Course Syllabus

Communications

• If you have any questions about this course, please post them to our Ask a Question discussion located in the ASK QUESTIONS HERE module.
• 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 most 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 who 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. For those of you who start late, your homework may not be graded in sequential order.
• 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), time-permitting, 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 fibs. For the remaining discussions (M02-B, M03-C, and M06-B), I typically participate by replying to questions or other ponderings included in participant postings, replying to add details as needed to clarify topics, and replying to call attention to insightful responses or other comments of interest.

Netiquette |net·i·ket|

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

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 contribute to class discussions in a timely and meaningful way. Each discussion in this course asks for two posts: your thorough response to the discussion prompt and at least one thoughtful reply to a classmate. You’re welcome to reply to as many classmates as you’d like, but please also consider replying to posts without comments to help everyone feel included. I'll be looking for quality posts that share insights and demonstrate reflective thinking about the teaching tools and options in Canvas, so please take this opportunity to learn from and share with your classmates by writing the kind of posts you’d like to see submitted by students in your own course.
• 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 and revise 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.
• Participants are not expected to read every Canvas Guides page word for word because it is very easy to become overwhelmed with too much information. This course contains a fair amount of reading, and captioned videos have been included as available. That said, please do your best to absorb as much information from the Guides pages and videos as possible.

Help & Support

There are several options for accessing Canvas support:

• Visit the Canvas Guides.
• 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 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 SBCTC's Mission and Values.

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, and 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.

I honor the traditional stewards of this land by learning about different cultures and sharing what I learn with others. I created the WA Course Design Checklist to support faculty in building more engaging and inclusive learning spaces for all learners. To foster equity in education, I encourage faculty to deepen their understanding of bias and inclusive teaching practices. I practice sustainability by recycling, using earth-friendly products, driving less, and eating one meatless meal a week. Whenever possible, I support businesses owned by women and people of color. These small actions are my way of showing respect and gratitude for the land, its people, and those who helped build the wealth of this nation.

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 participants, including participants 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 participants may download accessible versions of files via Ally. To learn more about accessing accessible versions of files, check out the Ally Help Center: Student - Alternative Formats page.

In general, participants 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 fixed.

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)
  
• Parchment Digital Badges (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
• Parchment Digital Badges Privacy Policy

Your goal in this course is to develop the knowledge and skills needed to build a simple Canvas course while upholding the same standards of ethics and integrity you’d expect from others. What do you consider "cheating?" I encourage you to reflect on the answer to this question based on the expectations you have for students in your course or the colleagues you work with. If it's something you wouldn't want your students or colleagues to do, then ask yourself if it's something you should do. 

Use of Resources

You are welcome to use all course materials, Canvas Guides, your notes, and other Canvas-related resources while completing your homework and quizzes. I encourage collaborative learning, so if it works for you, please feel free to work together to understand the content and complete your homework, but not your quizzes - please complete those on your own. Screenshots submitted with homework should reflect content you've built yourself, not content created by and shared with you by colleagues or copied into your course from Canvas Commons.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is everywhere these days and can be a valuable resource for brainstorming ideas, organizing your thoughts, and improving the clarity of your discussion posts. Feel free to use it, but be sure to consider the ethics of how you're using it. AI should enhance your original work, not replace it. For instance, refining your discussion post with AI is fine, but copying an AI-generated response or rewording my example post using AI is not. Please use AI responsibly to ensure your work reflects your own understanding and effort.

I used AI to help refine the clarity and flow of this section, but the ideas and content are my own. If you have questions about using AI in this course or for your own work, I’d love to chat!

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 workspace 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 flashcards (optional), quizzes, discussions, and competency-based homework assignments. The optional and ungraded Quizlet flashcard 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 as you evaluate 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 digital completion badge.
• You must resubmit all requested revisions within a week of the course ending date to be eligible to receive a passing grade and earn a digital completion badge.
• Each assignment has its own rubric, and you will receive a points-based grade upon successful completion 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 skills-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 will need to:

• Achieve all skills at 80-85% or higher.
• Resubmit any requested revisions until you achieve the skill(s) at 80-85% or higher.
• Pass all quizzes at 80% or higher.

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

Those who successfully complete the course will be issued a digital completion badge. SBCTC's Canvas 101 badge is 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.

Time Management

This course runs for 3 weeks and is set up so you can move through it at your own pace. Your individual time contribution will vary greatly depending on your familiarity with learning management systems and also on your degree of computer savvy. On average, this course takes approximately 20 - 25 hours to complete.

• There are NO SET DUE DATES, however, please try not to submit everything on the last day of class. 
• A good general rule is to be starting on Module 05 around the midpoint of the session. The course dates and midpoint reminder can be found on the course calendar.
• Unless you have made an alternate arrangement with me, all work to be considered for course completion should be submitted no later than midnight on the last day of the course.
• TIME SAVER TIP: Do not try to read every Canvas Guides page word for word. Start by looking at the pictures and then skimming to familiarize yourself with the information & processes. You can always return to the Guides pages if needed while completing assignments or quizzes. Using the Guides during a quiz is NOT cheating. You might also consider looking at the assignment first, just to see what you will be asked to do and then you can concentrate more heavily on those topics as you read. There is no way to know everything in Canvas, that's why the Guides are so valuable. Knowing where to look up or find the information is half the battle.

As a general pacing guide for on-time completion of this course, you should plan to complete the homework for a new module every couple of days. The second Friday of the session is roughly the midpoint of our time together, and it's a good idea to be finishing up Module 04 and starting on Module 05 by that weekend or shortly thereafter. The following table outlines suggested pacing for Canvas 101.

Printing from Canvas

If you would like to print any pages in Canvas (this page included!), simply highlight/select the area you want to print, click on the File Menu in your browser, and then choose to print the selection. For PC's, selecting the text and using Ctrl+P works too.

You may also choose to open and print the syllabus in Word document format located in the Course Information section at the top of this page.