Course Syllabus

Course Description

This 3-week, asynchronous, online course is designed for faculty and staff who have never used the Canvas learning management system or who are just getting started using Canvas. Participants will be introduced to the basic instructional features in Canvas such as Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, Content Pages, Modules, Gradebook, and much more. By the end of this course you will have a basic understanding of the Canvas tool set and be ready to begin using Canvas for instruction.

Prerequisites

Participants should currently be teaching or preparing to teach in higher education, however, many staff and administrators may find the course helpful as well. Coursework includes activities that require familiarity with online tools such as web browsers and email.

Course Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

1. Find Canvas help.
2. Recognize key Canvas terminology.
3. Apply Canvas communication tools.
4. Navigate Canvas from an instructor's perspective.
5. Use core Canvas functions from a student's perspective.
6. Evaluate, select and apply appropriate Canvas tools for teaching web-enhanced, blended, or online courses.
7. Create a basic course in Canvas.

Course Structure & Materials

Canvas is a growing, dynamic, and responsive organization. As such, new releases occur every 3-weeks. Occasionally a process you are learning may change during, or right after, you complete the course. This is normal and while sometimes frustrating, it should be perceived as a positive outcome of growth and product improvement.

This course is built in content modules and is linked directly to Canvas' own training and support materials which they update and maintain. Each module is divided into 3 sections: Get Started, Learn, and To-Do.  The Get Started section of each module will orient you to the module objectives, topics covered, and skills you will learn.  The Learn section contains the learning materials for the module. The To-Do section begins with an optional Quizlet review activity followed by the assessments (assignments, discussions, or quizzes) required to demonstrate mastery of the module objectives.

The modules in this course are set to open sequentially as you complete them. You will see a check mark next to the title of each module you have completed. You must complete everything in the To-Do section of preceding module before the next module will open to you. You do not need to wait for assignments to be graded in order to continue working.

Most pages in this course begin with an introduction to the topic followed by a Learning Resources section divided into materials to Watch and/or Read.  Videos are included as available in the Watch section of each page followed by links to specific help sheets from the Canvas Guides in the Read section.  You may be able to get everything you need from just watching the videos. However, there may be some cases where you may want, or need, to follow-up on a specific skill by reviewing the corresponding step-by-step help page from the Canvas Guides. You are not expected to watch every video or read every help sheet word for word, please use the combination of resources that work best for you.

What browser should I use?

The recommended web browsers for Canvas are the current or first previous major release versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Safari. You will have the most trouble using Internet Explorer with Canvas.

Please read What are the browser and computer requirements for Canvas? in the Canvas Guides for more information about the browser requirements for Canvas.

IMPORTANT
Due to browser security protocols, some of the pages in Canvas may look blank or not load correctly. This is not a Canvas issue and happens most frequently with the embedded Quizlet review activities.  If the content does not load, you can unblock it.

• Unblock mixed content in Firefox

Technical Requirements

Participants must be able to navigate web-based applications and have sufficiently modern equipment and Internet service in order to access the course.

Please read:

• What are the browser and computer requirements for Canvas? in the Canvas Guides to learn about the basic browser and computer specifications for Canvas.

Mobile Access

• Please visit the Canvas Mobile Guides to learn about mobile access for Canvas.

Communications

• If you have any questions about this course, please post them to our Ask a Question discussion board located in Discussions. You can also access the question forum at the very top of the Modules page. I will be checking the forum frequently to answer questions. If you know the answer to a classmate's question, please feel free to respond to it.
• For questions of a more personal nature, please message me directly from within Canvas.
• Please include a descriptive subject in the Subject line of all Canvas messaging.
• If Canvas is not available or if there is an emergency, please email me at asells@sbctc.edu.
• I will make every attempt to respond to your messages and Ask a Question discussion postings within 24 hours Monday - Friday, however, there may be days when I am unable to do so. Please know that I will answer every question as soon as I possibly can. Time permitting I may check for questions over the weekend and will mostly likely respond, but for questions submitted late on a Friday or anytime on Saturday or Sunday, please know that it may be Monday before I get back to you.
• I will address all questions and comments submitted with assignments when I grade that assignment. Typically it's faster, but it could be up to a week before I return assignment feedback to you. If your question is urgent, please contact me using a different method.
• I will be grading assignments as they are submitted and you can expect to see comments posted within approximately one week of submitting your work. For those of you that move swiftly through the materials and finish the course early, please note that you may not see all of your grades until the session ends.
• I participate in class discussions by posting first to each discussion to model the type of response I'd like to see from you.  For the introductory discussion (M01-B) I typically reply to each participant's response regarding what they hope to learn in the class. I will also usually make a guess at a few of the posted lies. For the remaining discussions (M02-B, M03-C, and M06-B), I typically reply to questions or other ponderings included in student postings, reply to add details as needed to clarify topics, and reply to call attention to insightful responses or other comments of interests.

Netiquette |net·i·ket|

Netiquette is considered to be the “manners” or etiquette governing online interactions. All student-to-student, student-to-instructor, and instructor-to-student communications (including emails and discussion postings) should be phrased in positive, inclusive, non-confrontational, and non-offensive language. Please keep all interactions cordial, business-like, and professional.

Participation

• Participants are expected to engage with the course content, with their classmates, and with the course facilitator.
• Participants are expected to respect the preferred names and personal pronouns identified by their classmates.
• Participants are expected to post to class discussions in a timely manner. Each discussion requires two postings, a thorough reply to the discussion prompt plus a minimum of one thoughtful reply to a classmate. As a general rule, please try to reply to a classmate that has not yet received a comment from another student.  You will be evaluated on the quality of your contributions and insights. Comments should demonstrate reflective thinking and evaluation of the teaching tools and options in Canvas.
• Participants are expected to post course related questions to the Ask a Question discussion. For questions of a more personal nature, please contact me through the Canvas Inbox.
• Participants are expected to carefully read all assignment directions, look at all assignment examples, and review the assignment rubric before submitting their work.
• Participants are expected to attempt every assignment and to resubmit revised work as requested.
• Participants are expected to read the assignment feedback left by the facilitator. Please read How do I view assignment comments from my instructor? to learn how to find my assignment feedback.
• This course contains a fair amount of reading and captioned videos have been included as available. Because it is very easy to become overwhelmed with too much information, participants are not expected to read every Canvas Guides page word for word. That said, please do your best to absorb as much information from the Guides pages as possible.

Help & Support

There are several options for accessing Canvas support:

• Visit the Canvas Guides or Canvas Video Guide.
• Ask me! Post your questions to the Ask a Question discussion board located in the ASK QUESTIONS HERE module.
• Click the Inbox link in the Global Navigation panel on the left side of your screen to message me in Canvas.
• Click the Help link in the Global Navigation panel on the left side of your screen and choose from the available options.
• Drop by your campus eLearning office ... they will be happy to assist you!

Disability Support Services

This course is intentionally built to serve as wide of an audience as possible. If you have a documented disability, your campus disability support office may be able to assist you with receiving reasonable accommodation for this course. If you require assistance, please contact the disability support or human resources office at your hiring institution. If necessary, they will contact me. However, please do not hesitate to make me aware of your needs upfront and I will do my very best to provide for your requests.

Please visit SBCTC's College Disability Services Offices page for a list of Disability and Access Services Office Contacts by college.

Inclusion Statement

SBCTC Vision Statement:

"Leading with racial equity, our colleges maximize student potential and transform lives within a culture of belonging that advances racial, social, and economic justice in service to our diverse communities."

To learn more about the SBCTC vision, please read the full SBCTC Vision Statement document.

I value diversity of thought, perspective, and experience and will respect your individual identity. This classroom is intended to be an inclusive and comfortable learning space for all participants. Please contact me if you feel uncomfortable about anything in this course or if you have feedback for strengthening our learning community.  We are all learning.  Your suggestions are encouraged and appreciated.  

• Inclusion Starts with I

Please see the Guides pages below for information about setting your personal pronoun and changing the display name in your account.

• How do I select personal pronouns in my user account as a student?
• How do I change the settings in my user account as a student?

Land Acknowledgement

The offices of the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges are located in Olympia, WA on the native lands of the Nisqually people. I am teaching this course from my home office in Everett, WA which is located on the native lands of the Stillaguamish and Snohomish peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging and celebrating their land, their communities, their elders, and the past, present, and future generations of their people.

Please also take a moment to visit the Native Land web page and enter your address to find and then acknowledge the land from which you are participating in this course.

Please note that the Native Land map is a work in progress and does not represent official legal boundaries of any indigenous nation. To learn more, please visit the Why it Matters section of the Native land Community & Blog.

Ally

Ally is a tool that integrates into Canvas and works to support content creators to ensure that the materials they are creating and using are accessible.

Ensuring that all students, including students with disabilities, have access to instructional materials is paramount to their success; therefore, all materials in this course have been reviewed and evaluated for accessibility. When possible, course materials are available in a digital format in Canvas, and students may download accessible versions of files via Ally. To learn more about accessing accessible versions of files, check out the short video below. Ally: Student View

In general, students using assistive technologies should be able to access all course materials; however, if you do encounter a barrier, please contact me as soon as possible so that the problem can be remediated.

Accessible Technology Statements

Please visit Section 3.20.30 B of SBCTC's online policy manual to read SBCTC's Accessible Technology policy. 

Please also see the following Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) for technologies used in this course.

• Canvas (VPAT)
• YouTube (no VPAT available at this time)
• Quizlet (no VPAT available at this time)
  
• Badgr (VPAT)

Privacy Statements

Please also see the following Privacy Policies for technologies used in this course.

• Instructure Privacy Policy
• YouTube Privacy Policy
• Quizlet Privacy Policy
• Badgr Privacy Policy

Practice Courses

In addition to this course, you will also see a Practice course listed in your Courses fly-out menu in the Global Navigation menu on the far left of your screen. Please use your Practice course as your work space for completing the assignments you will be asked to submit in this training course. If you cannot locate your practice course, please contact me ASAP.

Alternatively, as long as it meets all of the requested assignment requirements, please feel free to use screenshots of a current course you are building or a course you have already built to fulfill your assignment submissions. If you choose this option, please also include a brief note with your submission in the assignment comments explaining how your new or existing course meets the assignment requirements. Please note, that content imported from someone else’s master course, content imported from Canvas Commons, and templates provided by your campus do not qualify for this option.

If you are using Canvas for something other than teaching a course, please do your best to adapt your use case to the assignment requirements. If you have questions about how to do this, please ask me. Even if you won't have actual students in your course, you may have colleagues or other participants so think about things from their perspective when answering discussion questions and building your practice content.

Assessments

Assessments in this course include Quizlet sets (optional), quizzes, discussions, and mastery-based homework assignments. The optional and ungraded Quizlet activities will help you practice important Canvas terminology in each module. The assignments are designed to help you build skills and get additional support while the quizzes in each module will help you check your understanding. Discussions will provide you with an opportunity to interact with and learn from classmates while evaluating the teaching tools in Canvas.

• You must complete all of the graded module assessments before the course ending date to be eligible to receive a passing grade and earn a certificate.
• You must resubmit all requested revisions before the course ending date to be eligible to receive a passing grade and earn a certificate.
• Each assignment has its own rubric and a points-based grade will be earned upon the completion and submission of the assignment.
• You must score a minimum of 85% on each homework assignment before the skill will be considered mastered.
• Resubmission requests are typically returned with "0" points and feedback for making the requested revisions.
• You may retake the quizzes as many times as needed in order to earn a passing score of 80% (+8/10) or higher.
• You will see a blue notification dot next to the Grades link in your Course Navigation menu when an assignment has been graded. Please ask if you have questions about your grades. My assignment feedback and grading comments may be viewed on your Grades page.
• Assessments in this course are written from a faculty perspective, if you are not faculty, absolutely no worries – please feel free to adapt the assignments to fit your needs. If you have questions or need assistance with this, please ask me.
• For a complete list of assignments in this course, please see the course Summary table at the bottom of this page.

Final Grades

This is a 3-week pass/fail mastery-based course. Your grade is not based solely on points or percentages, and you may not skip any assessments in this course. To be eligible to receive a Pass grade for the course, you must:

• Complete all of the assignments with 85% mastery.
• Resubmit any requested revisions with 85% mastery.
• Pass all quizzes with 80% mastery.

If you submit all of your assignments, resubmit all requested work, AND earn 85% (+191 / 225 pts.) or higher for the course, you will pass the class.

Those who successfully complete the course will be issued an SBCTC Certificate of Completion and an SBCTC Completion badge. The SBCTC certificate and badge are accepted as proof of Canvas training by all 34 community and technical colleges in our system. However, some colleges may require you to complete additional campus-specific Canvas training requirements. If you are unable to complete the course within the session dates, please ask me about alternative completion options. In some cases, a one week extension may make the most sense, and in other cases, registering into a new session and starting over is a better plan.

Schedule

Miscellaneous Items