C3-2-1 Newsletter – Fall 2021 Week Two!

Hello, Faculty Community! 

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. Course Workload Estimator

Are we giving our students too much work? Are we not giving them enough? How would we even really know? This tool can be a powerful starting point for gauging the workload we are asking students to complete. This Teaching in Higher Education podcast episode features an interview with one of the researchers and designers of the estimator, Betsy Barre. This article also provides context for the student workload issue and research on reading rates and content comprehension.

2. Great Ideas For Teaching – A Collection of GIFTs

Each year, our Faculty Director of the Writing Center and PDP Coordinator, Denise Stephenson, collects new GIFTs for us to learn more about awesome teaching and learning practices from our very own faculty colleagues. The latest issue features contributions from Nadia Kahn, Angela Beltran-Aguilar, JahB Prescott, Joanne Carruba, and Lisa Lane. 

3. Mental Health Counseling Services

Making sure we help students connect to mental health resources available at MiraCosta is essential. And our mental health counseling team offers so much for our community.  MiraCosta’s co-leads of the mental health counseling team, Abby Burd and Ghada Osman, sent out an email outlining all services and events offered this semester, and I thought an echo of their offerings in this space was necessary. Individual counseling appointments, weekly group meetings, workshop series, suggested syllabus and Canvas language, class presentation requests, and the Mental Health Peer Educator Program are all part of the wonderful program their team is facilitating. 

(2) Online Tips and Tricks

1. Sharing your computer audio on Zoom

Have you had the problem of playing audio on Zoom, and the other folks in the room cannot hear it? Some setting options could help with this issue. Using the “Advanced” options in the “Screen Share” feature can help your computer sound come through clear and true. curry Mitchell (Letters) and I were Zooming earlier today when he showed me this helpful trick! 

2. Teaching with Zoom at MiraCosta

Jim Julius (Faculty Director of Online Education) put together several homegrown MiraCosta resources from tips for inclusion & security, how-to videos from fellow faculty members, and guidance for captioning. The items on this page will not only help you become more familiar with Zoom tools and functions but will give you some great ideas for teaching in this modality. 

(1) Question

Are you able to disconnect? 

The 3-day weekend is here. Here’s hoping you can unplug. 

Stay joyful,

Sean Davis
Joyful Teacher in Residence 🙂

C3-2-1 Newsletter – Fall 2021 Week One!

Hello, Faculty Community! 

We are back! Well, kinda…

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. C3 Teaching and Learning Website
With an emphasis on minimalism, ease of use/navigation, and providing essential information and resources for all things teaching and learning at MiraCosta College, you’ll want to bookmark this site! Please share with colleagues and feel free to contact me with any suggestions for additions. 

2. Archived Online Education Workshops from Flex Week
Did you attend every single workshop from Flex Week? Yeah, I didn’t either. Not to fear, we have you covered for all of the Online Education focused workshops that kicked off our week of professional learning. In addition to the videos, I would recommend you peruse the abusndance of resources and helpful information provided on the Technology/Teaching Innovation Center (TIC) website.

3. Faculty Helpers
MiraCosta faculty helpers are standing by to help you with preparing and teaching your online classes! Trouble with getting your syllabus to look right? Students won’t participate in the discussion board? Can’t get things organized? Still adjusting to the many ways you can use Canvas and Zoom? Looking for some fresh inspiration?
Contact one of the helpers listed here for a quick question by email or to schedule an hour 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 and contact them directly.

(2) Online Tips and Tricks


1. Using the Missing Submission policy in the Canvas Gradebook 
Are you tired of adding a “0” manually to assignments students did not complete so that the assignment is calculated into the total score on the student view? Have Canvas do the work for you automagically with a missing submission policy. Avoid confusion for your students as the assignment will be calculated in their overall score while displaying a missing tag alerting them that they missed that assignment.  A couple of things to consider – This option requires a due date on the assignment The Missing Submission policy should be set up when a course is created before creating assignments as it will not affect previously graded missing submissions.

2. Pronto delivers quick, informal, and mobile-friendly class communication!
Pronto can be used in Canvas or through a mobile app to enable quick communication among members of a Canvas class. In addition to full-featured instant messaging, you can share files, start video chats, and use built-in translation to enable students to communicate using their native languages seamlessly.

(1) Question

How are we considering our own sense of belonging as we try to promote a feeling of belonging in our students? 

Stay joyful,

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

Ensuring Online Class Availability to Students by Monday 8/23/2021

Dear Faculty,

I wanted to give a quick reminder/heads-up that 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. This ensures a minimum of confusion for students, and compliance with student authentication requirements for distance education classes.

This has long been an expectation in practice, and the MiraCosta Online Educators subcommittee of the Academic Senate further clarified and strengthened this expectation last spring. To be clear, this is true for hybrid and scheduled online classes as well. If you have a scheduled meeting with your distance ed class and prefer to “reveal” the class to students during that first meeting, you may keep most components of the class unpublished until then, but the class itself should be published along with basic information such as a syllabus and/or class home page.

If you would like to learn more about the rationale behind this practice, and/or to view some recommendations for good practice in helping your students learn how to get started with your class, please see MiraCosta Distance Education Class Authentication Compliance, Start-of-Term Availability Procedures, and Recommendations.

If you’re looking for last minute help this weekend, remember that we have 24×7 phone and chat support from Canvas (click Tech Help at the bottom left of Canvas). And if you’d like more than just Canvas support, our MiraCosta peer faculty helpers are ready for you to contact them – see their details here!

Best wishes for a great start to the semester!

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

MiraCosta Online Support for Students

Did you know? It’s now a requirement for MiraCosta faculty to “Help students in a DE course section to be aware of MiraCosta College support services and resources, especially those available online.”(MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines)

While there are lots of ways you may do this, here are some important ones to consider adding to your syllabus, your Canvas home page, and/or your introductory week discussions with students:

Student Support Hub

Point your students to the Student Support Hub in Canvas. Share the link and direct them to the Student Support button on the left in Canvas for quick access to online support, including live help, online appointments, and access to key resources from:

  • Library
  • STEM & Math Learning Center
  • Tutoring & Academic Support Center
  • Writing Center
  • Academic Counseling
  • Career Center
  • CARE (including technology device requests)
  • Health Services (including virtual physical and mental health appointments)
  • Open computer lab staff
  • Student Help Desk

Online Help Hut

The Help Hut on the MiraCosta website is a quick way for current and prospective students to connect online with student support areas including Financial Aid, Admissions & Records, Academic Counseling, and the Student Help Desk.

Tech Help in Canvas

The Tech Help button at bottom left in Canvas provides students (and faculty) with quick access to 24s7 phone and chat support from Canvas, as well as local technology support from the Student Help Desk.

Student Orientation to Online Learning Workshops

In collaboration with the library, I’ll be again offering about two dozen Student Orientation to Online Learning workshops this fall – see all dates and times on the TASC site and in Canvas announcements. These workshops help to familiarize students with these great online resources, to become more comfortable with Zoom, and Canvas, and to consider time management strategies. Encourage your students to attend and, if you like, find out which of your students participated in order to incentivize their attendance.

Please let me know if you have questions about any of these great resources!

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

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