Orientation for Online Students

CETL has developed an Orientation for Online Students. The purpose of the orientation is to provide some effective strategies and resources for being a successful online student. The orientation is geared toward any UWM student taking an online course, not just (but including) those who are fully online. There are 10 main topics in the orientation:

  1. How Online Courses Are Different
  2. How to Start Off Well
  3. How to Budget Your Time
  4. How to Manage Your Tasks
  5. How to Stay Balanced
  6. How to Interact with Your Instructor
  7. How to Connect with Other Students
  8. How to Learn from Your Mistakes
  9. How to Be a Canvas Pro
  10. How to Get Technology Help

If you are teaching an online course, you might consider asking your students in the first week of the semester to submit evidence that they have completed the orientation. You could make it a required assignment, or you could give students extra credit. It is recommended that, at the very least, you go through the orientation yourself to see what advice is being provided to online students.

Students can use a link to self-enroll in the Canvas course site for the orientation, which is available on the Student Success Center website. To complete the orientation, students work through the 10 main topics and must earn an 80% or higher on a Knowledge Check (multiple-choice quiz). Upon meeting these requirements, students are automatically issued a badge, which they can then use to submit to you as evidence of completion.

To collect evidence that students completed the orientation, you will need to create an online assignment in your Canvas course site that allows “Website URLs” as the Submission Type. Students will need to make a free account in Badgr using their UWM email address, share their badges via a link in Badgr, and then paste the link into your online assignment.

If students have already completed the orientation for another class, they should not have to go through it again for your course. Providing evidence that they have gone through the training should suffice. Students will have continued access to the Canvas course site after they complete the orientation, so they can go back and review it as needed.

Please contact the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning with any questions.