Students who attend SOAR are enrolled into a Canvas course that includes extensive information to support student success in online education. The course remains available to the students indefinitely.
The Canvas SOAR class is open for anyone to self-enroll in, and the main Online Education page also includes a recorded version of the online SOAR which is open for anyone to view. Simply self-enrolling and/or watching the recorded version does not make a student eligible to have their attendance recorded in SURF; attendance at a live in-person or online session is required.
Over 5500 students have participated since SOAR began in 2014. Research shows that from 2014 to 2018, 72.8% of those who attended SOAR in the same or a previous term successfully completed DE courses vs. a 65.9% DE success rate for students who had not attended a SOAR workshop.
Student Online Academic Readiness Attendance
Any instructor can use SURF to find out which of their students have attended.
Enter SURF, go to a Class Roster page, and scroll to the bottom
Click the “Student Orientation to Online Learning Roster” link (see image below)
A PDF should open in a new browser tab or window with a roster showing which students attended an orientation, and on what date. If the roster doesn’t open, please ensure that it wasn’t blocked by a popup blocker. Please note: you will see a spinner icon while the PDF is generating. This can happen quickly or it can take a significant amount of time – up to several minutes – so please be patient while the process runs.
Pronto Open Lab – Learn How to Level Up Your Engagement! ( Zoom Recording, 46 minutes) – 1/17/2024 workshop by Lauren Luker (Pronto) & Jim Julius. This workshop provides an overview of Pronto’s features and how to get started with using Pronto to enhance class communication. This recording requires a passcode: +I2?3aXA
Pronto is an app that works within and outside of Canvas to enable seamless, fun, and effective communication between faculty and students, and among students. Many California Community Colleges are now using Pronto. An initial pilot in 2021-22 went extremely well, and Pronto has been institutionalized going forward!
Some stats as of the start of 2024, after two years of using Pronto at MiraCosta:
nearly 11,200 MiraCostans signed in to Pronto
over 214,000 messages have been sent across more than 6,000 groups
What Pronto Offers
Real-time Chat Without having to share phone numbers or other contact information, now you have real-time messaging across each class and to individuals. Send text messages, files, images, emojis, and GIFs!
Message Translation Pronto gives everyone a voice by allowing them to send messages in their preferred language, and Pronto then automatically translates messages into the recipient’s preferred language.
Live-stream & Group Video Chat
Broadcast live video to your classes, and record your video sessions for replay. This may be a nice alternative to Zoom for things like office hours, group meetings, and more. Viewers interact using the chat button. It keeps the process smooth. Here is a video from Fabiola Torres of Glendale CC on how she uses the live-stream feature for class.
Chat via live video with up to 10 people simultaneously. Perfect for group projects!
Live 1:1 video chat any time for face-to-face interaction with a student. Or live-stream with a student and they can chat (they don’t have to be on camera).
Announcements Keep your entire course in the loop by sending a message to the whole class. It’s like sending a real-time announcement to your entire class. Keep everyone updated on assignments, tech glitches, emergency alerts, and any other important information you need to get out instantly. You can send one Announcement to multiple Pronto groups at once if you wish.
File Sharing & Storage Share any file type—documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, photos, videos, and more. All files stored in Pronto remain available through Pronto for easy retrieval with no storage limits. Pronto integrates with all reputable cloud storage repositories, including Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, and Google Drive.
Task Management Keeps students organized and accountable by assigning tasks. Tasks allows you to create reminders for yourself or others in groups—attach files, photos, or videos and assign due dates with auto-reminders for each task. Here is a video from Professor Gomez of Glendale CC demonstrating how to assign a task.
Accessibilityand Privacy Pronto is both WCAG 2.0 AA and FERPA compliant. Pronto keeps you connected to everyone without sharing personal contact information.
Viewing Data Pronto lets you know who has seen your messages, so you can decide whether to follow up in different ways with those who may not have viewed a message.
Group Creation Groups you set up in Canvas automatically get a Pronto group. But anyone can also create Pronto groups on their own. Pronto groups created within the Pronto app remain available indefinitely, while Pronto groups tied to a Canvas class will end once the class is completed.
Check out this brief introduction to Pronto from MiraCosta faculty member Tanessa Sanchez:
Pronto Faculty Introduction
Where Can I Access Pronto?
Pronto is available 4 ways:
Directly within Canvas. If you are enrolled in any published course where Pronto is active, you will see the Pronto icon at the bottom left of Canvas, in the Global Navigation menu (you may need to scroll the menu down). Selecting the Pronto icon will open up Pronto to the latest chat you have had open or the course/group with which you are currently engaged.
The first time you use Pronto, you’ll need to provide your MiraCosta email address and then enter a code that Pronto will send to your email. If you are not yet enrolled in any course that is published and uses Pronto, you may need to wait until that occurs for this step to work.
Pronto only becomes active for a Canvas course after it is published. NOTE: this doesn’t happen automatically – Pronto becomes active for a newly-published course once the next synchronization between Pronto and Canvas occurs – this happens daily at 7 pm PST. But if you want to make Pronto active immediately after publishing a course, you can manually enable Pronto in the Pronto course management tool.
Do I have to use Pronto?
No, Pronto is available but you can ignore it. Doing so will still allow your students to use it. If you wish to turn off Pronto temporarily or permanently for a class, you can do that too. (Even if you like having Pronto on most of the time, you may wish to shut it off during an exam, for example.)
Support for Pronto is provided via the Pronto support site or by contacting help@pronto.io
A few important notes/tips:
Students added to your Canvas class will not be able to use Pronto for the class until the next Pronto synchronization occurs. You can use the Pronto Course Management tool to manually force Pronto to synchronize with a course if necessary.
Faculty can’t see Pronto in Canvas’s Student View. If you wish to experience Pronto within your course as your students would, you need to use your “fake student” account. But rest assured that the student experience with Pronto is just about identical to what you see on the faculty side.
On mobile devices, Pronto will not show up within the Canvas app or inside of Canvas in a mobile browser. Use the free Pronto app (search “Pronto: Team Communication”)
If you manually add anyone to your Canvas class, they won’t be part of the Pronto group that includes you and your students unless you do one of the following:
In the Add People process in Canvas, be sure to click the Section drop-down menu and choose the section that ends in -SURF
If you’ve already completed the Add People process and need to have someone (such as a TA) interacting with your students in Pronto, go to the Canvas course’s People roster, find the name, click the three dots at far right, choose Edit Sections, and then select the section that ends in -SURF
If you combine course sections into one Canvas course, you’ll need to use the separate Pronto groups associated with each section rather than messaging with Pronto to the entire combined class. Some notes on this process from MiraCosta professor Serena Mercado:
After publishing the combined Canvas course, the merged course showed up on my Pronto list.
In Pronto, when expanding the course (click the arrow on the right of the course name), it was divided into two sections (with REALLY long names)
Hovering over each name makes three vertical dots appear to the right of the name.
If you click on the three dots, you are given the option to nickname the individual sections, so they are more easily identifiable.
Here are some excellent additional Pronto resources:
Pronto slide deck from MiraCosta faculty Dawn Bell and Mariana Silva – includes ideas for using it with students
Pronto posting schedule – A suggested schedule with ideas for when and what a faculty member might use Pronto for to encourage wide student use
Pronto Help Desk – for students from MiraCosta professor Tanessa Sanchez
Pronto vs. Discord – Discord is a popular tool for free-flowing online class discussions – it has its downsides though as a tool that has not been vetted by the college and is outside of the college’s control
Thanks to Fabiola Torres of Glendale CC; MiraCosta’s Tanessa Sanchez, Serena Mercado, Mariana Silva, Dawn Bell, and Kristi Reyes; and Matt Baugh from Pronto for resources that helped to develop this page.
And here are some links for those who wish to follow up on what we are sharing (remember, we are just briefly introducing ideas, not walking step b step through the how to’s).
As Jim J. worked through his ideas, he reminded us of what an amazing recourse the TIC home page is and the practical teaching ideas we can find in our Distance Education Handbook.
When Nadia walked us through adding quiz questions and annotations to video in canvas, she highlighted the possibilities. But she also has a video that walks interested colleagues step by step through the how to’s of this tool: embedding quizzes and annotations in videos.
Thanks to all — especially our colleague Arturo Arevalos — for another lively session.
gym sullivan joyfully celebrating, cultivating, and connecting
Please download a PDF or download a Word version of this guide for future reference as you develop and teach merged Canvas courses.
Faculty may request to merge Canvas courses when they are teaching multiple sections of the same course in order to more efficiently share the same content across course sections, freeing up time for other instructional activity. This must be done prior to the start date of the course sections. For detailed steps on how to request combining of course sections, download the Combine your Class sections in SURF for Canvas guide. However, there are critical privacy issues faculty must be aware of if they choose to combine sections in Canvas.
*NOTE: If instructors combine multiple sections in Canvas, they are not able to offer an Honors Contract in that course.
According to Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) regulations, students cannot have access to student information (including the fact of their enrollment) of students in course sections other than their own (with the exception noted below). Because of this requirement, students are not allowed to interact within a Canvas course with students from another course section.
Canvas limits the visibility of students from other sections in a merged Canvas course. However, this does not cover all Canvas tools, so if you request to merge Canvas courses, you’ll need to take additional steps to protect your students’ privacy, as outlined in this document.
NOTE: FERPA restrictions do not apply to a merged Canvas course if students physically meet in the same classroom at the same time (i.e. “true cross-listed courses”). Course sections that meet simultaneously typically are combined in Canvas by default, and this document is not relevant for those merged courses.
What Canvas Does for You
In Canvas courses merged upon faculty request, students are prevented from seeing students in sections other than their own in
the full roster view of the People tool,
and the Inbox (Conversations).
[Technical note: MiraCosta enables this by setting the limit_section_privileges field to true In the enrollments feed file for students in sections being combined in Canvas.]
What You Must Do to Maintain FERPA Compliance in a Merged Canvas Course
Click Settings in your course menu and:
Under the Navigation tab, be sure that the Chat and Conferences items are hidden from students. If they are active (appearing in the top grouping of navigation items), drag them to the lower grouping or click the gear icon at the right of each and click Disable. Be sure to scroll down and click Save at the bottom.
Under the Course Details tab, scroll down and click more options. Make sure that: Let students create discussion topics is NOT checked Let students organize their own groups is NOT checked Disable comments on announcements IS checked
Click the Update Course Details button at bottom.
Ensure that each section has its own separate discussion
For graded discussions, restrict each discussion to an individual section using the Assign to option. See Canvas guide for details. See further details on section restriction under the What You May Do section below.
For ungraded discussions, use the Post to option (immediately below the discussion description) to select an individual section for the discussion.
Note – if you want each section to engage in discussions about the same topics, simply Duplicate the original discussion and modify it so it is available to a different section of students.
If/when you use Pronto
You’ll need to use the separate Pronto groups associated with each section rather than messaging with Pronto to the entire combined class. Some notes on this process from MiraCosta professor Serena Mercado:
After publishing the combined Canvas course, the merged course showed up on my Pronto list.
In Pronto, when expanding the course (click the arrow on the right of the course name), it was divided into two sections (with REALLY long names)
Hovering over each name makes three vertical dots appear to the right of the name.
If you click on the three dots, you are given the option to nickname the individual sections, so they are more easily identifiable.
If/when you create Groups
Select the option to Require group members to be in the same section when creating a group set. See Canvas guide for details.
If/when you create Collaborations
Be sure to add students to Collaborations who are enrolled in the same course section. The Collaboration setup screen doesn’t display section information for students, so you will need to refer to the People area.
If/when you send a Canvas Inbox message to students from multiple sections
Select the option to Send an individual message to each recipient. This will send a separate copy to each recipient and hide the names of the recipients in the message header. You may also compose messages addressed to all members of a specific course section.
If/when you offer synchronous (live) online sessions (e.g. use Zoom)
If a synchronous meeting is required, hold separate synchronous meetings with each section. If a synchronous meeting is optional, you may hold one meeting for both sections, but make sure students understand how to participate anonymously. If you record a synchronous meeting where student identities are revealed, share the recording only with the section that participated in the meeting. If you wish to share a recorded synchronous meeting more widely, you must ensure that student identities are not revealed. Please review the Guidance for Synchronous Instruction at MiraCosta College to Protect Student Privacy document for more details.
What You May Do: Setting Calendar Events and Assignment Due Dates by Section
Note: This section is not required for FERPA compliance but may be helpful for managing a merged course if you would like to create differentiated events/activities for different sections.
The following Canvas Guides will help you create Canvas activities/assignments specific to a particular section within a merged course:
(Discussions must be separated by section – see notes in the What You Must Do section above.)
Note that when creating events/activities that are differentiated by section, you will need to select the section name in the Assign to area, which displays only a few options and is not scrollable. If your desired section is not displayed as an option, you will need to type in the section name until it shows up as an option to select.
Section names can be seen if you click Settings in the Course Menu and then the Sections tab. You may also click People in the course menu to see which section each enrolled student is assigned to. Sections with students have names ending in -SURF; to include your test student account in any differentiated activity in a merged course, you would also need to include one of the -OTHER sections available within the merged course.
Acknowledgements
Portions of this document are adapted from material originally developed by Seattle University and modified by the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College district. Additional portions are adapted from material developed by Indiana University and modified by Cornell University.
Get Support
If you have any question or need assistance with combining courses in SURF for Canvas contact the MiraCosta College Employee Helpdesk at (760) 795-6850 or open a helpdesk ticket in the portal.
Directly within Canvas. If you are enrolled in any published course where Pronto is active, you will see the Pronto icon at the bottom left of Canvas, in the Global Navigation menu (you may need to scroll the menu down). 