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Background

If you're still new to online teaching, you may not have considered all the changes that will be important in your class syllabus. Your syllabus is a great place to start when redesigning a class to be offered online or in hybrid format. As you think through your class - how you have taught in a classroom, what you expect of students, and how you organize and orchestrate all of that - you may have some questions about how that translates to an online environment.

Revising your syllabus for the online environment is critical and inclusion of certain elements is required for distance education classes at MiraCosta. Simply reusing a syllabus designed for an on-ground class is likely to lead to confusion for you and your students.

MiraCosta Required Elements for DE Class Syllabi

Fortunately, MiraCosta again offers some official guidance (and requirements) in the form of the MiraCosta Syllabus Guidelines, a document produced by the Academic Affairs governance committee. These guidelines include a number of items specifically required in online and hybrid classes. The document is worth a look if you've never seen it to be sure you include ALL elements required on each class syllabus at MiraCosta. Here are the syllabus elements specifically required for DE classes:

Policy describing the frequency and timeliness of instructor-initiated contact
Policy describing how, where, when instructor provides feedback
Description of how, where, when course documents are made available to students
Support services available to online students
Any onsite meetings, for hybrid classes

The MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines support course includes examples of syllabus statements shared by MiraCosta faculty.

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