Times of transition and change can be overwhelming. We know the entire OSU community is experiencing some form of change right now, and that students in particular may be feeling overwhelmed as they anticipate fall term. We also know that students trust the advice and resources they hear about from you. This puts you in a unique position to support students throughout the term. As you prepare for fall, I’d like to highlight one way you can clarify the availability of resources to students in your courses.
One starting point is integrating the “Where Do I Go for Help?” page into your Canvas course site as a module page.* This page emphasizes a range of support for students—including support for technology, accommodations, academics, and COVID updates—and provides direct links to resources. While not a comprehensive list, the page provides key connection points to reduce the burden of identifying and navigating to resources, and to help students reach out. Including this page on your Canvas course site provides a great opportunity to normalize and encourage resource use.
Beyond this “Where Do I Go for Help?” page, if you want to support a student but are unsure of available resources or don’t have time to talk through resources with students in the moment, you can always connect students with the Academic Success Center. We’ll help students locate and connect with resources across the university. Students can visit our website to connect with us via email, phone, Zoom, or live chat (coming in September). Thank you for partnering with us to connect students to information and resources to support their fall learning.
*Directions (2-min. process): To import “Where Do I Go for Help?” into a Canvas course site, go to the homepage of any of your Canvas courses, and click on Import from Commons at the right or bottom of the window. Now you’re on Canvas Commons, where you can search for “Where Do I Go for Help?” and select the “Oregon State – Where Do I Go for Help?” card. Then click on the blue Import/Download button on the right and choose the course into which you would like to add the page. Click on the blue Import into Course button down at the bottom of the page. Voila! Now you can add this page to a module in the course, either to your first module (e.g., “Getting Started”) or in a resources section you have created.
Please note that the “Where Do I Go for Help?” page is also part of the OSU Remote and Blended Teaching Canvas Template. If you’ve imported this template into your Canvas course, then you already have the page in your Start Here module.
Clare Creighton is Director of the OSU Academic Success Center.
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