Reach out to an Instructional Designer to discuss the unique nature and considerations for teaching a shared course. If your course is scheduled in a room, also connect with IT on your campus to discuss the technology available in the room. Make a plan to test the technology in the room before the first day.

When your course is part of a Shared Program or offered on the DLC, you will have students enrolling from multiple campuses which means you will have multiple course sections in Canvas for the same class. Therefore, you will want to merge the course sections so that students are all in the same place in Canvas.  We highly suggest seeking out instructional design support to help in merging your classes, especially the first time going through the process. 

Enable Zoom in your Course Navigation and use the integration to schedule class meetings. Be sure to enable Closed Captioning in your Zoom settings, along with any other tools that will improve student engagement. 

Using the Canvas-Zoom integration allows you to easily create and manage class meetings and also allows students easily find the class Zoom link. 

Additionally, if you will be sharing your class recordings, you should enable the Kaltura Media Gallery tool. This allows you to easily post class recordings in Canvas, either automatically or manually.  

Prior to the first day of classes, publish your Canvas Course and send a welcome email to students which includes information about connecting to the class. 

The weather can vary significantly from one campus to another. Review the campus closure policy for Shared Programs and DLC courses and make weather contingency plan, including how you will communicate with students about closures and delays.

We recommend that you subscribe to PSU Alerts for all the campuses represented in your course. Please keep in mind that campuses follow a variety of late start schedules, some run compressed schedules and others start later but with a regular schedule.

Build in community building activities to your course to foster cross-campus connections and belonging. This could include activities for a synchronous class, as well as an ‘Introduction Discussion’ in Canvas.

Check out the Online Synchronous modules of the Teaching Online Program (TOP) for community building ideas. 

Prioritize active learning when designing a synchronous shared course. Structure your class time to include an opening, frequent checks for understanding, reflections, group discussions, and other activities.

In an in-person class, you might pick up visual cues from your students and adjust your instruction as needed. Noticing cues like this can be more challenging in an online environment, and therefore, we must be more intentional about how we design a class session to include more opportunities to gather informal feedback from students.

Check out the Online Synchronous module of the Teaching Online Program (TOP) for active learning ideas.