Snapshot
This post highlights the top tips provided by Texas State University faculty for the My Canvas Tips series.
Over the past few months, Texas State University faculty have been sharing their Canvas advice with their peers in the My Canvas Tips series. In this post, I will highlight the top tips for each section/subject/topic for easy consumption.
All hyperlinks will take you to the original My Canvas Tips post for further reading.
SpeedGrader
Many of our contributors mentioned SpeedGrader as one of their favorite tools in Canvas. Here are some of the reasons why:
- You can move smoothly and easily from one student to another.
- You can view an individual student’s Discussion comments and posts in one place.
- You can provide feedback in writing or through audio comments.
- You can annotate and grade without ever having to leave Canvas.
- You can use shortcut keys to streamline grading and minimize clicks (1st post, 2nd post).
Navigation
There are many different setup options for your Canvas course, but with all of them, it is essential that you think about how students will navigate the content.
There are many different options when it comes to setting up your course in Canvas. Whichever option you use to set up your course, it is essential that you think about how students will navigate the content. Here are some of the navigation tips that were shared:
- Minimize the navigation shortcuts you allow students to view in the Course Navigation sidebar to avoid overwhelming them.
- Remember that, depending on how your course is set up, students may see “Back” and “Next” buttons at the bottom of each Module Page/Assignment/etc. – think about how this might affect how they move through the course.
- When appropriate, consider directly linking to documents and assignments within Canvas pages.
- Use Modules “To Dos” as a timeline to help students keep track of graded assignments and review content.
- BONUS: To make navigating Canvas easier for yourself, open Canvas in multiple tabs on your browser so you can get to the page you need with more ease.
Modules
Modules are a great way to organize your content in Canvas. Here are some tips for using Modules:
- Remember to always publish each Module or else students will not be able to see them.
- Try making a template for your Modules in Canvas and then using the “Duplicate” function to make copies (rather than building each module from scratch).
- Label modules clearly so that students won’t need to guess where to find the content they want to review.
Discussions
- Consider having multiple sections participate in the same Discussion forums to add variety.
- Consider using Canvas’ ability to split the class into groups to create group Discussions for building a sense of community in your course.
Other Top Tips
- Relax and have fun learning how to customize your course site.
- Make use of Canvas’ ability to send messages to groups of students directly from Grades (1st post, 2nd post).
- Use Rubrics to give students a broad understanding of expectations and to streamline grading.
- Use Commons to save content you’re really proud of and to share your course designs with colleagues.
- Use the Calendar functions to set up Appointments for class meetings and office hours (1st post, 2nd post).
- Use images to enhance your course:
- Remember to publish your images in Files or else students will not be able to see them.
- Name your images so that they are easy to find but without giving away answers to your students (if the image is used as part of a quiz or test question).
- Consider adding a Dashboard image for your course.
- Reach out to the Office of Distance and Extended Learning (ODEL) for help formatting your course (original #1, original #2).
- You can schedule time with members of the ODEL team through our Bookings Portal.
These are just some of the tips that you can explore in our My Canvas Tips series.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this series! Let’s keep the conversation going!
Do you have Canvas Tips that you would like to share with the TXST community? If so, reach out to Tamarin Butcher (t_b246@txstate.edu) or Leslie Hale (ldh83@txstate.edu) for more information.