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Welcome! |
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Step 1: Update Your Profile and Contact Your Professor |
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In this first step, you will update your profile with your information and email your professor to set up an appointment by phone. This appointment request must include your contact information, such as personal email and a current phone number, so the professor will be able to contact you. This will provide an opportunity to clear up any questions you may have about the course.
Watch this video on how to update your profile, contact information, and settings:
Instructure Canvas Community. (2019). 101 – User settings & profile picture [Video].
Available at https://vimeo.com/74243735
In addition to contacting your professor by these means, you will also be required to attend two on-ground sessions with your instructor and other classmates, where you can address any other questions and discuss key concepts to help strengthen the knowledge you have gained. Your instructor will specify the time and date of the sessions under Announcements on your course homepage.
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Step 2: Study and Discuss the Syllabus |
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The syllabus contains important information that is vital to your successful completion of this course. To view your course syllabus, go to the Syllabus link in the main course menu, where you will also find the course calendar and activities. Read it over carefully. Your professor will discuss the syllabus during the first on-ground session.
To access your course syllabus (online & PDF format), go to the course menu and press the Syllabus link.
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Step 3: Academic Integrity and APA Style |
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At Florida Technical College (FTC), we seek to equip our students for success as both students and professionals. Maintaining academic integrity is an essential component to achieve this goal. In this step, you will review best practices for academic integrity and avoiding plagiarism, as well as the correct format for citing sources, providing references, and writing papers according to the APA Style Manual.
For examples of how to reference different types of sources in APA format, you can use the following APA Style Quick Guide, APA Style Quick Guides, which will provide you with a quick and easy reference to the basic standards of APA writing style for our institutions, regarding the structure and organization of written works, the different types of citations, and the reference list.
For more detailed information and tutorials on APA style, you can visit the following APA Style websites.
APA Style. (n.d.). Style and grammar guidelines. https://apastyle.apa.org.
APA Style. (n.d.). APA style blog. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog
Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). (n.d.). APA style introduction. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/
You can also visit our Virtual Library: https://libguides.crev.edukgroup.com/c.php?g=881226&p=6354834
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Step 4: Course Content Overview |
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Each FTC course is divided into four weeks and contains discussion forums, out-of-class work, a midterm, and a final. Depending on the nature and topic of your course, you may also have additional quizzes, labs, and projects. Here is an example of an evaluation criteria table similar to the one you will find in your course.
| Groups | Online / On-Ground | % of Total | Activity # | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | TOTAL |
| Professionalism | ONL / ON-G | 5% | ||||||
| Attendance and Participation | ONL Discussion Forums | 15% | ||||||
| ONL-G Attendance | ||||||||
| Out-of-Class Work | ONL | 20% | ||||||
| Lab and Quizzes | ON-G | 20% | ||||||
| Assessment Task | ONL | 10% | ||||||
| Midterm Assessment | ON-G | 10% | ||||||
| Final Assessment | ON-G | 20% | ||||||
| Final Grade | 100% | |||||||
The first group of activities is the Professionalism category – your performance in this category will be evaluated throughout the entire course.
Professionalism refers to your compliance in contacting your instructor for any absences, with updates regarding the reason for the absence, a return date, and makeup work requests, keeping cell phones on vibrate while in live class sessions and using them only in urgent/emergency situations, maintaining respectful communication in the classroom and on ground, and observing the college dress code while in live, camera-operated or videotaped classroom sessions. It also includes regularly participating online via the Canvas platform, completing assignments, maintaining respectful and clear communication with your professor and classmates at appropriate times, playing an active role in collaborative assignments, and exercising intellectual honesty, as well as other related forms of professionalism.
Professionalism is key to your academic success and career preparation, and we are committed to help you develop or enhance the proper aptitude of a professional. Click here to examine the rubric used to evaluate professionalism in FTC courses.
The Attendance and Participation category will be evaluated mainly through your participation in the discussion forums. The other evaluation criteria categories will be evaluated through specific rubrics for graded activities throughout the course weeks.
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Summary: |
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Now that you have completed these initial steps, you are more familiar with the platform and have a good idea of what to expect in the course. At this point, you can move on to the specific subject matter activities with a clear understanding of your responsibilities, the grading system, and the ground rules for this course. You are now ready to begin Week 1.
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