A Principled Online Teaching Journey: Part 2

This is part two of an article series by Colleen Harmon. To consider Colleen’s experiences as a learner in the @ONE Certificate programs, please read A Principled Online Teaching Journey: Part 1.

First, as a student; then as a mentor

After completing the Advanced Online Teaching Principles (OTP) Capstone, I became a mentor for colleagues pursuing the capstone. Mentoring gave me a chance to share what I learned and to help others, but in fact I was often the beneficiary in the relationship. My colleagues opened their minds and hearts to me, sharing their lessons learned and aspirations. I experienced through their eyes how they grew as a result of completing the OTP courses and the impacts that growth has on the success of their students. 

In the reflections documented in their capstone projects, several instructors expressed a desire to do more for their online students prior to beginning the @ONE courses. A couple of instructors were concerned that their students might think of them as robots. Others realized how negative and unsupportive their syllabi were. Across the board, faculty who completed the @ONE courses describe how those courses transformed their current teaching. Now, these instructors provide opportunities for their students to connect with each other and with them using video and interactive methods—no robots to be found! They communicate to students using supportive and guiding language. They create non-disposable assignments that take students into the real world. These faculty engage students in the continued evolution of their courses. The shift of attitudes and approaches from not just student-centered learning but to human-centered learning creates opportunities for their students to be present in their courses, to learn and place the meaning of the coursework within the world at large, and to connect with each other. As an example, one instructor shared a comment from a student who said that they now feel like there’s someone on the other end of the computer who cares about them. These transformations can make the difference in students’ success. 

My 45 California community college colleagues who completed the Advanced OTP Capstone come from various disciplines, from business law to counseling, English and other languages, fine arts, history, and sociology. No matter their discipline, their capstones share a common theme: The joy of online teaching and learning.

And that’s probably the most impactful take-away from the Advanced OTP courses: Joy.

Acknowledgements

With a full heart and an appreciative mind, I thank the facilitators of the Advanced Online Teaching Principles courses. You provided models of the principles in action. Your words and ideas continue to inform my teaching.

Thank you, too, to the many colleagues who graciously allowed me to accompany them on their own Advanced OTP Capstone journey. Each of you provided yet another opportunity for me to look at the path that lies ahead and you nudged me further along the journey.

To facilitators and colleagues alike, thank you for the inspiration.

While the CVC/@ONE Advanced Online Teaching Principles Certificate is no longer being offered, the principles it espouses continue to infuse quality into online teaching and learning.

A few inspiring examples

The final capstone project was a public website demonstrating growth and development in the five principles. I could easily list all the projects here to whet your appetite for what’s possible when the OTP principles inform teaching and learning, but I’ll list just a few. Enjoy!

Want to see more? View all projects on our capstone showcase page.

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Syl Arena

Photography, Cuesta College and West Valley College

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Michelle Crooks

English, Grossmont College

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Allison Fonti

Education, Cerritos
College

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Amy Leonard

English, DeAnza College and Foothill College

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Ann Rosen

Spanish, Saddleback College

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Michelle Boucher

Human Development,
Sierra College

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Anthony Cuomo

Communication, West Los Angeles College

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Kristin Hargrove

Instructional Technologist, Southwestern College

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Maryanne Mills

Librarian, West Valley College

Take the 5-Day Challenge: Organizing Your Canvas Course

You got this.
Photo by The CEO Kid on Unsplash

“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

Creating Microlectures: A New PocketPD Guide for you!

Photo by Todd Jiang on Unsplash

Moving from Synchronous to Asynchronous Online Instruction

When you need to quickly shift from teaching in a physical classroom to teaching online, it may seem natural to stick with your hour-long lectures and deliver them using a synchronous tool like Zoom. But if we keep the needs of our diverse students at the center of our teaching and learning efforts, we must begin to shift our focus to designing asynchronous online courses because equitable learning environments are focused on removing barriers.

Asynchronous online learning provides students with the flexibility to learn at the times and from the locations that work best for them. Community college students comprise our most vulnerable populations who are also more likely to be essential service provider workers. Many of our students are working more hours than ever before and have taken on the financial responsibilities of family members who have become unexpectedly unemployed. Requiring students to be available at certain times on certain days adds a barrier to learning.

But a flexible schedule isn't the only benefit of asynchronous online learning. It also removes the social anxiety that many students feel in group settings that prevents them from asking questions. That psychological barrier is eliminated and replaced with the opportunity to rewind and review until their questions are answered.

And by using a mix of written materials and asynchronous videos to deliver instructional content to your students, you'll be supporting learning variability, which is a fancy way of saying, "Each human brain is unique and each person learns differently."

Warming Up to Microlectures

So if you are looking ahead and planning for your courses to be online, now is the time to consider developing microlectures – brief videos that are 5-minutes or less and focused on specific outcomes. Why should you consider microlectures? And how do you get started? Those are great questions!

We hope you will take some time to peruse the new CVC-OEI PocketPD Guide to Microlectures embedded below. It includes research-backed tips for designing your microlectures, a microlecture gallery with contributions from your CCC faculty peers, and an introduction to accessible workflows using simple video recording tools – including a smartphone!

The PocketPD Guide is created with Google Sites and has a handy button on the first slide that allows you to create your own copy of the slide deck. We've shared it with a Creative Commons-Attribution (CC-BY) license so you are free to adapt and re-use it with attribution to CVC-OEI.

View all of our PocketPD Guides!

Guidance for Recording Class Sessions with TechConnect (Confer) Zoom

Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash

Recordings of live ConferZoom sessions are sometimes used to allow students to watch a missed class session, to review an earlier session, or shared with a future class. Depending on who is shown in the recording, they may constitute educational records that are protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) -- the federal student privacy law. This guidance explains acceptable practices for utilizing instructional video and audio recordings.

The FAQs below contain some specific questions about recording instructional Zoom sessions. Additional information about photos, video, and audio recording under FERPA can be found on the US Department of Education FAQs on Photos and Videos under FERPA. If you have questions about your specific recording situation, contact your college’s Chief Instructional Officer. 

Are video or audio recordings of lectures a protected student record? 

If a recording includes only the instructor, it is not a student record and FERPA does not limit its use. If the recording includes students asking questions, making presentations or leading a class (other than TAs), and it is possible to identify the student, then the portions containing recordings of the student do constitute protected educational records. Educational records can only be used as permitted by FERPA or in a manner allowed by a written consent from the student.

What Recording settings should I select in my Zoom account to best ensure students are not recorded in the archive?  

Before you schedule your meetings:

When your meeting starts, keep your Zoom view set to Speaker View (as opposed to Gallery View). This ensures that only the person who is speaking appears on the screen, as opposed to recording a grid view of all attendees with webcams enabled.

Can an instructor require students to show their video during a Zoom session/recording? 

No. This is problematic for several reasons. Students may not have a webcam or may not want to show where they are located. When you schedule your meeting, you are advised to set Participant Video to Off to allow students to opt into sharing their video. 

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Can an instructor publicly share a screen capture of a Zoom session or recording that shows one or more identifiable students? 

No. Unless FERPA compliance through use of consents has been given. Screenshots should not be shown on Facebook, Twitter, or any other public platform.

Can students publicly share class recordings or screen captures of a Zoom session or recording that show one or more identifiable students? 

No. Instructors should tell students that they should not share the link to any class sessions, or take screen captures of Zoom sessions. Students that violate this request can be subject to the student code of conduct.

Can the instructor show recordings from last year’s class to the current class? 

Under FERPA, this situation must be treated as if the recordings were being shown to a third-party audience which requires FERPA compliance through use of consents from identifiable students or by editing out those students from the video.

If the instructor wants to allow access to a video (that shows students participating) to others outside of the class, is this permitted? 

Possibly. There are a couple of ways to use recordings that show students participating. 

  1. The instructor may obtain individualized written FERPA consents from the students shown in the recording. This type of consent can be obtained on a case-by-case basis or from all the students at the outset of a class.
  2. Recordings can be edited to remove portions of the video that show students who have not consented to the use of their voice and/or image (simply blurring a student’s image and removing their name is not sufficient, as the student may still be identified).

What is the easiest way to comply with FERPA if I am video recording my class sessions, students will be asking questions/doing presentations, and I wish to share the recording with a future class?

How do I obtain written consent from a student?

Check with your college to determine how to obtain written FERPA consent from students for instructional video recordings. Colleges are advised to have a digital consent form available to ensure it is not a barrier for students in online courses.

View Zoom's FERPA Compliance overview.

TechConnect (Confer) Zoom is supported by TechConnect and funded by the California Community College Chancellor's Office. It provides all CCC faculty and staff with an upgraded, Pro/Licensed Zoom Account. For more information and support, please visit the TechConnect website.

This document by Michelle Pacansky-Brock and CVC-OEI was adapted from works by Erin Whitteck and Jingrong (Pearl) Xie of University of Missouri, St. Louis and Rice University.It is shared with a CC-BY-NC license. You are free to re-mix it without permission, provided you attribute the authors.

Yes! Use Your Phone in Class: Tips for More Equitable Temporary Remote Teaching & Learning

A phone held in the hands of a person in a car.
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Encouraging students to use their phones in class is typically not a popular topic in higher education articles. However, when students need to unexpectedly transition from face-to-face to online learning due to an emergency like the coronavirus, a phone may be a student’s lifeline. 

The California Community College (CCC) system serves roughly 2.1 million students. A 2019 study by the Hope Center found that half of CCC students surveyed experienced food insecurity in the last 30 days and 60% were housing insecure in the previous year. Students who are unsure about where they’ll get their next meal or where they will sleep at night are not likely to have the financial resources to purchase a laptop and they certainly are not going to have a desktop computer in tow. But according to a national survey by EDUCAUSE, 96.3% of community college students have a smartphone. And data from Pew Research shows that Americans who are younger, people of color, and low income are more likely to rely on a smartphone than broadband for online access. Smartphones are not luxury items for low-income students. They are critical tools that are used to pay bills, apply for jobs, participate in job interviews, conduct business, socialize with family and friends, shop, listen to music, watch tv and movies, and learn. 

Recommendations for Faculty

Using Canvas to design a learning environment for your students is the place to start. And this archive of Shawn Valcarcel’s provides you with some great first steps. However, a Canvas course renders differently on a smartphone than it does on a computer. So, some special considerations must be made. This list is adapted from the Canvas Mobile App Design Consideration Checklist.

  1. Encourage students to download and use the Canvas Student App and provide a link to the Canvas Student Guide for iOS and Canvas Student Guide for Android.
  2. Organize content into modules and chunk content into smaller parts on Pages within a module. View the archive of Shawn Valcarcel’s Getting Started with Canvas webinar for support with this step.
  3. Use Text headers within modules to help guide student navigation. This is helpful because in the mobile app, students navigate your course content from the modules view.
  4. Use Canvas Pages to present content, instead of linking to external URLs or files. This prevents students from needing to download large files or view non-mobile friendly content.
  5. Write instructions and prompts that are platform-neutral. For example, avoid saying, “Click the blue Submit button at the top of the page,” as the mobile app does not have a blue submit button.
  6. Download the Canvas Teacher app and use it to navigate your course. Identify things that don’t work and provide alternative instructions for students on a mobile device or redesign these elements as needed.
  7. Design assessments with the tools on a smartphone in mind. They are handheld multimedia studios after all! Provide the option to record a video or audio file, take a photo, etc.
  8. Survey the external tools supported by your college. Many -- like VoiceThread and Pronto -- have a mobile app that students can download and use. These tools will also and open new mobile-friendly ideas for assessments.

Want to dig deeper? Make a copy of the Canvas Mobile App Checklist.

Recommendations for Colleges

In a state as economically diverse as California, it is critical for institutions to understand their student demographics and communicate resources to support mobile access during times of disruption. Here are a few recommendations for colleges to consider:

Visit the CVC-OEI Emergency Preparedness resources for more support through this transition.

The Learning Never Stops: Preparing to Teach in an Emergency

Umbrellas

The Learning Never Stops: Preparing to Teach in an Emergency

Emergency power shut-offs.   Fire evacuations.   Pandemic quarantines.

The list of emergencies that could require you to temporarily move your course online seems to be growing every day. CVC-OEI provides a robust set of instructional resources for Canvas and online course design that can aid faculty, administrators, and instructional support staff with the transition of on-campus courses into the distance education modality.

Don't wait for disaster to strike - check out these resources and prepare now.

CVC-OEI Emergency Preparedness Resources: Planning for uninterrupted instruction and student support in the event on-campus courses need to temporarily move online.

Course Design Rubric: The CVC-OEI Course Design Rubric can be used as a checklist for instructors who are moving instruction from the classroom to the Canvas common course management system. The Rubric guides instructors on setting up a course with clear navigation, regular effective contact, effective assessments, and accessibility compliance.

Canvas Support Portal: This one-stop resource includes links to the CCC Canvas Home Base, a Canvas Community where users can access text and video user guides and post questions to the Canvas Community. 

Byte Sized Canvas Videos: These short, desktop video tutorials provide pedagogical and technological tips on the use of Canvas.

Student to Student Interactions This Pocket PD Guide shows instructors how to meet the student-student interaction requirement that is now part of the Title 5 Education Code for California Community College Distance Education courses (Instructor Contact, Section 55204).

Adoptable Courses: Colleges needing to quickly prepare faculty to teach online in the case of an emergency can download courses from CVC-OEI/@ONE and adapt them to use locally. Fourteen “CVC-OEI Adoptable” courses can be found in Canvas Commons, including Introduction to Online Teaching & Learning,  Introduction to Course Design, and Introduction to Designing for Accessibility.

 

Winners of OLC Award For Excellence In Faculty Development For Online Teaching

This week, at the Online Learning Consortium Accelerate conference, the Professional Development Team of the California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative is being honored with the 2019 OLC Award For Excellence In Faculty Development For Online Teaching.

This award recognizes an OLC member institution that has developed and delivered an outstanding, comprehensive program for faculty professional development in online teaching. Please join me in congratulating the @ONE team, who support student success in the California Community Colleges (CCC) every day through the development of strong, effective online teachers:

Stacey Carrasco, Senior Program Coordinator
Karen Oeh, Program Coordinator
Michelle Pacansky-Brock, Faculty Mentor for Online Teaching & Learning
Helen Graves, Instructional Designer
Cheryl Chapman, Instructional Designer
Shawn Valcárcel, Instructional Designer

We also want to recognize the “A-Team” - the accessibility specialists who have been working with us since 2016 to make hundreds of online courses from across the system more equitable for students with disabilities:

Marisa McKnees
Shawn Jordison
Mark Mintz

The talented team above could not serve 60,000 CCC educators across 72 districts without a real online network of educators bringing their expertise, passion, and dedication to the services we provide. Our course facilitators and our Course Design Academy reviewers all work in our system - as full-time and part-time instructors, counselors, instructional designers, Distance Education Coordinators, administrators, and Canvas admins - and all bring their understanding of our students and our mission to their work. Whether you are an experienced CCC online instructor or hoping to be, you can’t find better partners to guide and mentor you as you refine your online teaching practice than the folks who contribute to @ONE:

Aloha Sargent Cabrillo                                          Kim PippaTonnesen Columbia College

Amy Evangelista Coastline                                  Kristin Smith City College of San Francisco

Angela Drumm Mt. San Jacinto                            Larry Green Lake Tahoe Community College

Arnita Porter West Los Angeles                           Leslie Easton San Diego City College

Audrey Blumeneau Cabrillo                                  Leslie Reeves American River College

Belen Torres-Gil Rio Hondo                                 Lisa Sayles College of the Redwoods

Brianna Kuhn San Diego CCD                              Margaret Phelps Ventura College

Carly Zeller College of the Siskiyous                    Maria Fernandez College of the Siskiyous

Carolyn Fiori San Mateo                                      Maria Mendoza-Escobedo Coastline

Catherine Hillman Cuesta                                    Maritez Apigo Contra Costa College

Catherine McKee Mt. San Antonio                       Matt Vasques Cuesta College

Chelsea Cohen Laney                                          Matthew Mooney Santa Barbara City College

Christi Blauwkamp Copper Mountain                   Mayra Gomez Mt. San Jacinto

Christine Dobrowolski Redwoods                        Meg Phelps Ventura College

Colleen Harmon Cuesta                                       Michele Alaniz City College of San Francisco

Cynthia Wilshusen Cuesta                                   Michelle Macfarlane Sierra College

Damaris (DJ) Hawkins Riverside CCD                  Mike Smedshammer Modesto Junior College

Dennis Cambara Chaffey                                     Monica Z. Eastridge Mt. San Jacinto College

Dipali Buch Folsom Lake                                      Nadia Sayeh San Diego City College

Donna Eyestone City College of San Francisco    Pat James MSJC, OEI (ret.)

Dyan Pease Sacramento City                               Paul Burwick Shasta College

Elizabeth Morgan College of the Desert               Sandra C. Haynes Pasadena City College

Fabiola Torres Glendale                                      Scott McAfee College of the Canyons

Francisco Corchado Hartnell                               Steven Rodriguez Pasadena City College

Gregory Beyrer Cosumnes                                  Suzanne Wakim Butte College

James Glapa-Grossklag College of the Canyons     Sylvia Amitoelau Coastline Community College

Jennifer Kattman Sierra College                           Teresa Borden Columbia College

Jennifer Pakula Saddleback College                   Tracy Schaelen Southwestern College

Joanna Miller Contra Costa CCD                          Tracy Stuntz Clovis College

Kathy Arnold West Valley College                        Vanessa Chavez Rio Hondo

Katie Conklin West Hills                                        Vernon Martin Sierra College

Katie Palacios San Diego Mesa                           Veronica Van Ry Taft College

Ken Cooper Los Rios CCD                                   

Finally, we owe a debt of gratitude for the support of our Executive Director, Jory Hadsell (CVC-OEI); our Executive Sponsor, Joe Moreau (Vice Chancellor of Technology for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District); and the leadership of the California Community College Chancellor’s Office.

If you want to learn more about the work of the entire @ONE team, you can view this brief (4 min) overview video, visit our website, or follow @CVCOEI and @ONEforTraining on Twitter!

Thank you to everyone who has supported online teaching and learning in the California Community College system through @ONE and CVC-OEI!

Sincerely,
Autumn Bell
Director of Professional Development, CVC-OEI/@ONE
abell@cvc.edu

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.”

Incentivize! Don’t Penalize: Revisiting Late Policies for Online Students

Coming from a culture of storytellers, I’d like to share a story that inspired this post.

I was at my local supermarket in the northeast side of Los Angeles when a former student, Ignacio (Nacho), recognized me and approached me. “Are you Ms. Fabi?” He then reminded me of who he was. I also met his Mama. His Mama started to tell me in Spanish what a good son Nacho is and how proud she is of him. I felt confused because, as I recall, he had dropped my class. As I listened to Nacho, there in the store, the reason he dropped hit me hard. He dropped the class because his mother had lost her job and he needed to work more hours to take care of his family.  This caused him to struggle with time management. Nacho had a formative assessment due in my class and he couldn’t complete it by the due date. So, he dropped the class. Of course, I said, "Why didn't you tell me?"  He said, "Well you were very clear about late papers.  You set your rule and I broke it.”  To him, talking to me meant asking for help, and he didn't want to ask for a favor. A “favor” was not an option for him.  I could even see it in the eyes of his mother.  She stood by his decision. “Se porta bien” – He behaves.

Like many working class immigrant households, we were raised to be proud, which meant not breaking the rules.  Since many of our parents lived in fear of breaking rules in the US, the goal of behaving was instilled in us. Good behavior builds character. Character becomes more important than achievement. Nacho was the epitome of character. He was a good son of a single-family household, an Army Reserve Serviceman (another environment requiring good behavior) and a college student. Yet my policy became a barrier. I did not set up an environment to encourage communication and support him to succeed.

The next semester, Nacho registered for my course again.  I learned he was a hard worker who also learned how to advocate for himself when he needed to. He never took advantage of my kindness and appreciated my personalized feedback. After all, I had met his Mama. Nacho earned an A, completed his bachelors at a Cal State, and is now a college recruiter. After Nacho, my journey as an online instructor was forever changed.

When I started teaching online, I struggled with late policies.  I remember a colleague telling me I needed to be strict with deadlines to "show them how it will be in the real world." I learned my lesson after my Nacho encounter. After that, I began to imagine a learning environment where submitting late assignments could still be a method to encourage student effort and communicate that I believe in my students’ abilities. I have wondered how this change might remove barriers for students and foster a more equitable learning experience. 

What Students Want

Our goal should not be to translate our face-to-face learning environments into our online courses. Both are unique and should be designed to leverage the characteristics of the modality. Also, our students have reasons for choosing to take an online vs. a face-to-face course. Kelly Ann Gleason, a student at Cuesta College, stated during the student panel for Digital Learning Day 2019, “We are taking online classes because we have life outside the classroom, so the very reason that we are taking this [an online class] communicates what we expect.”  And what do they expect?  Flexibility. Today, more than 24% of enrollments in the California Community College system are from online courses. Most of these students are blending their schedules with a mix of face-to-face and online courses to develop a flexible schedule that allows them to advance their academic goals while also fulfilling their work and life responsibilities. To put it another way, being on campus full-time is a privilege that many students do not have.

The student panelists who participated with Kelly Ann continued to advocate the need to respect faculty and their time, yet they want to see online faculty design an online environment where students are given a fair chance to submit quality work when time management becomes challenging.  As Henry Fan, a student from Foothill College, stated, “Not all time is created equal.”

The full archive of the student panel is embedded below. To jump to the segment on late policies, click here.

https://youtu.be/7SKnCH02xMs?t=1845

How to Promote an Equitable Culture of Excellence

Equity means ensuring each student has what they need to succeed. Is it equitable to apply the same late policy to every student in every situation? It is our responsibility to measure the quality of student learning rather than how punctual an assignment is.  And if it’s not punctual, how can we use that as an opportunity to understand our students’ realities and encourage them to keep going?

Here are some suggestions to incentivize responsibility by placing a culture of excellence and care on your end.

We are content specialists.  Not life specialists.  Yet we can create an equitable culture of excellence, so all students can achieve academic excellence.

My Submission Policy:

Plan on submitting work on time.I immediately review work and provide meaningful feedback with in 48-72 hours.

Because time management is challenging, deadlines might not be met. But, you’re in luck. I’m on your side.  Late submissions will be accepted with a penalty. Assignments submitted after the deadline may receive a 10% grade point deduction for each day following the due date and time.

Don’t want the penalty? Here’s an incentive.

If you recognize a due date might be a problem, advocate for your success by following these steps:

  1. Identify the problem
  2. Contact me to propose a solution
  3. Let's negotiate

Do you have a submission policy you’d like to share? I warmly invite you to leave a reply below to keep the conversation going!

Zooming to New Heights of Student Engagement

A colorful welcome sign.

I was a college student during the Stone Age of online education…you remember it, right? The age of mile-long content pages where, if you were lucky your professor would include a link back to the top at the half-mile marker on the page! Well, online education has changed a lot since then and there are now more ways to improve our students’ experiences.  For California Community College (CCC) faculty, one way is to  “zoom” to new heights by using ConferZoom in Canvas.

ConferZoom is the CCC-branded version of Zoom, an easy-to-use video conferencing tool that is provided at no cost to CCC educators by CCCTechConnect. Using ConferZoom changed the dynamic of my online Nutrition & Health courses by providing a way for my students to interact more organically with me and each other.  We know that retention rates increase when students feel connected to their professor and/or classmates.  Zoom provides a way for this connection to occur. Since I started using ConferZoom, I have observed increased student-student and student-instructor interactions, which are key to supporting students to  complete the course successfully.

What do I do?

klatch: a social gathering, especially for coffee and conversation

At the start of the course, I have an orientation or klatch meeting, a term I adopted from my favorite online CVC-OEI/@ONE instructor, Greg Beyrer.

In my welcome letter I invite students to my klatch online Zoom meeting and provide three meeting times from which they choose one to attend: one meeting time during the weekend prior to the first day of class and two meeting times on the first day of classes. What I have found is that some students will attend more than one of the meetings. The icing on the cake is that the klatch fulfills Section B: Interaction - Instructor Contact and Student-to-Student Contact of the CVC-OEI Course Design Rubric.

Want to give it a try?

Follow these steps:

  1. Send out your welcome letter before your class begins.
  2. Include the dates and times of the orientation meetings. It is important to let students know attending one session is mandatory and they will get credit. (My orientation is worth 20 points, more than any other week one assignment.)
  3. In your message, encourage students to join from a computer with a webcam or a mobile device so you can see and hear one another. If you are aware that a student requires live captioning as an accommodation, contact ConferZoom support in advance of your meeting.
  4. When orientation day arrives, have your klatch meeting from a computer with a webcam.
  5. Launch Zoom and share your desktop.
  6. Meet and greet your students in real time!
  7. Take your students step-by-step through the basics of your course’s navigation.

You have now demonstrated to your students how useful klatch meetings will be going forward. In a coming blog post I will share how I use the recording feature to Zoom it up a notch!

Laying out the welcome mat

UsingConferZoom for my course orientation not only sets the table for my students to get a taste of what’s to come, but it also allows me to more easily create learner-centered content throughout the term, as students can ask questions and let me know what they’d like to learn about. Their input helps me guide the klatch in the direction the students deem necessary, as opposed to being completely instructor led. I also fulfill regular and effective contact in a more substantive way.

Since personal bonds are developed through shared experiences, we can easily see the significance of bringing students together live as they are entering your virtual classroom. Ensuring the session is meaningful and provides opportunities for social connections is essential. I want my students to know that I am here and available to them, both now and going forward. I also want my students to know that we are on this virtual nutrition or health “journey” together.

ConferZoom empowers me to take the anxious feelings that online students have at the start of a course and turn them into a promise of a shared learning experience. Through this experience, students are more likely to relate to me as their guide, mentor, and comforter. They also relate on a personal level with their peers. Thanks to ConferZoom, we have faces and personalities for the names we see on the screen and our shared journey toward a healthier life.

When We Empower Students to Become Experts

Join Chelsea on a tour of this assignment in the 4-minute video above.

How might you blend research, group work, video creation, and friends and family into an empowering and equitable learning experience for your students? In the 4-minute video below, Chelsea Cohen from Laney College, will show you!

Chelsea’s students, who are English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners, engage in a multi-stepped project, beautifully scaffolded into managing meaningful chunks. Each step of the way, students collaborate and increase their knowledge of a particular topic. Chelsea will demonstrate how extending discussions beyond the classroom or Canvas and into a students’ circle of family and friends can foster more diverse dialogue that situates a student as an expert. Can learning get more meaningful than this?

3 Steps to Becoming an Expert

  1. In groups, create a video using Adobe Spark based on your research paper.
  2. Share and discuss your video with friends and family (Extension: share the videos with your Twitter communities).
  3. Reflect upon the experience with your classmates in our class discussion. Summarize the ideas that came up with your friends and families and how it felt for you to facilitate the conversation.  

Accessibility tips! If you have a student in your class that uses a screen reader to navigate the web, you will need to provide an alternative to Adobe Spark Video. Also, if you have a student with a hearing impairment, have at least a few students caption their videos before sharing them with the class. To caption an Adobe Spark Video, download it from Spark, upload it into YouTube, and edit the auto-captions.

We suggest surveying your students in week one to let them know about your multimedia project plans and ask if they will need any accommodations. They'll appreciate your efforts to support them!

Screencast-O-Matic for Easy & Accessible Video Creation

I am the Instructional Technologist at Cañada College and I work a lot with faculty who are motivated and excited to improve their online and hybrid courses and make them more engaging for their students. One thing that gets my faculty most excited about improving their courses is being able to make videos for their students, whether it’s a short course introduction video, a set of lecture videos, or an informal check-in video.

But I also find that video can be very intimidating for those who have not yet used it . I personally was horrified at the way my voice sounded and at the facial expressions I made while recording my very first video. So horrified, in fact, that I re-recorded it approximately 56 times and then just gave up and deleted it all together. But being able to record tutorial videos is essential for the work that I do, so I tried again and kept going. And, surprisingly, I got more and more comfortable talking to my webcam over time.

Getting more comfortable with recording yourself just comes with time and practice and a lot of patience. However, the technical side of video, which includes recording, editing, and captioning, has gotten a lot easier for me since I started using Screencast-O-Matic. I started out using the Free version, which allows you to record videos up to 15 minutes in length. Then at the beginning of 2018, we purchased a site license for the paid version and it came with some very simple, yet robust editing, captioning and uploading tools that made my video workflow so much smoother. So I’m excited to share with you my recommended recording workflow using Screencast-O-Matic. If your institution does not have a site license, educators can purchase an upgraded account for a monthly price that is about the same cost as a cup of coffee (link to: https://screencast-o-matic.com/plans#solo).

Recommended Recording Workflow

I put together a Recommended Screencast Recording Work Flow and a Recommended Face-to-Camera Recording Work Flow for faculty at my college and I made the video below to demonstrate the steps. These steps allow me to make videos quickly and relatively painlessly, but feel free to experiment with other ways of making your videos until you find what works for you.


The Screencast-o-matic
features illustrated in this video are included in a Solo Deluxe account.

Additional Resources

It can be overwhelming to know how and where to start when you are ready to try making a video for the first time. Whether you are using Screencast-O-Matic to record your videos or another tool, here are my tips and areas to focus on for the different kinds of videos you may want to make.

What’s Next

It’s my hope that you feel a little more prepared to tackle video making if you’ve never done it before, that you learned something helpful if you’re a seasoned video maker. I encourage you to test out the free version of Screencast-O-Matic and get started with making videos. Or if you have another tool at your college or one that you’re familiar with, jump in and experiment with that. The tool you use is not as important as putting the time and energy into learning and practicing the skill of video making.

Leave a comment below, or contact me via email at hughesa@smccd.edu or on Twitter, if you have any questions. Feel free to even just share your thoughts and experience with making videos, I’d love to hear how you’re doing!