Library

0. Review course models and make a preliminary design choice to stimulate our thinking. See the course model overview and tabular summary for possible design choices.
1. Consider our own and our students’ circumstances in designing assessments and activities.
2. Define learning outcomes for each course.
3. Create assessments that will let us know whether students have achieved the desired learning outcomes and that will work for both remote and face-to-face instruction. A good first step may be to learn about assessment and assignment tools in Canvas.
4. Design activities that can work for both synchronous remote and face-to-face instruction (rather than different sets of activities for each mode of instruction). Here, too, Canvas offers options that may ease transitions between remote and face-to-face environments.
5. Assemble materials (texts, videos, audio, data sets, links to outside sources) to support remote and faced-to-face activities and assessments. These can be collected and organized in Canvas, so that they can then be linked into assignments, modules, and the syllabus.
6. Create our courses by mapping assessments, activities, and materials onto the semester calendar. This can be done through the syllabus tool and modules in Canvas. One way to ensure readiness for the possibility of transitions to remote instruction may be to build a syllabus and course for remote instruction, followed by planning to administer some activities and assessments face-to-face during the times of the semester when this is possible.
7. Throughout all stages, we will need to seek out and offer support to help each other through the design and running of these unusual courses.

With the likelihood of having individuals participating in a courses both remotely and physically present, it is wise to consider the following as you prepare to deliver your courses:

• Focus on the core learning goals for your course.
• Technology available to you and your students.
• Rely on tools common to students like Google Workspace and Canvas to provide consistency of experience.
• Communicate with your students early and often to provide clear expectations for students.
• Substitute digital resources for physical where possible since conditions may not allow students to access the physical library.

Meet

• For live lectures, discussions or office hours, you can use Google Meet. Meet allows you to schedule sessions in advance. Check out this Google Meet Cheat Sheet for basic information on creating a session, sharing your screen, and recording.
• Keep track of your Meet by scheduling with Google Calendar and adding conferencing. (Conferences are an option you can choose when creating Calendar events. Adding conferences schedules the event in Meet and adds the link.)
• Pair Meet with Google appointment slots to facilitate easy scheduling of office hours or other real-time interactions while maintaining social distances.
• Using the Meet app within Canvas, you can automatically add your Meet to your course calendar, or elsewhere within your Canvas course.
• Learn more about Meet from the Google Workspace Learning Center.

Canvas

Canvas was implemented in 2020 to provide faculty with a learning management system (LMS) developed for the cloud with opportunities to meet the instructional needs of the faculty. Faculty are encouraged to take advantage of the Canvas Instructor Guides to learn more about effective use of Canvas.

Course Structure Tools

• Creating Modules – organize course content by weeks, units, or whatever organizational structure works for your course. With modules, you are essentially creating a one-directional linear flow of what you would like your students to do. Once you create modules, you can add content items, set prerequisites, and add requirements.
• Adding Content – you can add new or existing content items in Canvas to a module. You can also add an item to multiple modules, or multiple iterations of an item to one module.
• Controlling Access – As an instructor, you can publish or unpublish a module in a course. Unpublished modules are invisible to students.

Building Content

• Content Pages – When creating pages, you can set page permissions as to who can edit the page: instructors (teachers), instructors and students, or anyone. You can also add a page to student To Do lists.
• Assignments – You can create assignments on the Assignments page. You can create an assignment shell, which is a placeholder for an assignment within an assignment group, or you can create an entire assignment with all the assignment details at the same time.
• Quizzes – You can create assessments to gauge student learning.

Communication Tools

• Announcements – You can create an announcement to share important information with all users within your course and with users in sections of a course. In your notification preferences, you can choose to receive notifications for announcements created by you as well as replies to announcements you’ve created.
• Discussions – A group discussion assignment creates an identical discussion topic in each group category. When students reply to the discussion topic, they do so within their group environment, which is linked to the course from which the assignment was created.
• Gradebook – The Gradebook helps instructors easily view and enter grades for students. Depending on the grade display type, grades for each assignment can be viewed as points, percentage, complete or incomplete, GPA scale, or letter grade.
• Speedgrader – SpeedGrader makes it easy to evaluate individual student assignments and group assignments quickly.

• Find electronic copies of books and journal articles using the new search boxes on the LITS search tools page that search for only these items.
• Requests for digital copies of journal articles the College does not own are still being fulfilled whenever possible.
• Patrons can access help finding electronic resources by using the tools on the LITS research assistance page.