C3-2-1 Newsletter – Spring 2023 Week One

Hello, Faculty Community! 

Trust. Community. Sharing. 

These were three of the most salient principles we came up with during our Cultivating Human Connections event last week. And with that, spring has sprung, and the new semester is upon us! I trust that this semester will be filled with new opportunities for growth and success for both ourselves and our students. Let’s continue to foster a strong sense of community by sharing our knowledge and experiences with one another. Together, we can create a positive and productive learning environment that will make this semester one to remember. As we embark on this new journey, let’s remember to take a step back, take a deep breath, and enjoy the ride. After all, learning should be joyful, so let’s make sure to have some fun along the way! 

Wishing you all a wonderful end to the first week and a fantastic semester ahead.

These weekly newsletters feature 3 resources related to teaching and learning, 2 online tips and tricks, and 1 question for reflection.

Looking for archived resources, tips/tricks, and questions?

Revisit the past editions of the C3-2-1 Newsletter here

Want to share? 

If you have some resources, tips/tricks, and questions to share, please contribute to the newsletter using this C3-2-1 Form.

C321 Newsletter

(3) Resources

  1.  APIDA Ally Training – As important as ever. A brief description of this offering from the organizers: 

    We want to add to that Spring excitement by inviting you to participate in MiraCosta’s Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Ally Training on Canvas! 

    This upcoming session will begin in Week 3, which starts on February 6th. The first thirty MiraCostans to sign up here by February 3rd will comprise this cohort. If we fill up, then we can add you to the waitlist for the next cohort. The APIDA Ally Training is a DEqCC-approved, FLEX-eligible six-week asynchronous Canvas course that asks for an approximately two-hour commitment each week. Through a collection of videos, articles, images, and interactive discussion board forums, this training is designed to enhance participants’ awareness of diverse APIDA histories, cultures, identities, and responses to recent influxes of anti-APIDA hate crimes. 
  2.  MiraCosta Online Mentor support – MiraCosta Online Mentor faculty are ready to support you with 1-1, on-demand support 
  3. The Writing Center – Lots of cool and helpful services are provided here! 
    Jessica Perez-Corona, Program Manager, provides this invitation (and resource!):

    At the Writing Center, we help students find their voices and empower themselves through their writing. Our studio model allows students to come to the Writing Center and work one-on-one with a writing consultant or coach and get feedback on their writing. We encourage students to also check in with their professors for further clarification and direction. Students are welcome to use the Writing Center as a study space to work independently on their assignments.

    The Writing Center also has an impact on student success and retention rates. Specifically, in Spring 2022, our data shows that students who used the Writing Center were 14% more likely to succeed than their peers who did not use our services.

    Writing Center Canvas Page 

    If you’d like a page in your course with all Writing Center links, you can import the Writing Center Spring 2023 page from Canvas MCC Commons. If you’ve never imported from the Commons here’s a video that shows you how. Be sure to be logged into Canvas first.   

(2) Tips & Tricks

  1. Pronto is an incredible mobile-friendly and Canvas-integrated messaging platform that’s ready to use in every course.
  2.  Ally automatically converts content you share through Canvas into multiple formats for students, allowing for listening rather than reading and better access to content on mobile devices.

(1) Question

How do you build relationships with your students in your classroom/counseling sessions/library?

Stay joyful,

Sean Davis
Joyful Teacher in Residence 🙂
Coordinator, C3 Teaching and Learning Center
Sociology Department Chair

Spring 2023 Online Support for Equity & Success

Please see below for quick reminders of important online-focused resources to help you help your students succeed!

Support for You

Support for Your Students – Please help your students to be aware of and make use of these important services and resources!

  • Student Online Academic Readiness workshops – With the library, I offer nearly 20 of these across the first 9 weeks of the semester – see all dates and times on the TASC site and in Canvas announcements. These workshops (formerly known as Student Orientation to Online Learning) help to familiarize students with the resources MiraCosta provides online to support them, as well as to adopt habits and attitudes of successful online students. Encourage your students to attend and, if you like, find out which of your students participated in order to incentivize their attendance.
  • Online Student Support Access Points – the Student Support Hub in Canvas, accessed via the Student Support button on the bottom left in Canvas, gives quick access to online support from the library, STEM & MLC, online tutoring, writing center, counseling, career center, open computer lab staff, student help desk, health services, CARE team, and more! The Help Hut and Online Education webpages are also great starting points for students to connect with all kinds of support services when they’re not in Canvas.
  • Tech Support – Also at lower left in Canvas is a button for students to quickly access Tech Support options, including 24×7 phone and chat support from Canvas, and our local MiraCosta student help desk.
  • Technology Needs? – Be sure to share the form for students to fill out if they need a loaner laptop or hotspot.
  • Class Availability in Canvas – Faculty teaching distance education (online and hybrid) classes are expected to make their classes available by mid-day on the Monday of the week in which they begin. To learn more, please see MiraCosta Distance Education Class Authentication Compliance, Start-of-Term Availability Procedures, and Recommendations.
  • Zero- and Low-Textbook Cost Course Sections – If you are teaching one of these, please be sure to mark your class in SURF as LTC or ZTC if you haven’t already, so students know that your class has lowered that access barrier!

MiraCosta’s Online Education Tools

Click the link immediately after each bullet for a detailed MiraCosta-specific overview of each item below. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions about these or other resources.

  • Canvas – the #1 tool for faculty and students
  • Zoom – if you’re using Zoom, make sure you’re using a pro Zoom account through MiraCosta.
  • Canvas Studio – enables faculty and students to create videos while inside Canvas. Faculty can create interactive discussion or quiz activities based on video.
  • Pope Tech helps faculty detect and correct accessibility issues within Canvas. See also Tips for Creating Accessible Course Content.
  • Pronto is an incredible mobile-friendly and Canvas-integrated messaging platform that’s ready to use in every course.
  • Perusall is a social annotation tool available within Canvas that makes it easy for students to comment/discuss right on a text, document, or image.
  • Lab Archives Electronic Notebook is an online notebook especially useful for translating lab manuals and student notes/work into the online environment.
  • Ally automatically converts content you share through Canvas into multiple formats for students, allowing for listening rather than reading and better access to content on mobile devices.
  • PlayPosit – This video interaction tool offers more complexity and options than Studio. Studio is a great place to start, but if you’re looking for more question types to add to your videos, PlayPosit is a great option. 
  • Turnitin – help students learn to properly cite sources and avoid plagiarism. Also provides grading and peer review tools for written work.

– Jim

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

REMINDER: Faculty Helpers Are Available Over The Break

Hello, Faculty Community!

Do you need or want help with your online classes over the break? 

Faculty Helpers are available to work with you one-on-one on all things online teaching and learning. If you want some help with your class or just want another person to discuss pedagogy, design, accessibility, etc. simply respond to this email or contact a helper directly. Trouble with getting your syllabus to look right? Students won’t participate in the discussion board? Can’t get things organized? Still, making Canvas or Zoom your friend? Looking for some fresh inspiration?

1:1 Support Individualized online teaching collaboration

Whether you need help now or over the upcoming break (yes, faculty helpers are available over the break!), connect with a faculty helper now so y’all can collaborate on a short- or long-term plan. Availability will vary helper-to-helper so please reach out to individual helpers to see if your schedules line up! 

Contact one of the helpers listed below today – or anytime – for a quick question by email or to schedule a Zoom meeting. They are compensated by the college. You can claim Flex for your time working with them. No strings attached! Free to work with them as much or as little as you need! No forms to fill out – just select one from the list below and contact them directly or respond to this email if you want me to match you up with a helper. 

NameEmailDepartment
David Detwilerddetwiler@miracosta.edu International Languages
Pilar Hernandezphernandez@miracosta.eduInternational Languages
Laura Hayeklhayek@miracosta.eduCounseling
Katy Baileykbailey@miracosta.eduESL
Lisa M. LaneLLane@miracosta.edu History
Laura Pacioreklpaciorek@miracosta.edu Child Development

We hope to hear from you soon! 

Sean Davis

Joyful Teacher in Residence 🙂
Coordinator, C3 Teaching and Learning Center
Sociology Department Chair

Online News YOU Can Use: End of Fall 2022

Dear MiraCosta Faculty,

Winter is coming! (That’s a gift, not a threat!) As we finish up, here are some reminders and resources to help you reach the finish line, and perhaps, to begin spring preparation.

Canvas End of Term

After Dec. 31, your fall Canvas classes go into read-only mode for you and your students. 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 then. 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.

MiraCosta Online Mentors and Instructional Designer Support

If you’d like help with any semester wrap-up tasks, or as you begin working on spring classes, MiraCosta peer mentor faculty are available over break (please see the email sent today by Sean Davis for details), and/or you can consult with our Instructional Designer, Nadia Khan (click the link to schedule a time).

Helping Students to SOAR

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 (page will be updated very soon if it’s still showing fall times when you view it). Please feel free to 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 their participation.

Upcoming Professional Learning Opportunities for Online Teaching

  • We’re planning lots of great online-related workshops for Flex week, with topics including Canvas course design templates, Canvas Studio, Pronto, Perusall, Zero Textbook Cost Course and Program Development, and open drop-in times for consultation with Canvas experts and peer faculty mentors. Also, look for a discussion about Artificial Intelligence and its impacts on teaching and learning, which we expect to be the beginning of a series continuing into spring.
  • Additionally, MiraCosta Online Mentors will be offering three 4-week @ONE courses adapted for use at MiraCosta this spring: Creating Accessible Course Content, Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning, and Introduction to Asynchronous Online Teaching and Learning. Look for an email coming soon from Nadia Khan with more details about these, which we expect to launch during Flex week.
  • @ONE has opened registration for free spring webinars on using video in online teaching.
  • The Online Teaching Conference will take place in person June 21-23, in Long Beach. The call for proposals is open now through January 31 if you’re interested in presenting.

Wishing you a restorative winter break!

– Jim

Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Director, Online Education
MiraCosta College Online Education | MiraCosta Online Faculty Support

Help is here! Faculty one-on-one Support

Hello, Faculty Community! 

Who is this for? 

All faculty at MiraCosta 🙂 

Faculty Helpers are available to work with you one-on-one on all things online teaching and learning. If you want some help with your class or just want another person to discuss pedagogy, design, accessibility, etc. simply respond to this email or contact a helper directly. Trouble with getting your syllabus to look right? Students won’t participate in the discussion board? Can’t get things organized? Still, making Canvas or Zoom your friend? Looking for some fresh inspiration?

Whether you need help now or over the upcoming break (yes, faculty helpers are available over the break!), connect with a faculty helper now so y’all can collaborate on a short- or long-term plan. 

Contact one of the helpers listed below today – or anytime – for a quick question by email or to schedule a Zoom meeting. They are compensated by the college. You can claim Flex for your time working with them. No strings attached! Free to work with them as much or as little as you need! No forms to fill out – just select one from the list below and contact them directly or respond to this email if you want me to match you up with a helper. 

NameEmailDepartment
David Detwilerddetwiler@miracosta.edu International Languages
Pilar Hernandezphernandez@miracosta.eduInternational Languages
Laura Hayeklhayek@miracosta.eduCounseling
Katy Baileykbailey@miracosta.eduESL
Lisa M. LaneLLane@miracosta.edu History
Laura Pacioreklpaciorek@miracosta.edu Child Development

We hope to hear from you soon! 

Sean Davis
Joyful Teacher in Residence 🙂
Coordinator, C3 Teaching and Learning Center
Sociology Department Chair

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