Choosing an Effective Homepage in Canvas
In this @ONE Canvas Q&A, you will be introduced to the Canvas Homepage feature and identify effective strategies for choosing one that supports the success of your online students.
In this @ONE Canvas Q&A, you will be introduced to the Canvas Homepage feature and identify effective strategies for choosing one that supports the success of your online students.
Imagine moving to another country, where few people speak English, where the culture is completely different. Imagine yourself settling in and deciding to take a local online class. You become an online learner in a new country, in a new language, in a new culture, in a new online space. How do you feel? What will you need to succeed?
This is the perspective of your online English Language Learners: your ELLs. Who are they and what do they need? How can you support them in your online class? One word: Scaffolding.
First, how do you welcome your students? How do you deliver directions? What are the norms for your class? From the start it will be helpful to identify the ELLs in your class and in a 1-on-1 communication to acknowledge the language learning piece of their study. Could you create a special Welcome Letter for your ELLs? Could you create a vocabulary list of terms for navigating the course? Could you pair up ELLs in a break-out group? Identifying the challenges up-front and scaffolding the navigation will bring a sense of ease, opening the channels of communication, and giving students the language to identify confusion in course navigation.
Learning in another language is easier and tends to be more successful when the content area is already familiar. So an ELL with an advanced degree in Chemistry might not be fluent in English for your Science course, but they’ll have sufficient background knowledge in the content to be successful. In contrast, if an ELL has no background in your content area you’ll need to scaffold the discipline itself. For an example, in a Composition class your ELLs may have never learned the norms we use for organizing a paragraph around a topic sentence and sticking to a controlling idea. Some cultures go around and around a topic until they get to the point. Other cultures use long flowing sentences that last a whole paragraph. Acknowledging these differences respectfully and scaffolding the mastery of norms for your discipline within this culture is key.
How many learning modalities do you use when you deliver your instruction? The more you can scaffold your content with video clips, audio clips, infographics, outside links, kinesthetic activities, the more successful your ELLs, and all your students, will be.
Online learning requires effective time management, especially in another language. State this up-front with your ELLs. How can your they plug in to student support services regularly and how might they work this into their weekly schedule so that their learning is consistently scaffolded?
Some of your ELLs might not have the academic background, the personal discipline, the technology access, or the language ability they need to do their best work. How do you prepare for this the first weeks of your class so that all your students have access to effective online learning? How can you scaffold readiness?
Some cultures encourage students to be outspoken and argumentative. Others expect students to be passive and agreeable. How can you nudge students to follow the rules of netiquette and also speak up when they need clarification? And how can you be curious about your ELLs as individuals who bring their cultural background as well as their unique personality and learning style to this online space?
Who is invested in the success of your ELLs? Do you have ESL online tutoring? Online Basic Skills preparation? Is your Equity team plugged in to your online program? Does the EdTech Department collaborate on ELL-friendly course design? Do ELLs have an online campus voice? How can we bring all these voices to a round-table forum so that we design our programs with ELLs in mind, bringing all our campus resources and content area knowledge together in a shared commitment to excellence? How can we build a strong ELL scaffold together?
Now return to your imaginary new country and your imaginary new online course. How do you feel knowing you have been been acknowledged, warmly welcomed and supported in your learning? What else might you need to do your best work?
In this @ONE Canvas Q&A, you will learn how to use the handy Canvas Scheduler tool to set up convenient appointment slots on your course calendar that students can sign up for in a click! The scheduler is the perfect solution for arranging times to meet with your students and can be configured across multiple courses our just one. It's a huge time saver and makes scheduling time to meet with your students a breeze.
In this @ONE webinar, Anita Crawley, of the CA Online Education Initiative, and Katie Winter, from SmarterServices, examines data from the July 2017 Quest Program Review survey conducted by the RP group. The data indicates that online faculty members are playing a key role in connecting students to the Quest program. Those connections are made prior to the beginning of the term through email and during the early days of the term through a link in their academic courses. Quest materials are being used during the first week of the term as part of an orientation to online learning and throughout the term on an as needed basis. During this first session we will review the Quest resources with an emphasis on how SmarterMeasure results can be used to improve online success and provide Quest assignments that faculty have used.