Some Getting Started @RTC Activity Examples

1. Ask students to attend RTC's new student orientation (live and recordings available): https://rtc.edu/orientation

2. Have students review the Canvas Login page, where we provide a self-enroll in "Getting Started at RTC" link and our (updated every quarter) Student Welcome Letter

3. Provide a short technology & support needs survey before your class starts. NOTE: We've posted the following survey questions in a shared Course Commons survey for any faculty to add to their Canvas course to use as is or adjust as desired, https://lor.instructure.com/resources/904992b4d4de40caaabfed69f1a9461e?shared

• How will you access your RTC Canvas account? (a smart phone, tablet, laptop, or a desktop computer)

• Which browser do you use when working in Canvas? (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, IE)

• Do you have reliable Internet access?

• What potential difficulties might you anticipate when working on online and what might you do to overcome those difficulties?

• Do you know how to find and contact RTC's Service Desk (student support)?

• How can I best assist you during our quarter together?

Elevate student success, include ideas like the following on your course syllabus and/or course welcome page

• This course requires a lot of writing. While you wait for the course to start, it will help if you work on your typing. Here is a great website to visit: http://www.typing.com/. I am looking forward to our class next week!

• This course will take __ to ___ hours of time each week. During our 3-2-1 Start! period,, please arrange your schedule so that you will be able to put lots of energy here.

• This course will require ____________ textbook. Make sure you have all of your material before we start!

• Welcome to the course – we will start next week! In the meantime, please look over _________ so we can have a discussion on it soon after the course starts.

• Post a quizlet study set of useful vocabulary on the homepage. Message: This course will have some new terminology in it. Are you familiar with https://quizlet.com/ ? This tool can help you create flashcards to study with during the upcoming quarter.

• During our first week we will be focused on ___________. Please think of 3 things you already know about that to contribute to our discussion next week.

Week Zero: Student Engagement Ideas

If your course is topic-heavy and there is little extra time during the quarter, use Week Zero (the 3 business days when Canvas courses are published for early student access before the start of our official quarter) to let students get to know each other with one open discussion:

• Please share 3 things you are most looking forward to learning in this class.

• What do you want us to know about you as we study together?

• Take a learning styles quiz here. What does this tell you about how you should approach learning in this course?

Related: See Faculty Expectations: Faculty Expectations