Designing a Motivational Syllabus

If you sign up for a course with specific calendar dates, this is a facilitated course. Our facilitated courses are offered completely online and are monitored daily by a live expert facilitator. In these courses there are specific due dates for assignments every few days and everyone is encouraged to work at a similar pace for the benefits of collegial discussion. You will want to be sure to select a session in which you are able to actively participate on most days during the allotted timeframe.

A self-paced course contains the same content and activities as the facilitated course, but does not include discussions or facilitator feedback. You can still walk through the step-by-step activities on your own timeline, and if you have purchased certificate of completion option, once you complete the complete the application activities, you can schedule a live 30-min phone/web meeting to brainstorm and receive feedback from an experienced facilitator, addressing your individual context and concerns. With this option, upon completion of the activities and individual facilitator session, participants receive a certificate of completion. Registration for the self-paced course includes unlimited access for the lifetime of this course, including future updates and additional resources. (At minimum, you will have guaranteed access at least one year from your registration date).

Our facilitated courses are offered in a fully-online asynchronous format through the Canvas software. There are NO real-time/synchronous meetings. Rather, active participation and specific due dates keep the group working together and sharing constructive feedback and ideas at each step of the process.

For example, there is typically a syllabus assignment and welcome introduction due on the first day, the second day may entail watching a short video, reading through a lesson, and responding to a teaching issue in a discussion. As the course progresses and you develop your own materials, there are often a few days between assignment submission due dates.

We understand that everyone has their own commitments outside of this course. The due dates are suggested and targeted to keep the group working together as much as possible in the facilitated courses.

Our self-paced courses are also designed to be completed in 15-20 hours, but you can complete them on your own time frame and schedule.

Each course is delivered in the Canvas Learning Management System. A basic familiarity with course management systems (such as Canvas) is helpful but not required to successfully complete the course. Application activities can be completed using Microsoft Word. Standard skills such as the ability to send and receive email, use word processing software, navigate the Internet, download and attach documents and locate downloaded documents on your computer should be sufficient.

Because the course is delivered completely online it is important that you have daily access to a computer and consistent, reliable broadband/high speed Internet access.

The related book is required for successful completion of most of our courses. These books are widely available at an affordable cost via the publisher website, Amazon, or your institutional or local library. A book is NOT required for either of the Significant Learning by Design courses.

Our courses are offered through canvas.instructure.com. If you use Canvas at your institution, please note that this is a separate Canvas website that is not connected to the Canvas site you may use at your own institution.

If you registered for a self-paced course, you will receive an email invitation to access the course upon receipt of payment. Please be patient as this is a manual process, but you should receive the email invite within 24 hours, often much sooner. The email invitation will be titled “Course Invitation” and will come from “Canvas Free for Teachers” at notifications@instructure.com. Please check your junk mail or spam folders if you do not see this email within 24 hours.

If you have registered for a facilitated course, please put the course dates on your calendar and block off at least one hour per weekday during those dates to participate. The week before your course begins, you will receive a welcome email with further details and an invitation to join the online course. You will need to create or activate your account with https://canvas.instructure.com once the course opens.

Once you receive the email invitation from notifications@instructure.com, click on the Get Started link in the email to access the course.  If you have not used this Canvas site before, you will need to create a new account using the same email address that you used to register for the course. If you have previously used the Canvas Free-for-Teacher website, you can log in with your existing credentials. A help guide for creating a new account can be found here.

Our courses are facilitated by expert faculty and are scheduled to be offered throughout the year. If the dates listed do not fit your schedule, you can try to find like-minded colleagues and contact us to schedule your own dates (available for groups of 6 or more). Be sure to sign up for our occasional newsletter to stay informed of upcoming dates.

Absolutely! We can create a dedicated course session with customized dates (pending availability) for groups of 6 or more participants. Please contact us and we will be happy to work with you.

CANCELLATION OR WITHDRAWAL FOR FACILITATED COURSES

Cancellation by Individual Participant:  Cancellations received prior to the “Register By” date are eligible for a full refund. Cancellations received after the “Register By” date but before the start date of the course are eligible for a 50% refund. Refunds can only be credited by check back to the original payee. Cancellations received after the course commences (the start date of the course or event) are not eligible for a refund.

Individual Withdrawal from the Course: If you believe that you will not be able to complete the course and must withdraw after the course begins (which includes the first day of the course), please be aware that refunds are NOT applied except in the case of extreme emergency. If you must withdraw from the course, you are welcome to enroll in another session at another time, but you will be required to pay the full course fee again. We recognize that everyone is juggling multiple personal and professional responsibilities, so please carefully ensure prior to the first day that you have the necessary time available to complete the course. We are also juggling the scheduling of courses, enrollments, and hiring expert faculty facilitators.

If you find that you must cancel your registration or withdraw from the course, please contact your facilitator and email us at info@intentionalcollegeteaching.org immediately.

Cancellation or Withdrawal for Institutional Groups: Registrations that are part of an Institutional Group (participants are part of a dedicated section and/or paid for as a group by their institution) are not eligible for a refund. For facilitated courses, Institutional groups have the option of substituting a registration for a different participant up until three days after the course commences. Institutional group payments are due 2 weeks before the course start date. After that time, unpaid balances are subject to a late payment fee of 3.75% every 30 days.

Cancellation by Intentional College Teaching: Intentional College Teaching reserves the right to cancel a facilitated course or event due to low enrollment or other circumstances which would make the course or event non-viable. Should circumstances arise that result in the postponement of an event or course, you will have the option to either receive a full refund or transfer registration to the same or a different course of the same type at a future date.

CANCELLATION OR WITHDRAWAL FOR SELF-PACED COURSES

Cancellation for Self-Paced Courses: For self-paced courses, cancellations or withdrawal situations do not apply. Once a participant has been given access to the Canvas course, no refunds are possible. You will have access to self-paced course for the lifetime of the course (at minimum one year from your registration date), including all future updates.