Latest revision: 2022-01-24

The course design in Canvas is affected by the course's subject (e.g. if the course is practical or theoretical), if the course is given on campus or online etc. Canvas is a flexible tool and you need to decide on a design and strategy to best suit your course and content. Here follows a small introduction to the more in-depth material you'll find later on in the course.

Course design

Decide if you'll base your content on Modules or linked Pages. You can read more on that on the following pages. The advantage with Modules is that the students can go through the modules' content step by step using the Next and Previous buttons instead of constantly needing to go back to a Page with links.

Clean up the course navigation. Don't show more items than the course uses. Maybe it's enough whit Home, Announcements and Modules?

Lucidity

Utilize the text fields that Canvas offers in connections with most of the functions. Use metatext generously - what the learning objective is, in which context that is used etc. Answer, for the students, the Didactic Questioning: What, Why, How? Note that you can embed media in the text fields so if you'd like, please give your instructions a personal touch with e.g. a video!

Give a map of the course's content by using Modules or through an index on a Page.

Presence

The term is derived from the framework Community of Inquiry (e.g. Garrison, 2017) that raises the importance of the cognitive presence, the social presence and the teaching presence. Community of Inquiry concern the possibility for, and the will of the student to engage in the education and their learning, but also how your pedagogical thought is present in the course design, learning activite etc. Utilize the text fields that Canvas offers here as well, to encourage the student's presence and involvement. This can mean that you need to guide the students in the culture and rhetoric surrounding the course in how you e.g. discuss and give critique. Some may need to practice, on both the technique and the rhetoric, so think about e.g. to have an initial "harmless" discussion on the discussion forums before the real discussion assignment. Salmon (2011) raises the importance of introducing the technique before the student is expected to produce something with it.