Caring is Beautiful: Memories of Pretty Classrooms and What They (Can) Mean in Higher Education

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Physical classrooms are part of our elementary school memories. Remember the ABC’s in the classroom, that scenic inspirational poster, or that poster from a Highlights Magazine?  How about other instructional posters, graphs, and seasonally decorated bulletin boards?  Now, remember how some teachers were better than others?  Why?  What attracted you to the classroom?  The teacher?  The subject?

While some of us might articulate a memory, some of us might be able to remember the feeling of being in a beautiful classroom. What did beautiful classrooms represent?  Most likely, it represented a teacher that cared. Is this relevant to an online course?  Yes.  Research suggests that the aesthetics of an online course impact how students judge the course’s usability and credibility within moments of accessing the course (David & Glore, 2010). https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter134/david_glore134.html

Caring is radical. And that type of radicalism is beautiful.  Adding beauty to our learning environments sends the message to students that we care about their learning, our subject matter and their success.

Jump to higher education and our learning environments change.  We do not have an individualized classroom.  The walls do not belong to us or our discipline. So how can we make both our physical and virtual learning environments beautiful? How can we demonstrate we care about our learning environments, subject matter, and student success?  Through the practice of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning.

4 Attributes of Caring

Geneva Gay's book Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice propose that we focus on "...caring for instead of caring about the personal well-being and academic success of ethnically diverse students... caring for is active engagement in doing something to positively affect [success]“ (Gay, 58). According to Gay, caring is:

  1. Attending to person and performance.  Teachers model personal values such as patience, persistence, and responsibility while incorporating skills such as self-determination throughout their curriculum.  "In other words, culturally responsive caring teachers cultivate efficacy and agency in ethnically diverse students".
  2. Action-provoking.  It is not dumbing down rigor.  To the contrary, caring teachers demonstrate respect to students, provide choices and "...are tenacious in their efforts to make information taught more understandable to them.  
  3. Prompts Effort and Achievement.  Supportive instructional styles incorporate reciprocal experiences, such as providing students feedback reflecting our stories, can improve cognitive understanding between the students and the instructor. (Let them know they are not alone in their learning process.)
  4. Multidimensional responsiveness.  Caring is a process.  “Caring is anchored in respect, honor, integrity, resource-sharing, and a deep belief in the possibility of transcendence, that is, an unequivocal belief that marginalized students not only can but will improve their school achievement under the tutelage of competent and committed teachers who act to ensure that this happens” (69). 

Applying care to our learning environment requires passion, empathy, and effort, and a collective commitment to provide all students with the individual support they need to succeed.  Through the use of Canvas and course design, we can let our students know we care for them.  We can ensure their learning experience will be safe, fun, informative and successful by intentionally making the design inviting and beautiful.  Just like caring for elementary school teachers and their classrooms, we can take extra time to make our Canvas pages beautiful too. 

Let’s Take a Tour!

Trying to reconnect with my childhood learning memories, I decided to attend an elementary school to interview a teacher and see her classroom - Mrs. Marisa Torres (Ok yes.  She’s my cousin). She shared with me her way of showing she cares for students, their learning and their overall environment.

Mrs. Torres designed a classroom that feels safe, fun, informative and adventurous with no competition.  Behavior expectations, academic goals, and resources were available for students to take risks while feeling safe.  Yet she went above standards in her learning environment to send a message to her students that she cares and that they matter.

But she can’t do this alone.  She needs inspiration.  Because her school only covers about 10% of the materials in her class, she needs inspiration from her colleagues, other colleagues, online via Pinterest and then her family. Ultimately, Mrs. Torres wants her students to feel like they are walking into a second home.

Her process represents the effort and process we have to do to make our course shells beautiful.  We need inspiration, colleagues, communities of practice and the CCC Family. 

Let’s Get Started!

We may not be experts in HTML, photography or even course design, but we can make an effort.  Where to begin?  Right here on the @ONE blog!

Here are my favorite Posts about making courses beautiful:

Tip! Register for the free Can•Innovate session with Tracy Schaelen this Friday, October 26 at 2pm to learn to use Canva to create beautiful graphics for your Canvas course.

Think You Know All There Is to Know About Due Dates?

Ever have students who seem to think “online” means self-paced? They want to zoom ahead and they’re asking you about Module 8 in the third week of class. Ensuring students are working on the material at the same time is one aspect of building a sense of community. Canvas has a nifty little feature that will help you do just that.

Opening Doors to Support all Online Students

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The Current State of Support for Our Fully Online Students

If you haven’t done so already, take the time to pretend you are a fully online student and try to navigate the many tasks that students need to do on a regular basis. What do you find? Are the services available to our online population equitable to those that are available on-ground at their college campus? What is the web presence like of your college's critical student services?  Which students are utilizing the services and which students are not and why? These are the many questions that we must ask when evaluating our distance education programs. On my campus, online course offerings are the first to fill but in turn, they have inferior success rates than our on-ground courses. Many times these students find themselves staring at a closed door looking for support that is limited.

What Online Support Should Look Like

Online support should be equitable to services offered in person.  As an example, on my campus, we have a financial aid lab for students to get help with their FAFSA or navigating their online financial aid portal.  Is this same support available to our online student population? If not, how can we provide this resource to our online student population? Maybe the solution involves leveraging the staff that currently work in the financial aid lab but have them utilize Cranium Café to offer the same services remotely. Additionally, we offer many workshops on all topics on campus but nothing online except for the orientation.  What if we recorded all of our workshops and made them available online? Or better yet provide a distance option for students to participate remotely with our students that are on-ground.

Online Support Supports All Students

Online Mental Health (MH) services provide anonymity, creating a safe environment to receive services. Once a student has participated in MH services online they may be more likely to reach out for additional support in person. In addition to MH services, other support services like tutoring, other health center services, special resource center or other services may have a stigma attached to them and preclude students from seeking help in person where they may feel comfort in reaching out online.

Inclusivity

This means providing the tools and support services for all of our students regardless of their background or how they are taking their courses. Online students must also be included in all of our equity conversations.

With all the buzz around Guided Pathways, how are we implementing the concepts of the 4 pillars for our online students?  Online students also need to be able to enter the path easily, have clarity in their path, have the support to stay on their path and to also ensure their learning on the path.

Why I Went Open & Why I'll Never Go Back

View Don's 12-minute video above to learn more about how he uses OpenStax.

Reflections on My Student Days

I remember being a student. I am a first-generation student that put myself through school. I bounced in and out of school for many years, because, for me, working full-time and going to school ended up being infeasible for many years. This was before online classes existed. I would get a class here, and another there, and my progress was painfully slow. I remember the journey well and I also remember the astronomically high costs of textbooks. Often, my textbooks would be double or even triple my tuition.

One year, I remember that I sold my entire music CD collection on eBay just to buy my Biology and Chemistry textbooks. It was a sizeable music collection. I remember the assembly line I made in my room with envelopes and tape. I had 100’s of CDs.

When I approached 30, I was able to dive fully into school. I worked when I could, and I rented rooms from people to keep expenses as low as possible. I relied on financial assistance (loans) all the way through grad school.

Becoming a Teacher

When I became a teacher in 2008, I vowed to keep costs as low as possible for my students. I always used previous edition textbooks, and I remember the conversations with the bookstore managers about the difficulty of obtaining previous editions. I also remember checking Amazon, eBay, Half.com, and Barnes and Noble to be sure there would be plenty of copies available for my students and that the price was below 40 bucks (preferably closer to 20). So when fully developed, high quality “open” textbooks became available, some with ancillary materials, I jumped all in.

Getting Started with Zero Cost Textbooks

I started using my first zero cost textbook one year ago. I am here to tell you that I would never go back to a paid textbook. Six of my seven courses this semester are zero cost, OER (Open Educational Resources), and I am constantly hearing from students about how much they appreciate it and that it makes a difference to them. Not only are the materials available at no cost, but they are also of high quality, and are available on a multitude of platforms. They can be flexible in a way that traditional products cannot. Unlike when I used a premium textbook, using an OER textbook allows my students to:

Unexpected Outcomes

I still use a single textbook as the “backbone” of my course and to ensure that we all have a common reference. Having said that, because I am using open / zero cost textbooks, I am also able to include more than one textbook. In my OER courses, I have 3 different zero cost textbooks available to students. I am amazed at the pedagogical power, flexibility that having more than one explanation on a topic provides for students. I get weekly feedback from my students praising the ability to read another textbook’s treatment of a topic. Some students prefer one textbook over another and use it exclusively. While others simply use two textbooks to enhance their understanding.

Of course, there are significant costs in time and energy to the instructor in the adoption of a new textbook. But the effort is more than worth it. Students have their books on day one, there are no textbooks to order at the bookstore, there is no need to maintain a copy at the library, and the material is available for anyone at no additional cost to the student. Not only is it easier to use, but you will also be doing your students a great service by removing this barrier to entry and having access to the textbook (and more) on the first day of class.

Are you Ready to Go Open?

For my Economics classes, I use OpenStax supplemented with other open economics textbooks that I have found at The Open Textbook Library. Here are some of the many sources for OER textbooks that I hope you will browse:

How to Increase Student Success the Easy Way

Personalized learning is recognized as crucial element of student-centered teaching. But with 30, 40, 50 students in your online class, how the heck are you supposed to accomplish it?! Here’s one way you can help close learning gaps and support greater success among all your students.

 

A New Paradigm for Student “Readiness”

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For years, @ONE has advocated that effective online courses should include a student readiness assessment. I begrudgingly included one in my online courses because it is a practice endorsed by leaders in the field, but felt like a hypocrite each semester as I assigned the readiness quiz to my students. In my heart, I felt readiness assessments were antithetical to my teaching values. Let me explain.

The assessment I used was similar to the Online Readiness Questionnaires used by UNC Chapel Hill and Penn State, or the Online Readiness Self-Assessment used by Stanislaus State. There are multiple iterations of these readiness tests online. The ability to easily share resources (which can be such an asset to online educators) meant that a single model of readiness assessment proliferated across institutions, resulting in very little variety in the content of readiness tests. These cookie-cutter assessments, often developed by highly competitive 4-year universities, ask the question, “Are you ready for online learning?”

While this may seem like a reasonable question, the assessments are designed to separate students into two buckets, the ready and the unready. The students deemed ready are encouraged to take online courses, and those deemed unready are discouraged from participating in online learning. Ostensibly, this type of readiness assessment helps students make informed decisions about the learning modality that is best for them, gently guiding them to the best fit. The reality, though, is problematic. These types of self-assessment may not be reliable or valid indicators of students’ actual abilities, as our answers may be biased toward the response that seems most desirable. In addition, for students who are taking the assessment seriously, the approach is culturally tone-deaf.

The cultural problem with this approach is two-fold. First, the community college students who are dissuaded from taking online courses after taking a readiness assessment developed by 4-year universities are precisely the community college students who may be most in need of the flexibility offered by online learning, such as working students and students with families. Second, the students deemed “unready” have the most to gain from taking a well-designed, supportive online course (more on this later).

Examining Assumptions

I encourage you to take one of the readiness assessments linked above. What you’ll find is a series of questions that gauge a student’s:

Behind these categories, however, are several assumptions that need to be examined.

Assumption #1: Successful Online Learners Must Be Self-Directed and Self-Motivated

A host of questions in traditional readiness assessments focus on ideal traits for online learners that support a myth that online learners are doing their work in isolation. For instance, questions like “I’m good at setting goals and deadlines for myself” seem to suggest that online courses don’t include clear learning goals or tools for alerting students about upcoming deadlines. The onus for staying on track is placed clearly on the shoulders of the student.

This myth is amplified in online education by the embrace of andragogic learning principles--the belief that college students are (or at least should be) self-directed adult learners, and if they are not, they are somehow deficient. The reality is, however, that many college students are on the way to being self-directed, but they may need support from teachers and peers along the way.

Assumption #2: Learning Online Is Fundamentally Different from Learning in Person

I want to place the emphasis here on learning. Traditional readiness tests ask questions such as “My learning style usually requires a structured lecture at its core,” or “I have to read something to learn it best.” Questions like these suggest online courses use a single modality--usually text. The reality, however, is that advancements in course management systems have made it easy to archive course material in multiple modes, from text, to audio, to video (including synchronous, live video conferencing). All courses across the spectrum--in-person, hybrid, and fully online--can now use systems like Canvas to streamline student access to course materials presented in a variety of modalities, with benefits to teaching a web-enhanced or flipped class being universally reported for many years. Let’s bust this myth for good, because online courses don’t narrow the options for teaching and learning--they increase them.

The assumption that online learning is fundamentally different also distorts a major characteristic of all learning in higher education--the fact that the majority of the studying and learning students do in all college courses is outside the classroom. Readiness tests often ask, for instance, if students are willing to spend 10-20 hours per week on a class, if they have a quiet place to study, or if they can work with distractions, suggesting that only online learners must study at home, while in-person classes don’t require study time outside of the classroom, distractions and all. We would never stand at the door of our in-person classes, asking students if they have the time and a distraction-free work place before allowing them entry to the class, so why are we doing this in our online classes?

Assumption #3: Online Learners Need Technology and Tech Savvy

This is, perhaps, the most problematic of the assumptions made by traditional readiness assessments. Questions that reinforce that students should own a new computer with high-speed internet access privilege wealthy students, and disproportionately discourage students who need financial aid. Some readiness assessments go so far as to suggest online students should not rely on campus computers or share a family computer. In addition, when readiness assessments ask if students have someone to help them with technology problems, they underscore the ways cultural capital, or lack thereof, affects the options available to lower-income students who may not have peers or family members to assist them with technology, an issue researchers such as Peter Sacks brought to the forefront of higher education over a decade ago.

When students of lower income are discouraged from taking online courses because of older technology, there is a problem. This problem is exacerbated, however, when students are asked to draw upon social connections to troubleshoot technology issues. Moreover, the focus on access to course materials via a computer with internet access overlooks an interesting trend in technology--a growing number of students access some, if not all, of their online course material via their mobile devices. The shift in technology use warrants a close look at our belief that desktop computers are the most effective tools for accessing online information.

Viable Alternatives

When I first started teaching online, the traditional readiness assessments felt wrong in my gut. Some of you may experience a similar feeling at the thought of allowing underprepared students to take an online class. Let me offer some evidence to reassure you that struggling in an online class is better than being dissuaded from taking the course.

In their comprehensive analysis of online learning outcomes in California Community Colleges, the Public Policy Institute of California (2014) noted that there is a persistent success gap when comparing completion rates in online courses to in-person courses. However, taking online courses “is strongly associated with improved long-term success rates” (Online Learning and Student Outcomes in California’s Community Colleges, p. 12). The PPIC report concludes that there is significant long-term value in taking online courses.

Guided Pathways

The 2017 Distance Education Report notes that we are “embarking on a comprehensive approach to redesign the community college student experience through the Guided Pathways framework. Guided Pathways helps put the PPIC report and student readiness for online learning into context by reinforcing the notion that all students, regardless of modality, should have access to courses that include integrated basic skills, on-boarding, advising, and instructional support.

Four Pillars of Guided Pathways: Clear Curricular Pathway, Help Students Choose & Enter Pathway, Help Students Stay on Pathway, Ensure Pathway Leads to Outcomes

The Four Pillars of Guided Pathways

A New Paradigm

The Guided Pathways framework, which focuses on long-term goals, recognizes that students are not in two buckets--the ready and the not-ready. Instead, all students deserve and receive individualized support along the way. In this paradigm, a readiness assessment is not designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, but rather can be used to help students, instructors, and counselors identify areas in which students may need additional support.

The Online Education Initiative’s “Quest for Success” breaks with traditional readiness assessments by offering students a deeper, more nuanced assessment of skills they may need for online learning, and then following up with a series of interactive learning modules that allow students to gain practical skills to support their long-term success. Rather than locking some students out of the benefits of online learning by separating them into a ready or not-ready buckets, the “Quest” program assumes all students are on a learning pathway, and meets the student where they are by supporting them in their online courses.

There is a caveat. The assessment portion of “Quest” is longer and more time-consuming than the 5-minute traditional readiness tests (and well worth the time), and there are a variety of follow-up modules from which to choose. Some campuses may choose to use the “Quest” program as an orientation to online learning. Others, however, may ask instructors to integrate the program into their online courses. Assigning students to complete the entire “Quest” program as part of your class may lead to information overload. To meaningfully support students, teachers and counselors should intentionally assign specific modules, and perhaps even tailor assignments to their course.

For instance, in my Communication courses, I ask students new to online learning to complete the first two modules, which focus on developing online learning skills, but allow students who have successfully completed an online course to choose from any of the other 9 modules. In our first week’s discussion, students share what they have learned from the modules, and develop learning communities to support one another. In a private reflection to me, each student is asked to identify an online learning skill they have mastered, and one in which they feel they may need support. I, in turn, use their reflections to tailor my support.

Are You Ready?

Traditional readiness assessments reinforce unrealistic and harmful assumptions about online learning, but the tools to push against these assumptions are in our hands. The “Quest for Success” program is an open educational resource free to all California Community Colleges. In addition, the CVC-OEI’s @ONE offers professional development courses to help faculty and instructional designers develop mobile-friendly, media-rich, accessible courses that include robust teacher-to-student and student-to-student interaction. We need to stop asking if students are ready for online learning--the continued growth of online courses clearly indicates they are. Instead, we should shift our focus to our courses and support services, asking, instead, if we’re ready for online teaching.

Want to get a closer look at the Quest Tutorials? Check out Introduction to Online Learning

From Scattered to Focused: The NEXT Way to Guide Students to Success!

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You walk into a room. There is a wall in front of you that is full of buttons and colorful signs and little screens with cute animations playing on them. There is an exit behind you and there are no other doors or windows in the room. You hear a voice from nowhere saying, “Welcome! Click a button to begin!” You look closely at the wall and see that the buttons will take you anywhere you want to go or give you anything you need for the journey. You think to yourself, “Wow, all these choices, which should I choose?” Lol! Okay let’s be honest, how many of you just went back in time to the days of Zork?

If you think about it, our online classrooms are not much different than the exploratory world of adventure games. And while the exploratory aspect was fun, how long did it take us to find the right path to success?

Long, long ago, in a cyberspace far, far away, I first started teaching online and had a mindset that I would give the students a link to everything I thought they might need to succeed in my course, basically an all-on-one-page approach. In doing so, I created that wall of buttons and consequently gave my students too many options. Yes, the options were all useful, but I was presuming that the student would know which button to select, and when. The result was that the student did not have a clear path to success and I had a lot more work on my keyboard trying to reduce their confusion by explaining which way to go.

Then along came the NEXT button in Canvas!

Let Me Show You The Way

Before I completed the OEI Course Design Academy, I thought I had a great online class. The experience humbly led me to learn otherwise. In partnership with Helen Graves, my OEI Instructional Designer, I discovered a new way to design my course to clearly guide my students and remove the ambiguity they met with the all-on-one-page approach.

Now, each week my students enter my online world and are greeted with a link to the first page in the module for that particular week. From that point on, all they need to do is click the NEXT button to know exactly where I want them to focus and what the next project, discussion, quiz, or assignment will be. I still use pages to customize the world and have my colorful signs and animations, and I also use a Bitmoji character to create a personal connection. And speaking of animations, I use an online product called Vyond (formerly GoAnimate). Vyond is a user-friendly way to create animations to present important course related information. Below is a video I created to show my students how to navigate my online course.

Turning the Page

Using Canvas pages within modules enables the NEXT button and allows me to create a specific pathway to success in my course. It doesn’t lessen the rigor or dumb-down the assignment, but it does remove the uncertainty of what the student needs to do next or where they need to go.

And to make it a more enriching journey, I add pages to introduce weekly topics with animations and provide a wrap-up page that includes links to other relevant sources; all of which utilize the NEXT button to keep the students moving forward. And, of course, any links to outside sources open to a new window, so that way students keep their place in the classroom and don’t get distracted.

If you’re a faculty member at an OEI consortium college who is thinking about participating in the OEI Course Design Academy, I strongly encourage you to do so as it has greatly improved my online course design. I also suggest that you leave your ego at the door and keep your mind open for new possibilities! Lol!

Ready to Beautify Your Canvas Pages? Here's How. . .

Pssst! Want a quick way to add some visual interest to your Canvas pages? Don’t let a little HTML code scare you! There’s no reason why you can’t have beautiful callout boxes in your course. In this episode of Byte-sized, I walk you through the steps (it’s simpler than you may think).

Here's a handy cheatsheet with the HTML coding snippets you need for each of the four callout boxes.

Register Now for Can•Innovate!

Have you heard the buzz about Can•Innovate, the free, one-day online conference we are planning for Friday, October 26, 2018? Can•Innovate is brought to you by the CCC Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI) and @ONE (Online Network of Educators) with contributions from Instructure. This innovative professional development event is designed for California Community College faculty and staff Canvas users. Registration is open to the general public. 

Free, Untethered Professional Development

Supporting the professional growth and development of our immense system of 90,000+ faculty and staff requires creativity and innovation. Can•Innovate is designed to be an untethered event. The robust online program paired with optional face-to-face interaction providing access to faculty and staff regardless of where they are on October 26. No travel is required and registration for the sessions is completely free. With built-in verification of attendance, Can•Innovate also provides a simple way to expand opportunities for faculty and staff to earn flex credit (check with your local flex coordinator for more information).

3 Ways to Attend:

  1. Remotely - If you have access to an internet connected device on Friday, October 26, you have all you need to attend the Can•Innovate sessions of your choice! All remote attendees will receive an automated email verifying their attendance within 24 hours after the session. We encourage attendees to use that verification email towards flex credit (please check with your local flex coordinator to find out if Can•Innovate is eligible for flex at your college).
  2. From a Regional Hub College - The following colleges will be coordinating on-campus events in support of the Can•Innovate online program. You are invited to visit and engage in professional networking and learning with your regional peers. More details will be provided soon. Sign up to receive a weekly email update.
    • American River College
    • Clovis College
    • De Anza Community College
    • Mt. San Antonio College
    • Palomar College
  3. From an On-Campus Viewing Room - Community colleges across California are coordinating on-campus viewing rooms to support peer-to-peer interaction and discussion around the online program. Take a peek to see a list of participating colleges (or sign up to coordinate a viewing room for your college!).

Register Now!

The full program includes 9 time slots, 20 sessions, and 30 speakers. Whether you are a Canvas novice or a seasoned expert, there's something for you! Just select the sessions that interest you, register online (it's free), and at the time of each session on October 26 click the session link that you received in your email. 

Choosing an Online Counseling Platform

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As California Community College students begin their Fall semester, student services departments are gearing up to provide students access to support services. According to the 2017 California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Distance Education Report:

“Increasing numbers of distance education course sessions, coupled with increasing numbers of students taking these courses, have led to subsequent increases in full-time equivalent students (FTES). Currently, nearly one in three students take a distance education course in an academic year.”

As the number of online students continues to grow, many colleges struggle to provide online students the same type of support and success preparation as they provide their in-person students. The California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI) understands the struggle that comes with finding the right tools to provide online support services. In an effort to close the equity gap in online education, the CVC-OEI provides colleges a list of vetted online resources that can help distance education programs support their students and at the same time meet accreditation standards. Online counseling is a perfect example of how online tools can help promote an inclusive and supportive online learning environment. Helping students feel connected means finding a way to meet them where they are and providing the support they need during hours that align with their schedules.

7 Questions to Consider When Choosing an Online Counseling Platform

  1. Accessibility - has the tool gone through an accessibility audit to confirm that it complies with the WCAG2.1 standards. Students with disabilities must be able to trust and rely on a counseling tool that will provide the best quality services.
  2. FERPA, HIPAA & Security- is the tool FERPA and HIPAA compliant? Are there security features integrated into the platform to protect student information? For example: single sign-on authentication and a student consent form.
  3. LMS & LTI Opportunities- does the tool have Learning Management System and Learning Tool Interoperability opportunities? Meaning, it allows services like online counseling to integrate with the learning management system, as single sign-on tool. Ultimately can your students access the counseling tool through Canvas- the learning management system used by the California Community College system.  
  4. Student Information System Integration- does the online counseling tool connect to the college SIS system in order to keep track of data; reason codes for Management Information System (MIS) reporting needed for state and federal funding.  
  5. Group customization- does the tool allow for department/group customization. When colleges provide counseling services there are departments that are also providing counseling services but they are not considered part of the general counseling department. Can the platform separate general counseling from EOPS counseling, DSPS counseling, Veteran Services Counseling and Mental Health counseling?
  6. User Friendly-  does tool have features that go beyond a live video stream? A user friendly tool should provide all modes of communication in one single platform, are there opportunities to communicate through; live video stream, chat and email?  Does it allow users to download information and documents in real-time? Is the tool easy to navigate? Does it allow for features that create more interactive sessions like: screen share, document upload and real-time document editing? Does the tool provide options for  “small meetings” and “large meetings” It is important to remember that students seek support from counseling departments depending on the services that are available: will your department offer online counseling appointments? online walk-in sessions? online webinars or online orientations?
  7. Surveys- does the tool provide the opportunity to embed an evaluation or survey? It is important to collect data that provides insight on the student experience, in order to evaluate the counseling services along with the counseling platform. Surveys will provide counseling departments the feedback they need to make sure they are aware of their student needs when they create a plan of action.

The CVC-OEI is here to support existing CCC distance education programs. If you are interested in learning more about the online student support resources that have been vetted through the CVC-OEI, please visit our website CVC-OEI.  You may also contact Jessica Hurtado, Program Supervisor-Student Experience for the CVC-OEI at jhurtado@ccconlineed.org or leave a comment below.

 

How to Handle That Pesky Little Dash in the Canvas Gradebook

Ever been confused by all the options and symbols in the Canvas Gradebook? Well, you’re not alone! In this episode, we’ll zero in on the little dash that shows up in ungraded assignments. Knowing how to deal with it properly will mean you’re headache-free when it’s time to turn in your grades at semester’s end.

Multimedia in Education: A Student's Perspective

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“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
- Chinese philosopher and reformer, Confucius (551 BC to 479 BC)

In college classes, media is often viewed as a distraction for students, but the reality is that integrating multimedia activities into both online and traditional classes can have an incredible impact on the way students learn. Among other things, it can create context, motivate discussions and lock in concepts to ultimately enhance a students’ learning experience.

A Student’s Journey into Online Learning

I took my first online class in 2017 and I have to admit that I was apprehensive about how it would work out. My initial thought was that I would not be able to grasp different concepts because of the literal distance between myself, my peers and my professor. Surprisingly, I barely felt the distance while taking the course mainly because of how we were able to ask questions and get prompt responses, as well as having additional information being made available to us on the course website.  What made my online experience even better was how my instructor incorporated media into the fabric of the course.

Video: It’s Not Just for Lectures

Other than simply using video to deliver lectures, my online professors incorporated media in various ways to engage me and my peers. These examples ranged from embedded movie clips, to the use of video to provide historical context of reading, to VoiceThread discussions that allows students to leave comments in voice or video. My instructors' various uses of multimedia made my online learning experience incredibly interactive and engaging, which is often lost in traditional classroom settings, especially in higher education. Despite what many think, it’s easy for students to fly under the radar and avoid actively participating in traditional classroom discussions, mainly because there are so many students in the room. In online classes, or traditional classrooms enhanced with online components, students need to participate in discussions because they are graded by their contributions, posts and responses.

Suggestions For Getting Started with Media

I understand that there may be some constraints to implementing multimedia into your course – like understanding how to use the technology and the extra time it requires.  Luckily, there are multiple ways to get started. Instructors could share a film clip from YouTube, a song recording, or an online educational video (from Khan Academy or CrashCourse).  Another idea is to have students create their own media. For example, students could create video presentations or record video comments in an activity designed with VoiceThread. All of these examples are powerful learning tools.

Media can be used to introduce  a concept to give students some context before diving. Or it can be used after learning a concept as a way for students to apply what they’ve learned and develop their analytical skills. It can even be incorporated both before AND after a traditional lesson.

Ultimately, when and where to introduce media depends on where you think will most effectively enhance your students’ learning. If you would like new ideas, ask your students for their input. This would be a great way to not only engage them, but also to empower them.  Incorporating student feedback into your class shows your students that their ideas are appreciated. It could even boost their morale in the class going forward.