On October 25, 2019, CVC-OEI/@ONE hosted the third annual Can•Innovate conference, to support the effective design and teaching of online courses through the use of Canvas. The first conference, in 2016, was held on-site at American River College. In 2018, the decision was made to convert the event into a free online conference to reach more faculty (particularly part-time faculty who often do not have funding to attend conferences), staff, and administrators.
The 2018 event was very successful, with more than 1,000 attendees and an overall satisfaction rate of 4.4 out of 5 stars. For a thorough debrief, read our summary article from last year. This year, the Can•Innovate scaled even further, reaching more than 1,400 people with an overall satisfaction rating of 4.5 stars. Our program included a keynote by Kona Jones, a national thought leader in online education, and a spotlight session by Jory Hadsell, Executive Director of CVC-OEI. Dr. Hadsell provided an overview of the impact CVC-OEI is having in the California Community College system to increase student access to high quality, fully supported courses. This includes increasing the number of quality badged online courses through local Peer Online Course Review (POCR) and the expansion of the CVC Exchange Cross Enrollment Link (ExCEL).
The growth in attendance, however, did not come from our online audience. Rather, it is attributed to the significant increase in the number of colleges that coordinated a group viewing room. In 2018, 32 colleges held a group viewing room (and we also had 5 regional hubs). In 2019, we chose to eliminate the hubs and focus on providing more support resources for group viewing room coordinators. In 2019, the number of viewing rooms increased to 65 (a 103% increase).
Within the attendee demographics, we saw the largest increases in full-time faculty (639, 37% increase from 2018), part-time faculty (493, 32% increase from 2018), and administrators (101, 30% increase from 2018) and a 16% increase in classified staff (147). These numbers demonstrate the value of free, online professional development.
Here is a detailed overview of the attendance data from Can•Innovate 2019 if you'd like to dig in deeper.
Thank you to everyone who played a role in the success of Can•Innovate this year. We had excellent speakers who volunteered their time to share their teaching practices, as well as session hosts and co-hosts (including many volunteers from colleges), behind the scenes support members, and a statewide advisory committee who worked tirelessly to coordinate the event.
The first 45 colleges to sign up will receive a box of Canvas swag, compliments of Instructure.
On Friday, October 25, 2019, the California Community College Online Education Initiative and @ONE will host a one-day, free, online conference designed to showcase creative uses of Canvas to support student success.
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Present at Can•Innovate 2019 - no travel required!
Fabiola Torres presenting online at Can•Innovate 2018.
Can•Innovate 2019 is scheduled for October 25, 2019, and we're ready to make this year's event bigger and better than last year but we need your help! Can•Innovate, a free, one-day conference supporting faculty and staff at the 114 California Community Colleges that use Canvas (registration is also open to the general public). Last year, more than 1,100 people joined in for a collaborative day of sharing and learning. Participants have the option to attend online from anywhere or on-campus from a group viewing room so mark your calendar today and start preparing your proposal.
The Call for Proposals for Can•Innovate is now open -- here's your chance to reach inside your bag of tricks and share a course design or teaching practice in a brief Lightning Round or a more detailed Share Showcase. All sessions are delivered online so there's no need for travel funding -- or a suitcase! Take a peek at last year's program for a little inspiration.
Kona Jones, Director of Online Learning at Richland Community College will kick off our program with an inspirational presentation, Integrating Compassion into Your Teaching. Kona is responsible for the development of faculty and student technology training materials, provides instructional design support to faculty, oversees the assessment of online courses, and facilitates faculty professional development. Kona loves teaching and is an adjunct instructor of statistics and developmental psychology. Her passion is student success and in 2019 she was awarded Adjunct Faculty of the Year. Kona is also a Canvas Coach and Canvassador, contributing extensively in the online Canvas Community and elsewhere.
Registration will open in September when the full program is announced. If you have any questions about Can•Innovate, let us know!
The first 45 colleges to sign up will receive a box of Canvas swag, compliments of Instructure.
On Friday, October 25, 2019, the California Community College Online Education Initiative and @ONE will host a one-day, free, online conference designed to showcase creative uses of Canvas to support student success.
If you have trouble viewing the form below Try This.
Can•Innovate is a free, online conference designed for California Community College Canvas users.
This event engages CCC faculty, staff, and administrators in a day-long learning exchange about supporting student success with Canvas, the California Community Colleges' common course management system. Free advanced registration is required for each session. Sessions are open to the general public.
Michelle Pacansky-Brock, Lené Whitley-Putz, Anna Mijatovich, Kelly Nichols
@ONE and Instructure
Meet your @ONE Faculty Mentors, Michelle Pacansky-Brock and Lené Whitley-Putz, and your Canvas Customer Success Managers for the California Community College Online Education Initiative (OEI), Anna Mijatovich and Kelly Nichols. Anna will take you on a live behind the scenes tour of Canvas headquarters -- where the magic happens behind the best learning in the world!
California Polytechnic State University, formerly College of the Canyons
Connecting with your online students may feel challenging, but it doesn't have to be. In my presentation, I will share my journey in online courses as a student, share what I have discovered about the online classroom while working at College of the Canyons, and help you discover ways that will make online students want to work harder.
Google and Canvas work well together. In this session, you will learn how to leverage the convenience of cloud assignments with your Google Drive files. We will explore how to do this whether your college is a Google Suite for Education customer or not. And we will show you how to import Canvas course shells that use OER (open educational resources) and are designed to align with the CVC-OEI Course Design Rubric. You will leave this session with an understanding of how to use cloud assignments to confirm that students have read the OER text that you have embedded in your Canvas course. You will be able to follow along if you have a Canvas sandbox and a Google account.
Take your Canvas pages and instructions to the next level with these simple techniques and tips for how to use the HTML Editor to enhance your work in Canvas’ Rich Content Editor.
Begin to build a syllabus from an equity minded approach. Using Canvas and Equity-Minded frameworks, experience a syllabus transformation demo from Blah to Bling.
Santa Rosa Junior College, Coastline College, Pierce College
Learn about the New Gradebook from three beta testers in the California Community College system. The session will include a demonstration of the New Gradebook & how to get started. Beta testing results of the CCMS Gradebook Work Group & lessons learned. An opportunity for participants who have used the New Gradebook to provide feedback. A Canvas representative will be available during the session to answer questions.
Presentation and public speaking skills are crucial to so many disciplines, yet few online students are given opportunity to speak. How might instructors foster presentation skills in their online classes? I’ll answer that question in this session, sharing my experience teaching fully online public speaking classes (with synchronous online speeches) and discussing how we can use the online learning environment more fully to our students’ benefit.
Combining EdPuzzle with Mastery Paths creates a fun and easy process for low-scoring students to re-study content and increase their credit. This is a powerful and encouraging way to keep your students engaged and striving for success.
NameCoach is a new tool provided by the OEI to California Community Colleges that nurtures inclusion in the classroom and other campus settings. It is now available to all OEI consortiums colleges at no cost and available to all CCCs at a discount. NameCoach provides students with a simple way to record a pronunciation of their name and convey their gender that is easily shared with their instructor and student peers. In this webinar, you will see NameCoach in action and hear how Foothill College has used it to foster belonging and address equity gaps..
Driven by the idea of providing equal educational opportunities for all learners, Emily founded Practice. Practice is a new tool with a Canvas integration that helps close the skills gap via deliberate practice - a systematic approach to build competence and confidence in a given skill. Practice leverages the power of peer and expert video-based feedback to create an environment of continuous learning for your students and faculty and does so in a scalable way. Current higher education clients include UCSF, Harvard, Penn, Drexel, ASU, and FIU. Join Emily as she walks you through the Practice platform and discusses in detail the different ways in which it has been used in higher education.
Learn how to easily and quickly add video to your course from within Canvas using 3C Media Solutions (a project of CCC TechConnect, funded by the CCCCO). How to store, share, and embed your media within Canvas to provide easy access to your students or peers will be demonstrated along with other features/benefits, how campuses are using and reacting to the tools, and how the tools are contributing student success.
When you design your courses with open-ended assignments, students will surprise themselves, and you, with their creative, original work. In this presentation I will outline different options for including open-ended assignments in any kind of class, along with strategies for "feedforward" assessments that encourage risk-taking and revision.
Change doesn't have to be hard. By leveraging data supported processes and tools, leaders are able to not only drive change, but ease the transition to the new future state. Join me in this session to learn about ways to make change easier and stickier!
This Session Canceled
● General Sessions ●
2:00 p.m. to
2:45 p.m. Pacific Time
Register for ONE of these concurrent sessions.
Canva is a free graphic design site for those of us who aren’t graphic designers. We will showcase a few banners and graphics and then discuss which templates work well for different purposes in Canvas. You will learn how to find and edit designs, add your own images if you wish, and bring your completed creations into your Canvas course. Lastly, we will cover alternative text for accessibility and the secret to making banners responsive to different screens sizes. If you are looking for ways spice up your pages or would like to add a design theme to your course, this is the session for you!
Participants will oooh and awe as many precious pointers will be demonstrated in a Canvas course. Discover tools and settings that have been in Canvas all along but perhaps you didn’t have the force to find them. These pointers will help you make your course more useable, accessible, agreeable, and adorable. This session is for all levels of Canvas users: from the Padawan Panda up to the Master Panda.
Rebecca Pang, Suzanne Ama, Gary Enns, Peter Fulks, Karen Moore
Cerro Coso Community College
Cerro Coso Community College has always been committed to offering quality online courses. To reinvigorate this notion of quality online courses, the college has built a local peer online course review (POCR) process, modeled after the CVC-OEI POCR process. This process is not yet OEI approved, but we are pursuing approval. In this session, the Cerro Coso POCR Team Chair and the Distance Education Director will discuss the steps and processes they’ve taken to build a POCR Team. Additionally, participants will hear direct experiences of faculty members who have gone through the local review process.
How do accreditation teams determine whether regular and substantive interaction is happening in online courses? Evidence suggests that different teams may have very different ideas about how to do this. Let's talk about how we might be able to add some structure and equality to that process, and how we can ensure that the ACCJC gets what they need while protecting the privacy rights of faculty and students.
Learn to design SLO-centric courses and manage grading in Canvas. Unlike numeric grading schemes, assignments are grouped and weighted by SLO. Grading rubrics communicate student progress and collect outcomes data simultaneously.
Nicholle will take you on a tour of her online course and demonstrate how she uses ConferZoom, an online meeting tool available for free to all CCC faculty and staff, to support student success. Nicholle will share student satisfaction feedback, concrete ideas about how you can integrate ConferZoom into your online course, and tips for using this tool to fulfill elements of the OEI Course Design Rubric.
This is an open-ended session hosted by one of Instructure's Canvas experts, Erin Keefe. You'll be invited to ask your most pressing "How do I..." questions and learn a ton in a very short time.
Through the leadership of California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI), all 114 California Community Colleges have adopted Canvas as their learning management system. Our systemwide move to Canvas enables our colleges to leverage the economy of scale and utilize resources more effectively. Moreover, part-time faculty who teach at more than one campus can now focus more of their time on teaching, as opposed to designing courses in multiple platforms. And, most importantly, our students who learn at more than one college will have a more consistent experience, which is particularly important as CVC-OEI expands access to online courses through cross-campus enrollment. Furthermore, our systemwide adoption of Canvas unites all of us — CCC faculty, staff, administrators, and students — to work towards the common goal of learning how to best utilize Canvas to support the needs of our diverse student population.
Last year, in pursuit of this goal, American River College in the Los Rios District in partnership with CVC-OEI and Instructure, hosted Can•Innovate 2017, a conference for faculty, staff, and administrators who use Canvas. Roughly 237 CCC educators attended that event. This year, on October 26, 2018, @ONE (The Online Network of Educators), which serves as the professional development arm of CVC-OEI, hosted the 2nd annual Can•Innovate —this time in the form of a free online conference.
Why a Free, Online Conference?
The decision to design Can•Innovate with a virtual program was made to support the needs of our CCC educators, comprised of 60,000+ faculty (70% of which are part-time) and approximately 30,000 classified staff and administrators. Leveraging what we learned from CCC Digital Learning Day, we designed the day to ensure everyone with a desire to learn and grow had the opportunity to do so.
In partnership with an advisory committee of faculty and staff, a robust online program was designed and delivered entirely through ConferZoom. The final program consisted of 19 sessions presented by 29 speakers including CCC faculty, staff, and administrators; national thought leaders; representatives from CVC-OEI ecosysystem, Instructure, and CCC supported tools; as well as a student keynote speaker, Natalie Miller. Attendees were provided 3 options to participate:
Online — from one’s own device
On-Campus — from one of the 32 group viewing rooms across the system
On-Campus -- from one of the 5 regional hubs
The Outcomes
Can•Innovate 2018 was well-attended by faculty, staff, and administrators from across the state. Some highlights of the attendee data are:
The large majority of attendees (87%, n=982) participated online from their own device, while 7% (n=76) attended from an on-campus group viewing room, and 6% (n=41) attended on-campus at a regional hub.
Attendees represented 108 out of 114 California Community Colleges (94.7%).
The event attracted a diverse group comprised of: 76% faculty — split by full-time 42% (467) and part-time 34% (374) 12% classified (127) 7% administrators (78) 1% students (7) 4% other (46).
A 4.4 Star Event
A total of 270 attendees (40%) responded to the evaluation survey, providing us with rich user experience data from which we plan to learn and improve. Most of the evaluation responses (226 or 83%) came from those who attended online. The large majority (76%) online attendees indicated that convenience was the main reason they chose to attend from their own device, followed by “it is how I learn best” (6%), I live too far from a hub (6.6%) and my campus did not coordinate an on-campus viewing room (5%). Overall, attendees (all types) were very satisfied with their experience. Attendees gave their overall Can•Innovate experience an average 4.4 out of 5 stars. The distribution is shown below (all attendee types included):
★ ★ ★ ★ - 155
★ ★ ★ - 85
★★ ★ - 24
★ ★- 4
★- 3
Online attendees were slightly more satisfied (average 4.46 stars, n=226) than group viewing room attendees (4.28 stars, n=38) and hub attendees (3.85 stars, n=7). The data collected from the open-ended questions support high satisfaction levels. Those who attended online cited flexibility, the ability to learn without traveling, and efficiency as the top drivers of satisfaction. It is worth noting that these similar to the reasons students site for taking online classes.
Participants who attended from on-campus sited an appreciation for being able to converse with colleagues during and between the sessions, and on-site subject matter experts expand upon the presentations. Below are excerpts from the open-ended comments:
What did you like best about attending online?
It is the most convenient way for the PT faculty to be included in P-Dev., so thank you for offering it online.
I was paying full attention unlike face to face where you can fall asleep.asy to schedule and sign up for the classes that fit time schedule.
While there were many in attendance the facilitators and moderators made the experience feel very singular and personal.
I loved the fact that online was not just an afterthought; it was the point of the conference!
I like learning and as an online teacher/ remote worker having a sense of community meets a need.
I did not have to commute.
I liked the on-demand expectation of online events and seeing questions by my peers answered in real time during the event!
I didn't have to miss work, I just picked sessions to fit in my schedule.
No waste of time / money / carbon traveling to a conference (or even my campus), and the efficiency of the Zoom presentations that were all business and well moderated
Such dynamic presenters with innovative ideas to spark our imagination.
What did you like best about attending in a group viewing room?
We added other sessions and an open lab. Faculty liked being able to choose. We also held our event in 3 classrooms with glass windows that faced a center gathering space. It helped to be able to look in each room to see what was going on, how many were in there, etc. We could see if the webinar had started even from outside the room.
Having the opportunity to discuss the material with my peers as we watched it.
Getting out of my office! Camaraderie, opportunity to explain/assist things with others, and pizza.
Networking with my school's Canvas admin and her input during the different presentations.
We were able to use the 15 minute breaks to review the session content for participants, clarify, answer questions, and describe how we can help with whatever was being presented.
I think our participants really enjoyed being able to participate in a communal setting and be able to ask questions.
What did you like best about attending at a regional hub?
Well organized.
Being at home and in good hands for hand-on training Being with my colleagues.
Chance to connect with others.
What did we learn?
For all the talk about student equity, it's also really nice to have opportunities for Teacher/Instructor equity as well. Online Conferences without exorbitant fees or limiting travel arrangements are the way to go - Thank you! — Elli England (@Toxicgrin)
Free, online conferences are a new form of professional development provided by CVC-OEI/@ONE. With each event, we seek to learn and improve. Can•Innovate has reconfirmed the value of untethering professional development from a time and place. By granting faculty, staff, and administrators the opportunity to learn and grow without needing to travel, more people are served and more students will benefit. Here are some of our key takeaways:
Most of those who responded to the survey indicated that they learned about Can•Innovate from a campus announcement, which stresses the importance of building relationships with those who coordinate professional development across the system.
Just over a quarter (27%) of respondents indicated this was their first time participating in an @ONE professional development offering, reinforcing the widespread impact of untethered professional development.
Nearly half (46.5%) of respondents said they received flex credit for attending the sessions, which was a preference we identified from CCC Digital Learning Day and the reason we required registration at the session level for Can•Innovate. This granular registration process creates more steps for users and more links to manage, but there was no evidence in the conference evaluation data that suggested this process was problematic.
Use of a Twitter hashtag (#CanInnovate18) proved to be an effective way to enable connections across campus. More than 700 Tweets were sent with the hashtag, promoting the sharing of feedback and resources, photos of viewing experiences, and reflections about the day. We hope more of you join in on Twitter in the future (follow us @ONEforTraining).
Sharing across campuses opens eyes to new ways of thinking and breaks down silos. Professional development must utilize technology to deliver content and connect people. Professional networks are central to professional growth.
Professional development must be designed with equity in mind. Attending traditional conferences is a great way to learn and connect with peers, but proportionately few educators in our system have the resources to fund conferences. Part-time faculty play a critical role in supporting the needs of our students and are often unable to attend on-campus professional development events.
This untethered professional development model lightens the load of those on campus who coordinate professional development while providing attendees with options to participate in a way that suits them best.
If you have any thoughts about our Can•Innovate findings, we’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below or reach out to me directly.
… and mark your calendar for our next untethered event, CCC Digital Learning Day, which will be held on Thursday, February 28, 2019! Let us know what topics you’d like to learn about by contributing in our social upvoting forum, which is open until November 30!
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:
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).
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.
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.
Can•Innovate 2019 - Full Program
Friday, October 25, 2019 • 9:00 am - 5:00 pm Pacific Time
Can•Innovate is a free, online conference designed for California Community College Canvas users.
In support of California's 114 community colleges that use Canvas, Can•Innovate showcases creative practices in online teaching and course design. Communities that share together, innovate together.
Program
9:00 - 9:45 am
Keynote
Integrating Compassion into Your Teaching
Kona Jones
Director, Online Learning, Richland Community College
Compassion can take many forms including kindness, caring, empathy, concern, sensitivity, and consideration. Teaching with compassion provides a safe environment for students to grow and learn from their mistakes. When students know they are cared about as individuals, they become open to challenges and push themselves to do their best. For this session, I will first provide context by sharing my story of teaching with compassion. Then I will provide specific examples of integrating compassion that anyone can make their own. Come prepared to do some deep thinking about your students, and learn how you can make small but meaningful changes in your teaching.
10:00 - 10:45 am - Register for ONE of these concurrent sessions.
Share Showcase
Chelsea Cohen
Inger Stark
Applying the Peralta Equity Rubric to Promote Connection and Belonging
The revised Peralta Online Equity Rubric emphasizes a new criterion called “Connection and Belonging.” In this workshop, we present three model practices: one introductory discussion along with two sample assignments that align with this criterion. Participants will leave with ideas of how to reformulate their own assignments to foster a sense of connection and belonging.
This session includes two 15-minute presentations with time for Q&A.
Logan Murray
Mike Vogt
Meet the CCC Canvas Community Home Base!
If you are a member of a California Community College, the CCC Canvas Community Home Base is your destination for Canvas support, resources, and to connect with your peers. In this session, we will get you connected and demonstrate how to leverage this powerful resource to support your use of Canvas. You will learn how to set up your profile, follow discussions, share content, promote events, and make Canvas feature requests.
Javascript Magic in Canvas: Randomizing Widgets, No Coding Required!
The Canvas Widget Warehouse at Widgets.MythFolklore.netcontains randomizers you can copy-and-paste into Canvas. With randomizers, you can display fresh content — text, links, images, videos — whenever the page loads. You can also create your own randomizers with the free tool RotateContent.com. No coding required! Just imagination.
11:00 - 11:45 am - Register for ONE of these concurrent sessions.
Spotlight Speaker
Jory Hadsell
Beyond Canvas: The CVC Exchange and Local POCR
Join our Executive Director Jory Hadsell as he shares the CVC-OEI’s efforts to bring high-quality online classes and services to the California Community Colleges system. You’ll get the latest on how expanding the CVC Exchange and Local POCR can support your efforts to help students succeed. Whether you are new to the CVC-OEI or already at a Consortium college, we encourage you to attend and learn more about the exciting ways we are supporting innovation in online learning.
This session includes two 15-minute presentations with time for Q&A.
Donald Carlisle
Audio Feedback! Instructor Interactions that Motivate Students
Many studies have validated that online students prefer audio feedback over written feedback. Research also shows that when online students have the opportunity to hear their instructor deliver feedback, they feel more connected to a community of learners, have a stronger perception that their instructor is invested in their learning, and may be more likely to incorporate the feedback into their revision process. Voice feedback also fosters a more inclusive learning environment, supporting the needs of more learners including those who are native speakers of other languages.
ConferZoom is a dynamic, easy-to-use video conference tool provided free to CCC faculty through CCCTechConnect. ConferZoom can increase interaction, develop community, improve retention, and promote equity. Presenters will discuss how faculty can facilitate synchronous student conferences while utilizing the ConferZoom Annotation and Save features.
12:00 - 12:45 pm
Mid-Day Fun
Lené Whitley-Putz
Canvas Trivia with Kahoot!
Join your colleagues across the state and beyond for an interactive Canvas trivia session! In a fun and supportive environment, you will compete with your peers for a position on our leaderboard and learn a lot about Canvas in the process. You may participate from a computer or a mobile device. For mobile participation, please download the free Kahoot! app on your smartphone or tablet prior to the start of the session.
1:00 - 1:45 pm - Register for ONE of these concurrent sessions.
Share Showcase
Alice Dieli
Leslie Reeves
Quick Fixes Using Tools to Create Accessible Content
In this presentation, see faculty using the Canvas accessibility checker, Grackle (free tool for Google files), Adobe Acrobat DC, and Ally, to create original accessible files and to identify and fix accessibility issues in older resources in a Canvas course. Get some tips about how to use each of these tools efficiently to maximize faculty time and student accessibility.
This session includes two 15-minute presentations with time for Q&A.
Maritez Apigo
Group Discussions for Increasing Interaction, Engagement, and Equity
Whole-class discussions can be difficult to follow with multiple conversations happening at once. Some students dominate and others get lost in the mix. Many participate with minimal replies. The presenter will demonstrate how she uses Canvas Groups and Discussions to create more intimate discourse. The result is more equitable and engaging student-to-student interaction.
Data at Your Fingertips: Supporting the Success of all Learners
How are students engaging in your course? Enter Analytics Beta, a visual dashboard that provides instructors an in-depth look at how students are engaging at any point in time. Hear how one instructor has used this tool to support students by making informed pedagogical and design choices, as well as provide critical communication when students need it most. Data at work!
2:00 - 2:45 pm - Register for ONE of these concurrent sessions.
Share Showcase
Ed Beyer
Using Flashcards for Self-Assessment
You will learn how to create, post, and embed flashcards into a Canvas course using Microsoft PowerPoint and a Microsoft OneDrive account.
Have you ever created a set of videos, but you don’t think your students are viewing them? Or you want to evaluate whether the videos are explaining the concept in a way your student can understand? We will show you how to add questions to your videos to make sure students are viewing them and evaluate the video effectiveness.
3:00 - 3:45 pm - Register for ONE of these concurrent sessions.
Share Showcase
Anna Sterling
Micah Orloff
Design 2 Align Camp: A Model for Redesigning Courses in Community
You will see an example of a structured model for supporting a group of faculty through a design process to achieve alignment with the CVC-OEI Course Design Rubric. You will be guided through the program outline, discuss key findings and challenges, share faculty reflections and explore funding options for incorporating something similar at your campus.
When you think of assigning group work for your students, do you cringe and know that you will have a multitude of complaints about "slackers" from your students? Do you think the pain is not worth the gain but know it's good for students? Participate in planning a new way to approach collaboration in Canvas by attending this session.
4:00 - 4:45 pm - Register for ONE of these concurrent sessions.
Spotlight Speaker
Erin Keefe
Stump the Panda
This is an open-ended session hosted by one of Instructure’s Canvas experts, Erin Keefe. You’ll be invited to ask your most pressing “How do I…” questions and learn a ton in a very short time.
Bringing the CVC-OEI Online Ecosystem to Life Through the MiraCosta College Student Support Hub
You will see an example of how institutions can use Canvas to create a holistic learning environment. MiraCosta’s Online Instructional Technologist will share instructional design tips and innovative techniques that helped create an application experience to provide students access to online student support services.
Interactive map of Campuses with Hubs or Viewing Rooms
4. All sessions will be recorded and available soon after the event
* No matter how you attend, you will receive verification of attendance. Check with your flex coordinator to find out if sessions are eligible for flex credit at your college.
Empowering students is a critical part of education and there is room for improvement in the United States. Students need self-worth, motivation, determination, and persistence to thrive in a course, and often times those traits come out of student empowerment. Giving students the opportunity to shape their education, develop their lessons, and apply it to their own path is essential because it encourages critical thinking, and gives lessons that can be applied outside of the textbook and the classroom, and eventually applied to their career. Being a passionate student about this topic, I have much to share and a few suggestions too.
In 2017, I graduated from College of the Canyons (COC), a California Community College, with associates degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics. After that, I transferred to Cal Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo where I am now majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Entrepreneurship. I have been taking online courses since I was in high school and I was also employed at COC as a member of their Open Educational Resources (OER) program. From these experiences, I have gained a great deal of insight about how to engage and empower students in the online environment.
When students feel valued in a class, they will see it as a meaningful experience. But where do you start with this lofty goal? Start by reflecting on a few questions about your class.
“After the class is over, what can students share with future employers?”
“How might this class affect students’ career paths?”
“Am I making assignments that nurture the learning abilities of the students?”
If you struggle to answer these questions, ask your students. They love to give input and opinions, and just want to feel important to the class. Asking students for input is a great way to empower them!
9 Tips for Empowering Your Online Students
Here are some additional suggestions.
Have your online students:
Create their own prompt for an assignment
Provide a rubric you will use for grading, and give students the freedom to craft an assignment around the rubric after you have approved the plan.
Create their own test questions
This is a great way to see if students understand the material and get an idea of what they think is important in the class.
Give input on the course at the beginning and the end.
Asking for student feedback immediately is a great way to establish a trust and convey that you are here to support your learners. Some suggestions for week one include: What do you expect from this class? What do you hope to learn? .
Teach some of the lessons in the class (using Canvas Groups )
One of the best classes I took had groups of four students teach the class every day for the last half of the quarter. This was great because each group had to know their material well to teach it.
Find resources for the class
Students can find great resources, and having additional relevant resources is always a good idea, especially for students who struggle.
Run a socratic seminar
When students facilitate discussions about topics they are more engaged. Act as the guide of the conversation and requires each student to speak at least once.
Seek out scholarships, competitions, grants, and more.
For every topic in school, there is always a way to get students more involved. Encouraging them to apply for an opportunity and let them know you believe in them! . If they are successful, they will have something to show off for a lifetime.
Help write materials for future courses
When students know their assignments are not ‘throw away’, they are usually more willing to invest time in the topic and deliver something that will last. Plus, they may be able to deliver it in a way future students will understand a bit better
Connect with their community
Local companies are always looking for help. Connecting students with local businesses gives students a chance to understand a career and be considered for a potential employment opportunity.
How do you empowering your online students? Leave a comment below so we can keep this list going!
Can•Innovate is a free, online conference designed for California Community College Canvas users.
Can•Innovate, a free online conference is the California Community College system’s premier Canvas event. In support of our 114 community colleges that use Canvas, Can•Innovate showcases creative practices in teaching and course design. Communities that share together, innovate together.
Meet the Speakers
Can•Innovate 2019 - Update Form
Friday, October 25, 2019 • 9:00 am - 5:00 pm Pacific Time
