Keep Learning - Academic Continuity During Disruption

• Download student contact information from MyRider should you need to get in touch with your students.
• At the beginning of the term/semester, send your students a welcome email that includes your contact information. Suggest that they hold on to the message until the end of the course in case they need to get in contact with you.
• Remind students to download or print a copy of the syllabus.
• Back up copies of any prepared teaching materials prior to the start of the term/semester in case you are unable to access the files on the Rider network.

In times of planned/unplanned events, offering an online class session is a proactive way to maintain course continuity when meeting face-to-face is not an option. Rider University’s instance of Canvas (online learning management system) provides solutions that allow faculty to engage with their students in a variety of ways.

Online learning is comprised of many aspects including the dissemination of content, student collaboration, student assignments and/or activities, and communication - all completed virtually within the learning management system.

Every course section established through Banner/myRider has a corresponding online course in Canvas. To access your course(s), please visit Canvas and login using your Rider Key information.

It is imperative that all courses in Canvas are published in order for students to have access and receive communications.

• Set the Syllabus as your home page and include a message about new online components and expectations.
• Include contact information for you.
• Consider offering office hours through Zoom.

Suggestions for Student Success:

• Encourage students to check Canvas courses daily. Reading announcements and other notifications are crucial to having a successful online experience.
  • Step-by-Step Student Resources:
    • How do I use the Course Home Page as a student?
    • How do I use the Syllabus as a student?

Post Announcements with written or recorded messages to communicate updates, changes and other relevant information to your students. This is the fastest way to communicate with your entire class from within Canvas.

Alternatively, you can get the student roster with emails from MyRider and use your Rider email to communicate with your students.

Suggestions for Student Success:

• Remind students to check and/or modify their notifications settings to allow for copies of Announcements to be forwarded to their Rider email address.
  • Step-by-Step Student Resources:
    • How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as a student?
    • How do I view Announcements as a student?

You can schedule a virtual meeting using the Zoom video conferencing application. You’ll need a computer with a microphone and a webcam for this to work best. Your students can join using a computer, tablet or even phone. Zoom is available in every Canvas course.

• (New) How to activate Rider Zoom account and Enable Zoom in Canvas
• Set up a virtual meeting in your course using Zoom.
• Post an Announcement in your course notifying students of the date and time of the meeting. Let them know they can access the meeting through the Zoom link in your Canvas course.
• Record the meeting for students who are not able to attend. Recording options are available both when scheduling the meeting in Canvas and during the session.

To optimize your Zoom session, we recommend:

• A device with a good internet connection.
• Use headphones or earbuds with a microphone to minimize surrounding noise and maximize your voice.
• In your Zoom settings, opt to Mute Participants upon entry into the meeting. As the host of the meeting, instructors are able to mute and unmute participants at any point.
• As the host of the meeting, instructors can turn on the Breakout Rooms feature in their Zoom settings for group discussion or group problem sets. In a Breakout Room, instructors can split the large meeting into separate rooms for small groups of students to work collaboratively.

Suggestions for Student Success:

• Students should ensure they have access to the Internet, either on campus, at home or a publicly available hotspot.
• Students should ensure they have access to a computer or a mobile device. This device will need to include:

• Audio - At a minimum, ensure you have speakers and a microphone; however, we recommend a headset or earbuds (with mic).
• Video - Ensure you have a webcam, either built into your computer or an USB webcam.
  • Step-by-Step Student Resources:
    • How do I join a Zoom meeting?

Setting up a Canvas discussion allows students to respond to you and one another asynchronously (i.e., not in real-time). You can provide a prompt that asks students to discuss course material, reflect on how key concepts are linked to other fields of study or to their own experience, or share their works in progress, among other things.

• Create a discussion forum.
• For large classes, see Creating Group Discussions. Group Discussions make discussions in large classes more manageable.

Tips for administering effective online discussions:

• Communicate clear guidelines in the prompt that establish your expectations for students’ contributions to the discussion. Many instructors choose to provide details about the writing style (e.g., formal/informal), number of posts, length (e.g., number of words), frequency, tone, and content (e.g., elements that constitute “value-added”).
• Use threaded discussion responses to allow students to respond to one another multiple times in an organized way in each discussion board post.
• Be present in the discussion board by providing feedback and coaching to student responses.
• Create questions and prompts that require complex thinking and application of ideas to avoid repetitive student responses.

Suggestions for Student Success:

• Encourage students to first save longer discussion responses in a Word document before entering it in a Discussion posting. This avoids losing work in the event of any kind of technical glitches during the submission process.

  • Step-by-Step Student Resources:
    • How do I view Discussions as a student?
    • How do I reply to a discussion as a student?
    • How do I attach a file to a discussion reply as a student?
    • How do I embed an image in a discussion reply as a student?

Files

The Files area in Canvas provides a place for storing all course materials. Add files such as documents, PDFs, slides, or spreadsheets.

• Learn more about Files.
• Make sure Files is available in the left-hand navigation and that any files not intended for student viewing are restricted.
• Learn how to organize files and do bulk uploads.

Modules

Modules are like units of study. They allow you to group your content materials with your assignments, quizzes, discussions, and other resources in whatever way makes sense to you and your students.

• Learn more about Modules.
• Learn how to add Modules and add content items to Modules.

Tips:

• Many instructors find it useful to have a Welcome or Resources Module at the top of the page that will feature items students will need throughout the course, such as a Syllabus file, a Content Page for Announcements and a Q&A Discussion forum.
• Instructors use many different organizational structures for Modules. Time-based modules might be titled Week 1, Week 2, etc. Topic-based Modules might be titled Course Introduction, Cells, DNA, etc. Item-type Modules might be titled Lecture Notes, Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, etc.

To record and share lecture videos or screen share presentations, you have several options:

• Schedule, host, and record a Zoom session with or without your students. You can then share the video in your course.
• Use Screencast-o-matic, a web-based screencasting tool to capture video and audio of your computer screen and webcam to create lectures, tutorials, demonstrations and more.
  • (New) How to use Screencast-O-Matic
• For short, simple videos, you can use the video recorder available in the Canvas rich content editor to record a video or audio message for your students. The tool can be used in Canvas when posting an Announcement, creating instructions for Discussions and/or Assignments and sending Inbox messages.
• (New) For longer videos, you can use Illumira Uploading a Video via Illumira

To optimize your asynchronous recorded lecture, we recommend:

• Draft a script or an outline of your ideas for your lecture before recording.
• Use headphones or earbuds with a microphone to minimize surrounding noise and maximize your voice.
• Record longer lectures into smaller, separate video lectures, organized by topic, idea, or skill. By watching video lectures of less than 15 minutes each, learners are more likely to maintain focus and retain key information.
• Include questions throughout your lectures to engage learners and allow them to check for understanding as they watch.
• Upload PDF files, websites and media that support the content of your lecture to provide your learners a comprehensive and immersive learning experience.

Instructors can leverage Canvas tools to formatively and summatively assess student learning.

Assignments

Instructors may use the Assignments tool in Canvas to collect student work.

• Learn how to create an Assignment for online submission.
• Learn about implementing Turnitin to check for plagiarism.

Tips:

• When you create an Assignment with the Online Submission type, Canvas automatically creates the dropbox for students to submit their Assignment files.
• Graded Quizzes and Discussions are also considered Assignments. When you create them on the Quizzes and Discussions pages, they will show up on the Assignments page as well.
• You must create an assignment for anything you wish to assign a grade in the grade book.
• Make sure that you publish each assignment to make them available to students and create the corresponding column in the Gradebook.

Suggestions for Student Success:

• Always save documents before turning them in online. Consider downloading files to an offline location or computer as a precaution.
• Keep track of assignments and due date from the Sidebar To-Do list, calendar and if available the syllabus, assignments or modules pages.
  • Step-by-Step Resources:
    • How do I view Assignments as a student?
    • How do I submit an online assignment?
    • How do I upload a file as an assignment submission in Canvas?
    • How do I upload a file from Google Drive as an assignment submission in Canvas?
    • How do I know when my instructor has graded my assignment?
    • How do I view assignment comments from my instructor?

Instructors can use Speedgrader to make annotations and comments on students' work, enter a numeric score that will be stored in the Canvas Gradebook as well as provide rich feedback in written, audio, or video format.

• Learn how to grade student work and offer feedback through Speedgrader.

Suggestions for Student Success:

• Look for the feedback or speech icons next to assignments in the Gradebook to find feedback and comments on graded assignments.

• Step-by-Step Resources:
  • How do I view my grades in a current course?
  • How do I use the icons and colors in the Grades page?

Instructors can create quizzes, exams and tests using the Quizzes tool in Canvas.

• Learn how to create a Quiz for online submission.
• Learn how to provide the extra time that might be required for specific students.
• Learn how to access quiz statistics.

Tips for administering effective exams online:

• Create complex questions that require deep, analytical thinking skills to complete.
• Use time limits for the exam availability to maintain students’ focus during the exam.
• Randomize the questions of a quiz to maximize academic integrity.

Suggestions for Student Success:

• Make sure you have a reliable, wired internet connection when taking a quiz; a wireless connection will work, but is not recommended.
• Avoid taking tests on mobile devices such as phones or tablets. Not all quiz settings or question types are compatible with the mobile app yet.
• Do not navigate to other locations or applications in Canvas after the test opens. Do not use any of the browser navigation buttons (i.e. Back, Forward, Home, etc.)
  • Step-by-Step Resources:
    • How do I take a quiz?
    • How do I resume a quiz that I already started taking?
    • How do I submit a quiz?
    • How do I view quiz results as a student?