College of the Canyons provided a three-hour training session for 45 William S. Hart Union High School District instructional coaches and administrators on Tuesday, Aug. 5, to help them with the current transition to online learning.

Held via teleconferencing software, the session addressed the best practices for online teaching and learning, and discussed how Hart teachers could apply these approaches in their virtual classrooms.

“We’ve enjoyed collaborating with and learning from our colleagues with the Hart District,” said Joy Shoemate, interim director of online education at the college. “Our students are their students, and their students are ours. We hope that this project paves the way for more collaboration.”

The Hart teachers who participated in the training session will share what they learned with their colleagues who are currently completing a supplemental self-paced online course created by COC. The course covers topics including communicating with students, humanizing an online presence, building community online, promoting equity online, and assessing student learning.

“We are very grateful for our partnership with COC and their faculty who were instrumental in providing this online training for our teachers,” said Jan Daisher, director of special programs and professional development for the Hart District. “We enjoyed collaborating on this project throughout the month of July customizing the course for the Hart District. Through their experience as online instructors, they shared their best practices with our own teachers who are doing great work moving forward in providing online distance learning for the start of this new school year.”

The live training session included a panel with the following experienced COC online instructors: Robert Wonser (Sociology), Julianne Johnson (History), Erin Delaney (English), Ambika Silva (Math), Erica Seubert (Biology), Jennifer Paris (Early Childhood Education), and Michelle LaBrie (Psychology).

“During the fall semester, we’ll reconvene for another synchronous session, to see how it’s going, answer questions, and exchange experiences,” said James Glapa-Grossklag, dean of educational technology, learning resources, and distance learning at the college. “We’re excited to learn from our colleagues with the Hart district and look forward to more collaboration with them.”