Take the 5-Day Challenge: Organizing Your Canvas Course

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“We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.” -Helen Keller

When I was nine or ten years old, my parents purchased a subscription to a mail-in series of books called Value Tales. My younger brother and I read through each book that featured a value to learn from prominent people in history. One person I read about that had a significant impact on me was Helen Keller, and the value attributed to her was determination. As a toddler, Helen lost both her sight and hearing, but she overcame these extreme challenges to learn to read, write, and speak. She became the first deaf and blind person to earn a college degree, with honors no less, and went on to champion pioneering work for people with disabilities as an author, political activist, and lecturer.

Helen would not have been able to accomplish any of these remarkable feats without people like Anne Sullivan. Anne was a recent graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind when Helen’s father Arthur Keller sought out help for his seven year old daughter. The director recommended Anne, who agreed and began teaching Helen. Helen had been acting out in frustration up to that point, understandably, so Anne was challenged to find a way to help her. She began with the simple act of having Helen touch an object, for example a doll, then she would spell out the word on the palm of her hand. Helen began to respond, understanding that for the first time someone was reaching out to teach her. This simple teaching strategy was the starting point for Helen. She eventually learned to read braille, “hear” people speak to her by placing her hand on their mouth, and speak by mimicking what she felt their mouths do.

By now you may have guessed that I intend to parallel my connection to Helen Keller to online learning. When learning something new, everyone needs a starting point. You very well may be that person who is just getting started in online teaching. Maybe you are eager to learn online teaching, or maybe you are frustrated and feeling forced into something against your will. Either way, my life’s calling as an instructional designer is to help you learn skills that will forever change your life, by expanding your communication and interaction with learners. In every project I work on in online education, my goal is to always contribute to the development of learning opportunities for a wide range of professionals that is clear, purposeful, and intentional. With this approach, our team has now developed a new series of professional development, specifically for those professionals needing a “jump start” into online learning.

Introducing the first of CVC-OEI/@ONE's New 5-Day Challenge Series

Course design is a vital part of equitable, asynchronous online learning that helps to promote a welcoming, engaging, and effective learner experience. This 5-Day Challenge is designed to guide you through the process of developing the framework for a content module in Canvas. You will build a foundation for designing an asynchronous online course that welcomes your students and is organized into manageable chunks to support the needs of your diverse learners. Each challenge is set up as a 20 minute daily activity to be completed across 5 days.

The 5 challenges to Organizing Your Canvas Course are:

This 5-Day course is classified as self-paced because you choose your start date, and have the option of either following the 5-Day recommended schedule, or modifying as desired. Completing all challenges and the quiz at the end will trigger a completion badge!

Go to the 5-Day Challenge: Organizing Your Canvas Course

One final thought: The ability to learn is a gift; it is the essence of what it means to be alive. In all your learning, I wish you the very best! Keep learning, keep growing, keep moving forward!

Sincerely,

Shawn Valcárcel
Instructional Designer
CVC-OEI/@ONE

You Don’t Know You Can’t

Girl on Tightrope with Umbrella and Balloons. Abstract art Midnight Blue by Sarge Devil is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

I am a big fan of stories about people who have accomplished extraordinary feats. The majority of books, articles, and films that top my list are about their lives. Their stories inspire me, how they rose above impossible challenges and thrived. Some of my biggest inspirations include Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan. These three African American women were pioneers in mathematics, engineering, and computer programming. Their contributions helped build the cyberspace world that many of our livelihoods depend on. Pfc. Desmond T. Doss, a conscientious objector, signed up to serve in World War II as a medic. In one battle, he rescued 75 wounded men from the battlefield. What did they do to be able to lead such extraordinary lives? Was it superior intellect or special gifts? Was it positive thinking, or grit and tenacity? Was it an opportunity or emotional intelligence?

When I was first offered the class ...

As an adjunct music instructor, I taught a beginning voice class a few years back. When I was first offered the class, I was hesitant to accept because I did not feel I was the most qualified. But I was not in a position where I had many, or any options to choose from, so I accepted. I quickly discovered that the real challenge would not be my ability to teach singing, but my ability to help students deal with self-doubt. In a typical beginning voice class, the primary directive is to sing. Each week, students sing in front of their peers and the instructor. For each performance, they receive feedback and a grade. Students are to perform using their individual voice, with minimal accompaniment. This means no singing with others, with recorded vocals, or to a background track set at a loud volume.

I began my quest to enlightenment.

Many say that the worst human fear is public speaking, but in my experience, it is the next worse. Although I taught breathing and articulation, I focused my efforts on dealing with stage fright. I suspected that many of my students at some point in their lives were told they couldn’t sing, or sing well for that matter. I knew that to facilitate this class successfully, I had to make a critical decision. That decision was to genuinely believe that every single student who came through my class had the capacity and potential to not only sing but sing well. I knew that if I committed myself to that belief, I would be going against the popular opinion of “You either have it or you don’t.” I knew that my biggest challenge would not be to face outside opinions but to face the inward opinions of each individual student and what they believed was possible for themselves. I began my quest to enlightenment. Then one day, it happened. I experienced a much-anticipated epiphany. During one class session, as I was delivering my typical pep talk to the class, I heard the following words in my mind:

“You don’t know you can’t.”

Quickly I wrote it on the whiteboard, then stared at it. “Is that right?” I did my best to understand what I had just written, but understanding eluded me. I don’t remember looking at my students’ faces, but I could sense that they too were trying to make sense of it. Slowly, students began to respond with various expressions that basically translated to “I think I get it, but maybe explain.” As a typical instructor, I attempted to explain the simple five-word phrase with deep insight and elaborate speech. I began by first reading it aloud, with emphasis!

I don’t know you can’t. I don’t know any of you can’t. Actually, now that I think about it, I really don’t know, despite all my years working on music degrees, my experience as a musician, teaching seemingly every music course offered by CCCs for any college that would offer me a class! I really wasn’t qualified to decide what anyone could not do. So if I am not qualified to make that decision, I dare say that neither are you! You really don’t know you can’t. You can tell yourself that you can’t, in which case you increase your chances of not, but you just really don’t know. So now what are we left with?

I began to see a change

If I don’t know I can’t, then there is the possibility that I can. And the only way to find out if I can is to do and keep doing. What’s the worst that can happen in that case? I spend my time and effort working on something I actually enjoy doing, and most likely I will get better at it the more I do it. So I am less concerned with what I can’t do because I really don’t know, and more concerned with discovering what I didn’t know I could do! After that class, I began to see a change. Progress was slow and gradual, but highly rewarding. Students began to step out and take more risks. For most, stage fright was still something they would have to battle each week. But there was more of a mindset that they were not going to allow that fear or anything else from discovering what they could do.

We must decide what we believe

As educators, we must decide what we believe about our students’ abilities. Do we believe all learners are capable? Is that belief genuine? Maybe not, but regardless we are all faced with the challenge to make a genuine decision about what we believe, and commit to that belief. I was able to commit by discovering the truth–that I really do not know what anyone cannot do, and that includes me. Another truth that I have discovered is time keeps moving forward no matter what you believe. So what do people like Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, Desmond Doss, and so many others throughout history have in common? I don’t know all of it, but one thing I believe that they decided to “don’t know they can’t.”