Online teaching at MiraCosta – next steps!

Dear MiraCosta faculty,

Congrats on your persistence, creativity, and care for our students to make it through this strange semester. Now, as you look ahead to the next round of online teaching this summer and/or fall, I want to provide you with some key information and invitations.

Invitations: Summer support

June 8-12 (and beyond): MiraCosta will hold an online teaching institute. This will be different from our transition week this spring in that it will be very focused on helping you develop and teach classes meeting the basic requirements and guidelines for online instruction at MiraCosta. There will be three main components to this:

  1. Zoom sessions offered daily. These will also be recorded so that they remain available throughout the summer and beyond.
  2. A Canvas course providing extensive resources and activities complementing the Zoom sessions.
  3. Opportunities for follow-up via ongoing support with communities of peers and/or expert guides.

For more details, check out the schedule of topics for the institute.

Please take a moment to let us know your interest in this, including if you would like to help present and/or be a peer support facilitator. 

June 17-19: The CCC system’s Online Teaching Conference is online and free this year. Check out the schedule and register!

July 13-16: Bruce Hoskins is leading development of a week of professional learning called Raise Your E(quity) Q(uotient)!, featuring professional learning opportunities centered around:

  • Becoming an Equity-Minded Professor
  • Building an Equity-Based Community
  • Facilitating an Equity-Centered Classroom

Look for more details coming soon.

Engaging with any of the above – whether live sessions, recordings, or independent study of additional materials – is Flex-eligible, but the possibilities for reporting summer Flex activities varies depending on whether the activity occurs before or after July 1, and by faculty status. Learn more on the PDP FAQs for full-time faculty or for associate faculty.

Information: Online Teaching Essentials

A number of you have asked me to summarize the expectations/requirements for online instruction at MiraCosta. The below are adapted from updates approved this spring to MiraCosta’s DE curriculum addendum to align with recent Title 5 changes. Expectations for MiraCosta online classes:

  • Ensure that the same standards of course quality shall be applied to distance education as are applied to traditional classroom courses and that the same course outcomes are achieved regardless of instructional modality. The MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines document provides guidance for how to design and teach DE classes that are likely to effectively enable students to achieve the designated outcomes.
  • Ensure regular effective contact between instructor and students, and among students, including frequent, quality, instructor-initiated interaction. The MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines document provides guidance for how to design and facilitate these interactions.
  • Create an environment of academic integrity, monitor progress, and track attendance.
  • Establish expectations on the frequency and timeliness of instructor-initiated contact and feedback, for student participation in student-student interactions, and manage unexpected instructor absences.
  • Meet the accessibility requirements in state and federal regulations.  MiraCosta’s Ten Tips for Creating Accessible Course Content provides specific guidance regarding how these regulations must be met. 
  • Uphold institutional procedures to authenticate students.
  • Help to make students aware of online student support services.

Please note that both AP 4105 and the MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines document are in process of being updated to fully reflect the recent Title 5 changes which are included in the list above. If you have any questions about any of this, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Looking forward to continuing this journey with you!

Jim

S.A.F.E. Topics Vol. 1, No. 12, May 6, 2020

The humanities in a time of isolation: Going Remote, A Special Series

In our 12th episode of the S.A.F.E. Topics Podcast, we continue rolling out our special series on Going Remote. In this episode, hosts curry and Sean are joined by Billy Gunn (Film) and Robert Bond (History) to have a conversation on remote instruction and social distancing from a historical perspective as well as a media perspective.

What to listen for:

  • What have we been watching and playing lately?
  • A changing film industry in the midst of a pandemic.
  • The shift of having everything now.
  • Streaming services creating a new world.
  • The loss of the collective experience of going to the movies.
  • What are we losing to streaming services and technology?
  • What we can learn from pandemics in history.
  • The 1918 flu in San Diego – putting it in context.
  • Losing physical contact with one another.
  • Changing our activities and daily routines to try and stay healthy.
  • How our students are feeling isolated during this time.
  • Over-consumption of media as harmful.
  • Can we consume too much history?
  • Historians are currently attempting to put everything into context.
  • Hollywood after WWII.
  • How will we look back at this moment in time?
  • John Krasinski and “The Office.”

Recommendations from the crew: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV Show), Malcolm Gladwell, Revisionist History (Podcast), BBC In Our Time (Podcast), Sebastian Major, Our Fake History (Podcast), Dan Carlin, Harcore History (Podcast), You Must Remember This (Podcast), The Last Kingdom (TV Show), Call of Duty Warzone (Video Game), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game), Firewatch (Video Game), Red Rising, Pierce Brown (Book Series), Song Exploder (Podcast), James Bond Movies (Film).

You can connect with the S.A.F.E. Topics podcast on Instagram: @safetopics_podcast and share this podcast with this link.

The S.A.F.E. Topics Team:

curry mitchell – Faculty, Letters (Co-host)

Sean Davis – Faculty, Sociology (Co-host)

Kelly Barnett – Intern and Music Technology Student (Audio Editor)

James Garcia – SDICCCA Fellow and Associate Faculty, Sociology (Show Notes)

S.A.F.E. Topics Vol. 1, No. 11, April 29, 2020

Going Remote – Checking in on students

In our 11th episode of the S.A.F.E. Topics Podcast, we continue our special series on Going Remote. In this episode, hosts curry and Sean are joined by students Ashley Chacon (Sociology), Aaron Blanchett (Sociology), Jessi Perreault (Studio Arts), Frank Rivas (Sociology) Trent Stechschulte (Finance), and Glenna Trone (Math & Science) to check in with our students during this time of stay-at-home orders and remote instruction.

What to listen for:

  • The struggles of transitioning to remote instruction.
  • Impacts of losing face-to-face interactions.
  • How has communication been from instructors and the college?
  • “It’s the attitude towards the transition.”
  • Instructors seeing students as people, not just students.
  • What was going on the week before spring break?
  • How have instructors been flexible with students?
  • Needing to learn how to be self-starters.
  • Keeping a structure to stay sane.
  • The impact of remote instruction from an athletes perspective.
  • What have we been doing outside of school?
  • Sleep schedules.
  • TV shows, Animal Crossing, and bird poop!?
  • The pandemic experience altering life plans.
  • Is the zombie apocalypse really upon us?
  • How have artists reacted to the pandemic?
  • What do students need right now?
  • The first thing each of us are going to do when this is all over.

You can connect with the S.A.F.E. Topics podcast on Instagram: @safetopics_podcast and share this podcast with this link.

The S.A.F.E. Topics Team:

curry mitchell – Faculty, Letters (Co-host)

Sean Davis – Faculty, Sociology (Co-host)

Kelly Barnett – Intern and Music Technology Student (Audio Editor)

James Garcia – SDICCCA Fellow and Associate Faculty, Sociology (Show Notes)

Summer/fall class schedule release + Online Teaching Conference info

To: MiraCosta Faculty

Summer and fall class schedules were released last week, in case you did not notice. This means:

  1. Classes assigned to you in SURF for summer and fall have shells available for you to begin developing in Canvas. 
  2. If any of your summer or fall classes are Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) or Low Textbook Cost (<$40), you should designate them as such in SURF so that the classes will have the appropriate logo on the class schedule.

Please note: The fall schedule details are (of course) subject to change as the fall situation with Covid-19 gets clearer. Please direct any schedule questions to your department chair and/or dean.

Also, it was announced last week that the annual CCC Online Teaching Conference will be an all-online event this June and will be free to attend. Mark your calendars for June 17-19 and keep an eye on http://onlineteachingconference.org for more details to come soon.

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

S.A.F.E. Topics Vol. 1, No. 10, April 22, 2020

Helping our students pivot when business is not usual: Going Remote, A Special Series

In our tenth episode of the S.A.F.E. Topics Podcast, the discussion continues on our special series of Going Remote. In this episode, hosts curry and Sean are joined by our colleagues Christina Sharp, Nate Scharff, and Mike Deschamps who are all from Business Administration to give us a unique and informative perspective on everything business and industry and their impact on our students.

What to listen for:

  • Thinking about small businesses and our students.
  • The concept of being able to “pivot” in a different direction.
  • The impact on Oceanside’s local economy and small businesses.
  • Who can survive and who will fall?
  • What can we do to help our neighbors?
  • Interpretations of federal policy and stimulus checks.
  • How can we as educators help our students?
  • Students and educators having to adjust and pivot.
  • Encouraging innovation and new opportunities for our students.
  • The shift of everything going to technology.
  • The upsides to current events.
  • Tapping into our secondary skills and talents to open new opportunities.
  • Not all “doom and gloom.”
  • “Strong Workforce” initiative explained.
  • Transferable skills across disciplines and long term thinking.
  • Connecting with people with empathy and understanding.
  • A send off message from our guests.

Links to the articles mentioned:

You can connect with the S.A.F.E. Topics podcast on Instagram: @safetopics_podcast and share this podcast with this link.

The S.A.F.E. Topics Team:
curry mitchell – Faculty, Letters (Co-host)
Sean Davis – Faculty, Sociology (Co-host)
Kelly Barnett – Intern and Music Technology Student (Audio Editor)
James Garcia – SDICCCA Fellow and Associate Faculty, Sociology (Show Notes)

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