Course Preparation Checklist for Instructors:
This “checklist” walks you through everything you want to check prior to opening your course. It will help in student navigation of the course, access, engagement, and more. Make sure that all of these things have been completed in your course before the semester starts. Thanks!
- Dates (Must add dates for hybrid schedule, assignments, modules, etc.!)
- Your information (name, office hours, contact information)
- See syllabus tip sheet
- Update your instructor page with a description of yourself and communication preferences
- Add a picture or video!
- Syllabus Dates
- Schedule Dates
- Assignment Dates
- Discussion Board Dates
- Assessment/Test Dates
- Make sure all dates match one another in the different areas listed above!
Customize Course for Delivery Method
- Make sure that course schedule, syllabus, and assignments match your delivery method (Hybrid, Online, Face to Face)
- Face-to-face: Provide clear guidelines about how you will use your synchronous weeks.
- Hybrid: make all dates match on campus and online expectations. Provide clear guidelines about how you will use your synchronous weeks.
- Hybrid & Online: make assignments match to unique opportunities within different modalities.
- Only show what is needed by your students (meaning: delete or hide other instructions or information for the other delivery modalities)
- Explain to students what your delivery method is and what is expected of them.
- Check your syllabus and start here pages for any language that you will need to change to make it specific for your delivery method. Delete anything that does not pertain specifically to your course (i.e., in on campus we will . . . . ).
- Clarify with your lead instructor what is expected of you in a particular delivery method and take the needed time to fully understand your course delivery.
- Create a welcome announcement and send to students the week before school starts!
- Make sure to describe and outline any synchronous meeting requirements and provide dates.
- Specifically make sure students understand how their course type (originally online, face-to-face, hybrid) corresponds with the current plan for synchronous time.
- Include instructions on how students will meet virtually (i.e., Zoom, Teams, etc.)
- Check dates, availability, and settings
- Read and/or edit existing questions and activities
- Add new questions, activities, videos, etc.
- Provide clear instructions and expectations about participation
- Review and become familiar with content
- Add new lectures, power points, videos, and resources
- Check to make sure all “links” are working using the Canvas link checker in Settings
- Become familiar with assignments/assessments
- Check dates and make sure they match from syllabus to schedule to the grade book
- Check descriptions of Assignment/Assessment and make sure they are suited for online, hybrid, or face to face.
- Review or create rubrics or grading sheets if desired
- Clarify with students your feedback modalities and timelines
- Clarify with students your preferred communication and availability
- Match what is displayed to your students with your delivery mode (i.e., online, hybrid, etc.)
- Check discussion groups and set availability
- Check assignments/assessment and set availability
- Check content and modules
- Check overall course and hide what students do not need to see
- Check all links that are in your course container to make sure they are still active including videos, readings, and webpages. The Canvas link checker is a great tool that will help with this under settings in your Canvas Course.
Accessibility
- Please make sure that all of your videos, PDFs, lecture notes, Power Points, and other content are accessible. Consult with your lead faculty and CTLD for instructions on how to make your course universally accessible. If you have a student that has provided you with an accommodation letter from the Access Center, please consult with the Access Center for needed adjustments to the course.
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- See what is available and review what you need. There are many resources available on the self-help tutorial page through the CTLD.
- Canvas Help is located under the? Help button in your Canvas containers
- Feel free to email Becky Cottrell at [email protected]
- Learn how to contact IT and CTLD for help with your IT needs or Canvas issues.
SW Online Instructor Checklist Description
This is a checklist for instructors who teach online. The lead faculty for your course has created a master container on Canvas. This master container has standard course information and content. When you are assigned a course, the master template becomes your specific course container requiring you to customize it as needed to meet the needs of your students and course delivery mode. This customization includes many different areas discussed below.
Please complete these steps prior to the opening of your course to students. If you need help, please refer to the section in this document about Canvas Resources and/or contact your lead faculty. If you are interested in online pedagogy and best practices, please inquire about our online trainings and/or consultation with our online coordinator, Ann Obermann, [email protected] and Course Development Analyst, Becky Cottrell, [email protected]
Syllabus
The syllabus is a universal syllabus for online and on campus courses. It contains the basic course information, your contact information, SW Department and University guidelines, and information specific to what you expect from your students. Please review the syllabus and edit as needed in order to reflect your learning expectations for the students. You must have an HTML version of the syllabus and if you have a word document syllabus as well please make sure that both contain the same information.
Your Instructor
This page is a description of you and your expectations and teaching philosophy. Feel free to add a picture in addition to your contact information and office hours or online availability. Students love to hear about your professional experience and personal interests. This is often the student’s first interaction with you, so have fun and make it representative of how you want them to view you and interact with you.
Dates
Dates are often not included in your course container as courses are offered over multiple semesters and in different delivery options. You may need to add dates to the schedule, syllabus, assignments, assessments, and discussion boards. If there are dates in your container, please check them to make sure they are correct. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE DATES AND THEY ARE CONSISTENT ACROSS THE COURSE! Adding dates is helpful to students as they get reminders via Canvas and the dates populate into their Canvas calendars that include all their courses.
You can also customize your class so that assignments, discussion, and/or assessments are due at the time of week you are requiring. This takes a little time and I recommend having a calendar out with your schedule of activities for the course and dates so that you can get the correct dates published in your course. The standard week for online courses is Saturday to Saturday making many assignments and discussions due on Saturday by 11:59pm. This is standard across the department so that students have clarity around their due dates and gives them weekend days to get work done. If you have other due dates, please specify this to students and make clear on your schedule and syllabus.
Customize Course for Delivery Method: Hybrid, Online, and Face to Face
First, you want to make sure that you fully understand how you are delivering your course. Ask questions to your lead faculty about what is expected of you in your chosen course delivery model. Second, adjust all dates and assignments to match your method of delivery. For example, if an assignment has group presentations – how is the language adjusted for group presentations online. Or if you are hybrid, how is your schedule of activities clearly indicating when they are meeting on campus of online? Finally, be very clear with students with what is expected! Students reported confusion with this in Fall 2018, so please make sure to take time in creating your container specifically for your method of delivery and add in dates and language that match. You can hide and/or delete other instructions for different modalities. It is recommended that you only include instructions and dates for your specific delivery method.
Announcements
Create a welcoming announcement for your course before the course starts or in week one to welcome your students and introduce yourself! Consider creating a video of yourself in a brief (under 3 minute) video.
Announcements are a great way to communicate collective information to your course. It remains in the students’ course container and your instructor course container so that you can reference the information throughout the semester vs in an email. Announcements can include videos, summaries of the weekly discussion board, new resources, due date reminders and much more. They are a great way on increasing your instructor presence. Make it clear in your syllabus and instructor page that you like to communicate in Announcements and that it is an expectation that students check the Announcements multiple times a week.
Synchronous Time
Some courses will have the opportunity for the whole class to meet synchronously (at the same time) in a virtual meeting space (Zoom, Adobe Connect, etc.). Check with your lead instructor to see if you have a scheduled time for synchronous time. If you do, communicate with your students at the beginning of the course, in the syllabus, and in the schedule how that synchronous time will be used. Make sure to include instructions on how you will meet with the class and what is expected. You can also include optional synchronous time or virtual office hours. If you do optional synchronous time, survey your students to see when the best time is for them to meet. Also, you can record your Zoom session and post online for students who were unable to attend. Online instructor presence is one of the strongest predictors to online student success and meeting synchronously is a great way to increase your presence. You can use this time to meet one on one with students, as a larger group, in small groups, for lecture or for activities.
Discussion Board
Discussion boards are often the main interaction and communication in online courses. Because of this, please make your expectations clear on how students are to use the discussion board. Online expectations and specifically discussion board expectations can be listed in your syllabus, discussion board welcome page, and in assignments.
Clarify:
- What do you expect in their post?
- Do you have a specific length?
- Do you want APA?
- What are you looking for, conversation or content mastery?
- When do they have to reply to the original postings or their peers?
There are general guidelines for discussion boards, but it helps for you to be very specific to what you want. You can include this in the syllabus and course description in Canvas. In addition, you can state your discussion expectations in every discussion board or make a video to share what you expect from students in a discussion post, an announcement or learning module in the first week of class. It usually takes a couple of weeks for students to get in the groove so it is a good idea to have your expectations posted frequently for the first 2 to 3 weeks of class. Expect to spend lots of time the first 3 or 4 weeks of class in the discussion group to help model and share what is expected. Craft your responses and questions in a way that you want your students to follow. Ask probing questions and share with them why you are asking what you are asking. This type of transparency will help them lead rewarding discussions for the remainder of the semester.
Check and add due dates to the discussion boards if you want to give students notifications in their Canvas calendars and to make the due dates clear. You may also set availability so that discussion boards are public to your students week by week, weeks in advance, or open for the whole semester. You also have the option to set notifications with dates so that you are alerted to what “needs grading”.
Your lead faculty may have discussion questions listed, please read over these and check them for every module to make sure they match what you are doing. However, it is your responsibility to add in your own questions and tailor the questions to your course! Often the text books have ideas in the chapters for questions! There are also different ways of organizing the discussion groups with regard to having smaller groups of folks talk, having pair shares, doing activities, posting videos, etc. Feel free to get creative and ask for suggestions or ideas!
Content
While the lead instructor provides you with basic course content, you are expected to add new materials including power points, videos, lectures, lecture notes and other current application of course material. Lectures can be very brief (under 10 minutes) and can be voice over power points, video power points, lecture notes, or just videos. Having a video presence online encourages more participation from students and a sense of community. It also lends to increased student satisfaction. These videos are often 2 to 10 minutes in length and on different topics throughout the course. You may be using material provided by your lead faculty to cover the basics, but it is expected that you will add your own lectures and content to highlight your professional experience and expertise.
It is helpful for students to have an overview page in each module that tells them what is expected of them in the module. You can state the objectives, reading requirements, assignments or assessments due, discussion board expectations, and how to proceed through the module. You can recommend that they read chapter 1, answer the first discussion board, watch a video, read the lecture notes, watch the instructor video, and finally answer discussion board question 2. Giving students a road map in the content modules is helpful for them in knowledge transfer, discussion board, content application!
Assignments/Assessments
You need to check the assignments and assessments for due dates and make sure they match with what is in your schedule and syllabus. In addition, make sure that the assignment description is as clear as you would like and directions are sufficient. You can add rubrics, grading guides, and/or checklists to assignments to further help students. Make clear to students your expectations around assignments and your grading style. Again, check all dates and availability of assignments.
Feedback and Communication
It is important to let students know how you will offer feedback during the course. Let them know how you grade with regard to offering feedback via Canvas, in an emailed word document, using rubrics, etc. Make clear your response time for grading (e.g., one to two weeks, etc.) knowing that this can be changed if needed. For online courses, quick assignment feedback is an effective way to create instructor presence. Timely and personal feedback is also a strong predictor in student satisfaction and success in online learning.
Share with students your preferred methods of communication and how often you will be online. Expectation is that you reply to emails/course communication during the work week within 48 hours. If you want students to communicate with you via phone instead of email than make this clear as well. Many online faculty are having virtual office hours via Zoom or Skype.
Share your expectations and availability in the “Your Instructor” page, in your syllabus, and also in class or in an online announcement. Students are often afraid to contact professors so the more welcoming and clear you make this information the better for you and your students!
Hide/Unavailable/Unpublished
Make sure to go through your course and decide what you would like the students to see or not see. Your lead faculty may have provided lots of different resources for you to choose from but maybe not to share with students. These are areas that you can make “unavailable” so that students are not able to view them. You can do this with content, discussion threads, navigation menu items and more. You can also set the availability dates so that certain content is not available until after a certain date and only for a short period of time depending on the activity, assignment, content, and/or purpose.
In Canvas, publishing and unpublishing individual items is quick and easy- just click on the green check next to an item to unpublish, or click on the circle with a slash through it to publish it and make it available to students.
Links
Check all links in your course for external web pages, movies, resources, readings and more. Links can change or go dead so make sure to check these at the beginning of the course and each week. Contact the lead instructor of your class if you cannot locate the information yourself and they will be able to provide you with the resources needed.
Canvas and Online Resources
Resources:
First stop for support: Please reach out to Becky Cottrell at [email protected] for all things online teaching and course design. Becky is within our department and will be able to best serve you with your online teaching needs.
MSU IT/CTLD: You can get assistance online, by phone, and in person. CTLD will help with instructional questions and ITS will assist you with technology issues.
- MSU IT Services Help Desk: There is 24/7 assistance available to all MSU faculty and students. You can call in at any time and so can your students.
- MSU Denver Self-Help Tutorials: This site has great tutorials on how to do everything Canvas!
- Canvas 24/7 support is available by clicking on the help link (on the left menu. It’s a ? icon). You can either call the 24/7 hotline (1-877-433-5878) or initiate a chat session with a representative from Canvas.