Title: Comm 1020 Get to Know Your Course
Course: BTEC-1300-301-302-303-F21

Navigating the Course

This course is a fully online course, which means that much of the content is delivered on the pages in the course. It is important to not skip any of the pages in the course by just going directly to the quizzes and assignments like you might do for a face-to-face class.

The course is designed for you to progress linearly. The pages, quizzes, discussions, and assignments build on each other in a particular order. You’ll want to start with the orientation module and then move through each of the pages in each week. You can do this by using the Next button at the bottom of the page or by using the "Modules" tab on the left-hand menu. These are the best ways to view the course (not via the other tabs on the left or the to-do list on your dashboard).

The following is an overview of each of the tabs in the left-hand menu.

The "Modules" tab will allow you to see all of the pages in the course. From this view of the course, you can navigate straight to any page in the course.

“Discussions,” "Quizzes," and "Assignments" will take you to a global view of each of these items in the course. These are for your convenience, but it is best to navigate through the course using the Modules tab.

"Grades” will track your points earned on assignments in the course.

“People” gives you the list of students in the class.

"Conferences" is where your instructor will hold virtual office hours.

"Media Gallery" provides a list of all of the media in the course.

"My Media" is where you upload your speeches.

Unit Structure

Below you will notice a screenshot of a typical unit in Canvas as seen from the Modules tab on the left hand side.

- Notice that each unit begins with an overview page that includes a description of the major speech for the unit.
- Also notice that the pages are divided into weeks. All of the material listed under the week header is to be done during that week.
- Most weeks have several overview pages that let you know what you will learn and what you will do for that section. Most sections have a quiz and some have a discussion.
- Most weeks have assignments and discussions related to the major speech.

Weekly Schedule

Each new week begins Monday and has both Thursday and Sunday deadlines, so you should participate in the course on several days throughout the week. In general:

- By Monday night you should have read all the overview pages for the week so that you know how to plan your time for the week.
- By Thursday you should have
  - Completed the text readings and read the canvas pages
  - Completed the quiz
  - Made your initial response on the content discussion boards and the peer review boards.
- By Sunday you should have
  - Responded to your peers on the discussion boards and peer review boards.
  - Completed any remaining assignments

Icons

Throughout the course you will see icons that call attention to certain items.

 | This icon indicates that you should pay special attention to the ideas and directions that follow the icon.
 | This icon indicates that the questions and statements that follow are for you to think about. You will not need to turn in the answer to them anywhere, but thinking about them will help you better understand the concepts and so do better on the quizzes and the discussions.
 | This icon indicates that the list that follows is the learning objectives that the page will discuss or that the assignment assesses.

Tabs

You will notice that some pages have tabs. Make sure to visit each tab to get all the course content. Note that these tabs will not work when using the Canvas App. When using the App, each of the tabs will be a blue link at the top of page that will take you to that section of the page. For best functionality, access Canvas on your mobile devices using the Google Chrome browser (Safari okay) instead of the App.

Rubrics

Rubrics let you know how you will be assessed on your assignments. Canvas has a tutorial for how to view rubrics for assignments. Canvas has a tutorial for how to view rubrics for discussion boards. Canvas also has a tutorial about how to see rubric results.

Discussions and assignments usually have unique rubrics, so you should make sure to check the rubric for each to see how you will graded.