Purpose: In this module you'll be creating material to help students feel welcomed and oriented in your course by creating a "Getting Started" Module for your course. These will help your students feel prepared to learn on a cognitive, and motivated to learn on an emotional level - both of which are crucial to boosting student persistence in your courses.

Tasks:

Step 1: Check for orienting elements

Look over the course contents to make sure you've included each of these required elements. If not, think about how you can add them.

Guidance for course navigation - tell students how the course is organized, where to find the most important elements, and where to get started. Could be text or a short video.
Technical Guidance - point students to resources to help them with any technology you'll use in the course: Canvas tutorials, Zoom tutorials, and information about SSU IT help. Can be a standalone page or part of the syllabus.
Course expectations - help students understand what will be expected of them on a weekly- and semester-long basis. Can be a standalone page, part of the syllabus or part of the welcome letter.

Step 2: Include welcoming, humanizing materials

Required: A welcome message for students This can be a short "Welcome Students" letter, audio or video recording that briefly communicates your enthusiasm for teaching and the course. Learn more on how to easily record yourself in Canvas.
Optional:
- An "About your Instructor" page
- Tips for online learning success
- Syllabus/course scavenger hunt
- A pre-semester survey to learn about students' strengths and needs
- Link to a Course Question and Answer Discussion

Step 3: Create opportunities for Students to Connect to Peers

Choose a least one way to help students connect to each other in your course.

Peer to Peer Introductions Discussion
Icebreaker activities (this website is a great resource for icebreakers that work in multiple modalities)
low-stakes collaborative activity or discussion

Step 4: Create opportunity for student feedback

Learning has to be a dialogue. Even the most seasoned instructors still gather feedback from students to understand how they're learning and what they might need, looking for opportunities to improve. Plan to include at least one opportunity for students to provide feedback in your course. This could look like....

Weekly three-question survey (what did you learn this week, what was confusing, any other feedback)
periodic, simple anonymous feedback (on index cards or in a digital survey, you could ask "what should we keep, quit and start in our course" or "What's working? What's not working?"
Mid-semester survey. See our Surveys article in this module for technical and design considerations for student surveys.

Criteria for Success: Look at the samples and examples section of this module for inspiration for these elements! Feel free to copy/borrow/update/remix any of these materials -they're there for you!