Purpose of this Course

The purpose of this course is to ensure all faculty and staff at Marian University have a resource they can rely on that contain the basic critical components that make a Canvas course a useful tool from which students can learn. The course emphasizes researched, time-tested instructional design methods that you are encouraged to utilize to increase effective, efficient, and user-friendly courses. We emphasize using modules in order to create a learning path for students inside your Canvas course rather than using Canvas as an information repository.

Structure of Course

The course contains nine modules that step you through critical components that make up a solid Canvas course. We emphasize the effective design of the items discussed as well as the mechanics of how to use/add items. The modules include the following:

Critical Course Component: Context - What context is and why context is important to include inside of Canvas courses.
Critical Course Component: Usability - Why you should always be thinking about the student experience inside your course in order to ensure your courses are usable.
Modules - What modules are and ways to effectively structure modules to ensure they are user-friendly and creating a learning path for students.
Content Pages - What content pages are, why they are important, and the ways you might consider using content pages inside your course.
Assignments - How to insert and design effective Canvas assignments.
Discussions - How to insert and design effective Canvas discussions.
Tests & Quizzes - How to insert and design effective Canvas tests/quizzes.
Announcements - How to insert and design effective Canvas announcements.
Syllabus - What to consider including in your syllabus and where to place it inside of Canvas.