Canvas offers us help in the classroom with communicating with our students, helping our students communicate with each other, sharing resources, building learning opportunities, checking in on our students learning, and more. But do you ever get the feeling that it all feels a little plain? Or that the site just doesn’t reflect you as… Read more »
Course Design
Emphasize Time on Task
Outside of class, students should spend 2 hours preparing for every 1 credit hour (i.e. 6 hours per week outside of class for a 3 credit hour class). However, most students only spend 1 hour preparing per credit hour (i.e. 3 hours per week for a 3 credit hour class). During this hour, students often… Read more »
I want groups of assignments to contribute to the final grade by weighted percentages
Each instructor’s Canvas course can be as unique and as different as the various course offerings available at Indiana University. This is a great feature for customization, however can also become difficult when just trying to set your gradebook to calculate the way you had envisioned. Some instructors like to assign points to assignments based… Read more »
Take Me to Your Resource
Do you have an online resource that you ask students to frequently utilize? Many students will often bookmark these resources on their own, but it’s not something you can count on. Many instructors also place a link to the reference within assignments and instruction sheets. Some instructors have used the announcements tool to send out… Read more »
Beyond Course Content: Classroom Climate
At this point in my PhD, I am at the Beyoncé-level on the college learner greatness scale. I am a note-taking master, I am an exceptional close reader, and I have superior analytical skills (#humble). Certainly, I thought that all of my learner abilities would make me a great college instructor. Then, I started teaching…… Read more »