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Guiding principles to a well-designed Canvas course

Published 07 Sep 2022 by Kiruthika Ragupathi and Kenneth PINTO

The key to using the Canvas learning management system is to provide your students with a conducive learning environment. It acts as the main interface for students with any course. Course sites designed using good practices are simple for students to navigate and easy for instructors to use and maintain.  

These six principles inform good practices for a well-designed Canvas course: 

1. Create a good first impression of your course site

  • Create a course site that helps students feel welcome in the course and have a smooth student experience. For example, you can create a “Getting started” page or use the “Syllabus” as the home page to let students know what the course is about and how to find what they need to succeed in the course.  
  • Introduce the teaching team by including personalised elements and contact information for getting help.  
  • Add a page that includes a statement of care, inclusion, and support for students. 

2. Keep it simple

  • Make course navigation simple, easy, and intuitive such that it helps students orient quickly to the organisation of the course
  • Follow a consistent format to how the course is put together and follow consistent naming conventions for files, folders, sections, assignments, and quizzes.
  • Keep headers, text formatting, and visual elements simple and clean to enhance clarity.

3. Organise content in a logical, coherent format

  • Structure and deliver your course by grouping content into logical and coherent modules to provide a clear roadmap for students.
  • Chunk content into manageable pieces. For example, organise content chronologically by week, topic, theme.
  • Communicate course learning outcomes and learning objectives to students within the course site.
  • Provide all relevant content, learning activities, assignments, and supplementary resources in chronological order within a module.

4. Communicate clearly and regularly 

  • Communicate clearly all the requirements for the course, the assessment tasks, class activities and student responsibilities. Regular communication can motivate students to stay on track.
  • Use Announcements to send weekly reminders at the same time each week, links to special events, or a follow-up to important discussions in class.
  • Communicate what students can expect from their learning experience in the course. Consider the following:
    • Make activities, assignments, and their deadlines clear and consistent. Use due dates when you set up the assignments, quizzes, and discussions so that students will receive notifications to remind them of approaching due dates, and these academic tasks will appear on their Canvas Calendar.
    • Make class meeting times, location, and links prominently visible and easily accessible.
    • Make assessment policies and grading breakdown clear.
    • Use rubrics so that students fully understand your expectations.

5. Leverage on course templates 

    • Use NUS course templates available on Canvas Commons, rather than building your course from scratch
    • Helps you focus more on curating content and resources

6. Review the content before releasing to students 

    • Review your course site before you let your students access it—that way you can verify that they see what you intend them to see. For example, preview the course site in Student view to check if the assignments appear as anticipated, links are accessible, the content (e.g., lecture notes, readings, videos, assignments) appears as expected and the modules are released and accessible as required.
    • Ask colleagues to review your course site to check for simplicity and navigability.
    • Consult with your students (past and/or present) before or at the beginning of the semester.

Resources

Additional Reference

Faculty Focus: What Students Want: A Simple, Navigable LMS Course Design 

Published in Guiding principles