Module 1 Online Teaching Faculty Support

Foamy Waves

About this Page

Now that you know more about what the college asks of you as an online instructor, this page will provide an introduction to the resources the college provides to support you as you design and teach your classes, in terms of the technology, support, and people who are available to you.

Quick Support Starting Points

Canvas Support

24-7 Canvas hotline for faculty: 1-833-345-2890 or live online chat
Canvas Instructor GuidesLinks to an external site.
MiraCosta Canvas support home for facultyLinks to an external site.
MiraCosta Canvas tutorialsLinks to an external site.
Canvas Status website if you think Canvas might be down
MiraCosta Online Instructional Technologist, Karen Turpin, 760-795-6787

ITS Helpdesk

The ITS Helpdesk assists with account and password issues, computer questions, and institutional technologies such as the Microsoft Office suite.

HelpDesk website
HelpDesk on the Portal (to submit help tickets)
ITS How-To Guides
Phone: 760.795.6850

Instructional Designers

Instructional Designers work with faculty in many ways to support them as they design and teach classes!

Nadia Khan helps faculty and departments with course design and teaching issues, including enhancing online classes and materials for student equity and success. Schedule an appointment with Nadia.Links to an external site.
Stephanie Kelley specializes in supporting faculty using OER and ZTC materials. Schedule an appointment with Stephanie.Links to an external site.

MiraCosta (Online) Teaching Support Resources

Select each item below to see details.

MiraCosta Online Teaching Website: the TIC

The TIC website (tic.miracosta.edu) is a comprehensive support resource for MiraCosta faculty. It includes links to key documents which were mentioned earlier in this module, as well as extensive support materials, tutorials, and recorded Flex workshops. It's well worth your while to familiarize yourself with it!

The home page includes links to the Online Class Quality Guidelines, MiraCosta DE Handbook, recent news from the Online Education and Instructional Design department, and more
The Canvas section includes recordings of local workshops, links to key tutorials, design tips, and much more.
The Accessibility section provides guidance on accessibility regulations, designing accessible course materials, and using tools that help detect and correct accessibility concerns
The Workshops Archives section provides a reverse chronological listing of all recorded workshops offered by the Online Education department in collaboration with faculty
A section on Artificial Intelligence provides resources supporting your learning about generative AI tools
And, the site has a comprehensive set of guides to get you started with all the online instructional technologies the college supports which may enhance teaching and learning in Canvas (see the next section for a complete list)

Online Instructional Technologies

The list below is provided simply to help you get a quick feel for the technologies that are licensed and supported for you to teach with at MiraCosta. While you are welcome to click links to learn more about any of these, it is not necessary or expected as part of your completion of this module!

Canvas – the starting point
Adjust-All and TidyUP– make it easier to copy and reuse Canvas courses
DesignPLUS – a Canvas visual design tool
Zoom – if you’re using Zoom, make sure you’re using a pro Zoom account through MiraCosta.
Canvas Studio – enables faculty and students to create videos while inside Canvas. Faculty can create interactive discussion or quiz activities based on video. Auto-captioning and caption clean up tools are high-quality and easy to use, but not automatic!
Pronto is an incredible mobile-friendly and Canvas-integrated messaging platform that’s ready to use in every course.
Pope Tech helps faculty detect and correct accessibility issues within Canvas. The PopeTech dashboard tool (via the Pope Tech Accessibility course menu item) provides a course-level guide for addressing all accessibility issues in a course in one place.
SensusAccess provides multi-format course material accessibility and file type conversion options for students. If you notice an S symbol next to your page title and next to items in the Modules view, that’s SensusAccess.
Perusall is a social annotation tool available within Canvas that makes it easy for students to comment/discuss right on a text, document, or image.
Lab Archives Electronic Notebook is an online notebook especially useful for translating lab manuals and student notes/work into the online environment.
WeVideo (formerly PlayPosit) – This video interaction tool offers more complexity and options than Studio. Studio is a great place to start, but if you’re looking for more types of interactivity to add to your videos, this is a great option.
Turnitin – help students learn to properly cite sources and avoid plagiarism. Also provides grading and peer review tools for written work. Turnitin has included an AI detection capability for instructors, but please beware of false positives should you use it. Most experts agree that AI detection tools are extremely unreliable.

Which of these are you already familiar with? Which would you like to learn more about?

The C³ Teaching and Learning Center, PDP, and FLEX

The C³ Teaching & Learning Center Links to an external site.officially opened in the summer of 2019. Currently temporarily located in OC T250, a portable near the parking/campus police office, it offers space for faculty events and meetings, individual and collaborative work, exploration and innovation, and access to a number of specialized hardware and software tools. All MiraCosta faculty can access the space 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

The C³ TLC's Joyful Teacher in Residence is Erica Duran for 2026-27. Contact her for more details about use of the C3 space, as well as for general faculty teaching support.
The Professional Development Program (PDP) coordinates MiraCosta's FLEX program, which provides faculty workshops as well as the structure which enables faculty to document their required hours for completing FLEX activities. Many FLEX workshops are offered during FLEX week, which occurs at the start of each fall and spring semester; others occur during the semester. There are many other ways for faculty to fulfill their FLEX requirements.

View the PDP FAQ and join the PDP Canvas site to learn more about PDP and FLEX, and to participate in a variety of discussions about all manner of topics important to faculty. And be on the lookout for emails and other communication from Delores Loedel, MiraCosta's current PDP coordinator.

Your Department

As mentioned previously, it can be important to connect with your department chair and/or a lead faculty member for the course(s) you have been assigned to teach. Many departments will provide some resources and/or guidance as you develop your online classes and being teaching, for example:

Curriculum requirements from the Course Outline of Record
Canvas course materials or other shared resources to help you build your course
Departmental policies/guidelines/expectations for your teaching

California Community Colleges Online Teaching Support

CVC/@ONELinks to an external site. offers free self-paced and facilitated short coursesLinks to an external site. on a variety of online teaching topics for faculty from throughout the CCC system. Many faculty have opted to pay the nominal fee for college credit for some of these courses to assist in salary advancement.
The CCC Online Teaching ConferenceLinks to an external site. (OTC) occurs each June, typically in Anaheim or Long Beach. The office of Online Education provides support for a number of MiraCosta faculty to register for this conference each year.