If the WVC campus is closed for unforeseen reasons, how can instructors best maintain participation in their face-to-face classes? In the event of campus closure, this guide will help you with using WVC’s online teaching and learning tools to make the shift from face-to-face instruction to online instruction.
Resources
Using Canvas
All WVC courses have a Canvas course shell that can be used to house syllabi and instructional materials (including documents, videos, links), as well as assign/collect assignments and assess student learning via quizzes/exams. To access the Canvas course shell:
- Log into your WVC Canvas account
- Search the Canvas Dashboard (the first page that appears upon log in) for your course. If the course does not appear, go to the Canvas navigation bar on the extreme left, click on “Courses”, scroll down to “All Courses” and find your course.
Making your course visible to students
In order for students to view your course and all course contents, be sure to “Publish” the course as well as all materials (including modules) that you wish students to access/view.
- How do I publish a module in a course? Note that the status of the module overrides the state of the individual items within the module. You may want to consider leaving all module items “unpublished” until you are ready to publish the entire module.
- How do I publish a course?
Communicating with Students
There are two ways to communicate with students:
- Using WVC email: Every student has a WVC student email, and faculty may communicate with students using these WVC student email addresses.
- Using Canvas Inbox is highly recommended.
Teaching Modes for Continuing Instruction
There are two modes of instruction to consider when transitioning from face-to-face instruction to online. Faculty can choose one or both modalities.
- Deliver class lecture asynchronously by recording a video lecture and uploading it into Canvas.
- Teach a live/synchronous class using ConferZoom, a video conferencing app, during the same day/time that the face-to-face class typically meets. It is highly recommended that the video lecture be recorded and a link to the recording be posted in Canvas.
Uploading Your Syllabus and Other Files
Having access to your syllabus can be helpful to students as they navigate through the course in the online environment. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to upload your syllabus (either a Word doc or pdf file) into your Canvas course.
Organizing Class Content
Another important aspect of teaching is providing students with assigned readings from the textbook and other supplementary materials, including articles, videos and links. Using the class syllabus as a guide, these materials can be organized into the Canvas course using Canvas Modules. Think of Canvas Modules as file folders for your course content.
For ex., when teaching face-to-face, faculty may go through specific chapters in the textbook each week (for ex., Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and so on). For such a class, the Modules could be organized by chapters.
As another example, Canvas Modules could be organized by topic. (For ex., Module 1: Introduction to Crochet, Module 2: Tools used in Crocheting, Module 3: The Simplest Crochet Stitch, and so on.)
Sharing Class Content
Once Modules have been created, documents, assigned readings from the textbook and other supplementary materials (including articles, videos and links) can be placed within each Module.
Creating an assignment in Canvas
There are many different types of assignments that Canvas can create (Assignments, Discussion, Quizzes, Surveys, external app). For a Canvas Assignment, the instructor can choose the format by which students will submit their assignment (for ex., accept only Word docs).
- What types of Assignments can I create in Canvas?
- How do I create an assignment?
- For an assignment, what is the difference between a due date and availability date?
- How do I add/edit details for an assignment?
- How do I delete an assignment?
- How do I assign an assignment to an individual student? Note that by default, an assignment is assigned to everyone in the class. But this link shows you how to change the due date or availability date for one individual.
Creating a quiz or exam in Canvas
Canvas does not distinguish between a quiz or exam, so to create an exam, faculty would use the Canvas Quizzes tool. Just be sure to use an appropriate name when creating an exam. For most faculty, questions are either multiple choice, true/false or essay.
- What types of Quizzes can I create?
- What options can I set in a Quiz?
- How can I create a multiple choice question?
- How do I create an essay question?
But Canvas Quizzes can also create other types of questions as well:
Providing extended time on a Canvas Quiz
Students who qualify through DESP may need extended time.
Posting Grades
Use of the Canvas Gradebook is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to provide students with information on their grades and status in the course. Faculty using the Canvas Gradebook can easily view and enter grades for students. It is important to note, however, that only those Canvas Assignments that are graded are included in the gradebook; these include graded assignments, graded discussions and graded quizzes/surveys.
Checking Student View
Remember to check the student view to verify that your students are seeing the course content you want them to.
Publish Your Course
Remember that you must publish your course! Students cannot access the course until you publish. Be sure to publish all modules and elements within the module as well.
Share a Zoom Recording with Transcript in Canvas
DESP Student Support
Visit Disability Services (DESP)- If instructors have received notification from DESP that students receive extended test time, the amount of time is indicated in the notification and tests should be extended in Canvas by that amount of time. See Canvas Guide: Once I publish a timed quiz, how can I give my students extra time?
- DESP will work with faculty who are not administering tests in Canvas.
- If students need technology during tests, DESP will work with students to address individual needs.
- Use of Proctorio test proctoring service may create challenges for students with disabilities. DESP will work with faculty and students to address individual needs.
- Numerous students receive peer notetaking as an accommodation. If instructors are delivering content asynchronously via Canvas, peer notetaking should not be needed. DESP will work with students to address individual needs.
- If instruction is being delivered synchronously via Zoom, lecture notes are typically provided in the following ways:
- Instructor-created PowerPoints or lecture notes
- Zoom and Panopto video recordings with transcripts
- Peer notetakers
- Smartpens and notetaking apps for tablets, phones and computers.
DESP will work with students to address individual needs. Also see how to share a Zoom recording with a transcript and how to use Panopto in Canvas.
Some students with hearing impairments use sign language interpreters or real-time captioners to access instruction. Interpreters hired by DESP will need to be given the class Zoom link by instructors.
All videos including instructor-created videos need to have captions. Examples of these are pre-recorded lectures and audio/video recordings of Zoom lectures.
There will be instances where the auto-captions are incorrect, and you will need to edit the captions. Examples to look for include highly specialized language, acronyms, and strong accents.
The following tools are available to caption your videos and to edit your captions.
- Panopto can be used to caption videos
- If you are using WVC zoom, Panopto will automatically “grab” the videorecording and caption it.
- If you schedule a zoom meeting using the WVC zoom link within a Canvas course, Panopto will automatically caption your lecture and store it in the course folder in the Panopto library.
- You can upload a video file (for example, a video recorded using Camtasia) into your Panopto folder for storage and autocaptioning.
- Find out about Panopto by watching these videos. See video showing how to edit Panopto auto-captions.
- YouTube can be used to upload and caption videos with fairly good results. See video from Cincinnati State Online showing how to edit YouTube auto-captions.
Curated videos also need to have captions. Instructors should check for and assess the quality of the captions before including a video in a course. Videos with captions will have a CC in the video player toolbar.
Documents and Canvas pages included in a course must be accessible for students, particularly students with visual disabilities.
See Accessibility Resources for instructions on how to create accessible Word documents, PDFs and PowerPoints.
See these free, self-paced courses offered by @ONE:
If e-books are selected for a course, or if printed textbooks have online content that is assigned, they must be accessible for students, particularly students with visual disabilities. Please check with the publisher to make sure that the book meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level Double-A standards .
DESP may be able to convert digital textbooks to accessible formats. Please check with DESP.