What is Canvas?

Latest revision: 2022-01-24

 

Canvas is your and your students’ work environment. The better you learn Canvas, the more you and your students can benefit from the learning platform. 

 

For your students

Material: If you build your course in a clear and structured way, your students will easier find the material they need. You can for instance publish texts, pictures, recorded lectures and links to websites which the students need to reach.

Information: Be accustomed to using announcements in your course so that the students always have access to current information. Students who want to can activate push in the mobile app to get a notification as soon as anything happens.

Feedback: You can give your students feedback, both by commenting directly in submitted assignments and by giving a more general comment. It is also possible to record oral feedback. The student will immediately see in Canvas when new feedback is published and can also go back and see previous reports linked to the assessed assignment.

Discussion and reflection: The discussion tool in Canvas can be set in different ways. By providing guidance and structure in the first discussions during a course, many students will have an easier time getting started with discussions. 

Collaborative learning: Either you distribute groups, or you create empty groups that the students can sign up for. As soon as a group is created, the students in it will gain access to common announcements, their own discussion page and opportunity to share files and work together in documents.

Peer review: In Canvas there is an option for using peer review built into the tool for assignments. You can either assign which student who is supposed to give feedback to whom, or just decide how many reviews each student should receive and then let Canvas randomize an even distribution.

Practice: With the quiz tool you can build self-tests where the students can practice on what they need. Set the quiz so the students can take it how many times as they wish.

 

For you

Overview and structure: In the grading tool, you have full control of how things are going with assignments and grading. You see who has handed in their assignment and who has gotten feedback. You can search, filter and sort in many ways. If you want all students to get their feedback at the same time, that is also a function in the grading tool. By adding grading rubrics to assignments, you will be given a structured way to assess them. 

Contact students: In Canvas’ inbox, you can send messages to a single student or a group of students. It will be shown which course a student is taking when a message is received. It is also possible to contact students from within the course, for instance by sending a message to all of those who are late with handing in an assignment.

Handle extended writing time: If you have students that have right to extended writing time, you can add exceptions from the time limits that apply to the rest of the group. In that way you can give all students the same assignment and then grade them collectively.

Re-use things that are good: It is easy to import material from another course. You can choose exactly what material you want to re-use when importing files. In that way you will not risk ending up with old, out-dated material in your course.

Share with colleagues: You can share course material to other teachers through Canvas Commons. You will also find material that others have shared with you there, and you can import that material to your course from there with a few clicks.