Foundations for Success
7 About “Build Your Course Activities”
Now that you are oriented to the Online Teaching & Design Program and this Canvas site, we will next consider how you will apply your learning to your own teaching and learning situations.
Following is a brief orientation to the Build Your Course Activities that you will complete throughout this program. This page explains the overall purpose, goals, and structure of the Build Your Course Activities and identifies the supports that will be available to you throughout this process.
To complete this program (be marked complete in Training Hub) and earn Digital Badges, you will be required to earn 80% on each Build Your Course Activity. You will receive feedback from a program facilitator and have opportunities for revision and resubmission.
Overview: Build Your Course Activities
In the Online Teaching & Design Program, content and activities are completely online. You will have Build Your Course Activities for each offering in the program. Activities include tasks such as exploring communication and collaboration tools, creating and editing content, creating assignments, building modules, and managing your course.
To help you prepare for the Build Your Course Activities, you will see optional activities throughout the program. These are meant to help you practice and prepare. They may include guiding questions, worksheets, or templates for you to use as needed.
For each offering in the program, the Build Your Course Activities will include two components. Typically, the first will address planning your online learning experience and the second will address building your Canvas site. Explore these components below.
Learning Plan Activities
The planning activities will typically occur in your course syllabus. You will make sure that you are clearly and consistently including information that will help students succeed.
When working on your Build Your Course Activities, you will be asked to use a syllabus template to maintain consistency throughout this program.
Canvas Site Building Activities
You will also need a Canvas site to develop throughout the program. Doing this helps you to gain proficiency with Canvas tools and implement best practices such as properly formatting pages, giving you a chance to experiment with the features before going “live” (teaching your course to actual students).
When working on your Build Your Course Activities, you may choose from the following two options:
- Create a Canvas development site. Your development site will be distinct from our teaching site for this course. Your development site will be your own and is where you will complete your Build Your Course Activities. Think of this as a “sandbox area” where you can begin to develop your actual course. Copying your development site into your teaching site is a painless process, and we’ll show you how to do that too.
- You may use use another unpublished Canvas site if you wish. We’ll ask that you share the link to your site later in the program.
The overall goal of the Build Your Course Activities is for you to complete, at a minimum:
- Syllabus
- Course Expectations
- Course Orientation/Instructor/Course Introduction
- Schedule
- One module of content (including objectives, interaction, activities, and assessment)
Remember that these activities are not simply meant to keep you busy as we progress through the program, but to prepare you for the unique online teaching and learning experiences that await you.
Criteria for Success: Build Your Course Activities
If you are planning to earn Online Teaching & Design Digital Badges, you will be required to earn 80% on each of the Build Your Course Activities.
Each Build Your Course Activity will have quality standards in the form of rubrics. You may use the rubrics to review your work as you progress.
An instructor will grade your submission and use the rubric to make sure your work meets the quality standards. You will need to come back to this page in the Canvas site or go the Grades in the site menu to see all feedback.
If there are any missing areas or mistakes in your project, the instructor will note that on the grading rubric:
- You can resubmit your project as many times as you like.
- You will earn the badge for this program module once your project meets 80% of the quality standards listed on the rubric.
Support Along the Way
This may sound like an overwhelming prospect, but these activities are deliberately structured and sequenced throughout the program. Upon completion of Online Design & Teaching Program, you will walk away with an online course that is already in development, which gives you a head start in teaching your future course.
Remember that as you build your course, there are several support mechanisms available to you.
- Your local academic technology support team
- UMN academic technology support teams
- UMN technical support team can help with any questions you have related to Canvas
The Build Your Course Activities in this course are derivatives from those in the TOPKit Sample Course prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.