Preparing Students for Success with DE

Distance Education has many benefits for students, however, many students continue to struggle with the self-responsibility and self-management that DE requires. So, how can we, as faculty, help our students be successful? We can start by remembering that the learning experience is very different between a face-to-face course and an online course.

In a face-to-face course, students benefit from:

Being in the same space as other students. This leads to ease in developing relationships, asking questions, or talking about the course or assignments in the time before and after the course. Being in the same space provides opportunities that impact students success that are not automatically provided in an online course.
Being in the same space as the faculty member. Think about the ways in which faculty support a students success in the classroom, such as reminders about assignments, hearing the answers of questions asked by other students, reminders about what they will be learning next in the course. In an online course, these reminders are not simply a natural part of the students' learning experience, rather they must be purposefully created and the student must purposefully interact with the information.

Online Readiness Tutorials

The CCC OEI created Online Readiness Tutorials to prepare CCC students for online learning. Faculty might like to remind students to complete these tutorials.

Interactive Tutorials

Interactive Tools

Cost Calculator
Computer Readiness Test
Daily Schedule Calculator
Study Schedule

Ensuring Students are Aware of Support Services

As faculty, you are likely your students' best connection to the college and to the help they might need. It is important that you provide the information to your students and it is even better if you can identify ways to integrate the services into your course.

Canvas Student Support Hub

A simple yet important way to ensure students are aware of the Student Support services available is to ensure they know to access the Student Support button in the Canvas global navigation menu, which connects students to a wealth of live and online Palomar student support resources from the library, online tutoring, STEM & Math Learning Center, Writing Center, computer lab staff, student help desk, counseling, Career Center, Student Health Services, CARE team, and more.

View: Student Success and Support Hub Page

Communication is key!

Students can be anxious about where and how they should first access their DE classes, and clear communication from faculty is very important.

Students add and drop up to and well beyond the first day of class. “Getting started” communications likely need to be repeated and available to students for review within the class.

Communication best practices

Communicate early and often
- Early and frequent communication can ease student anxiety and save you dealing with individual questions. Let students know about changes or disruptions as early as possible, even if all the details aren’t in place yet, and let them know when they can expect more specific information. Don’t overload them with email, but consider matching the frequency of your messages with that of changes in-class activities and/or updates to the broader crisis at hand. For example, if the campus closure is extended for two more days, what will students need to know related to your course?
Set expectations
- Let students know how you plan to communicate with them and how often. Tell students both how often you expect them to check their email and how quickly they can expect your response. Let them know, too, if you are using the Canvas Inbox tool since they may need to update their notification preferences.
Manage your communications load
- You will likely receive some individual requests for information that could be useful to all your students, so consider keeping track of frequently asked questions and sending those replies out to everyone. This way, students know they might get a group reply in a day versus a personal reply within an hour. Also, consider creating an information page in Canvas and then encourage students to check there first for answers before emailing you.

Preparing students to their online course

Students likely want to know:

where they should access the class,
when they should access it and get started,
how to navigate the class, and
what they should do in order to start strong.

Ideas for how you might provide students with this information:

Send a message to your students through MyPalomar or through Outlook before or on the first day of the semester
Create an announcement in your Canvas class that is released the morning of the first day of the semester
Create a screencast introducing yourself, your class, and your expectations. Link to it within your class, and also provide it in communications described above.
Ensure your class is available (published) in Canvas on (or before) the first day of the semester.

Canvas inbox

Canvas Inbox messages can only be sent to a class once the course is published and the course start date has passed. If you would like to send your class a message through the Inbox before the course start date, please override the course start date by adding section start date.

Since students can independently adjust their Canvas notification settings, sending a message through Canvas does not guarantee that the student will receive the message as an email. Prior to, and at the beginning of the course, it might be helpful to send them an email using Outlook or MyPalomar.

It is also helpful to remind students how to set their Canvas notification settings.

MyPalomar (Notify)

Faculty can use MyPalomar to email students using the students' Outlook email.

To get your students' email addresses, go to your roster and select "notify" at the bottom of the page. You will then be able to send them a message directly through MyPalomar, or you can copy the addresses and paste them into an Outlook email.