3 Easy Ways to use Canvas in your English courses
I came across Canvas a few years back and was absolutely smitten with it. It’s silly to think a piece of tech could be so captivating. Then again, not really. So many people tune in whenever Apple releases a new product to see what exciting features they’ve added. As educators, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that our ears perk up when we discover some worthwhile ed tech.
There is no shortage of ed tech tools out there, including learning management systems (LMS). An LMS is a program that allows teachers to manage the learning process. It’s a place where the teacher can post the course syllabus and outcomes. It’s also a place for teachers to share activities and materials. Finally, an LMS is there to give students feedback on their progress, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
I’ve used a few LMSs in my day, such as Edmodo, Blackboard, Apple’s iTunes U and Teacher apps, and Google Classroom. None I have found to be as robust as Canvas. There are some advanced features of Canvas that are unparalleled among popular LMSs. However, there are also some really basic features that could be handy for not so techie English teachers who are looking for something to organize their coursework.
Here are some easy features of Canvas that I think you should check out.
Modules
Modules in Canvas are a great way to organize course content. You can create modules based on lessons, weeks of the course, or by topics — however you would like to divide up the content. Once you have decided how you would like to organize your course, you can create and name modules based on the organization you choose.
Once the modules are created, you can begin to add content. This could be content pages which include text and links to videos and websites you want the students to review. Content pages are essentially blank pages that you can format however you like, but are mainly there to provide information to students.
You can also add assignments and quizzes to your modules. After the students read over the content pages, they can then complete corresponding assignments and quizzes. They will know which assignments and quizzes to complete because they will be included in the same module.
If you don’t want students to see the content in a module at the start of a course, you can choose not to make it public or schedule it to be made public, or published, on a specific date.
Assignments
Assignments are as they sound. They are the writing or speaking tasks you give to students during the lesson or to do on their own. As I said before, you can add these assignments to your modules, based on however you have structured the course.
What I like about the assignments in Canvas is that you are given lots of control of the setting of assignments. You can, of course, indicate how many points they are worth and the due date. You can also attach a rubric so the students can see how they will be evaluated.
You can create group assignments. If you do, you will have the choice to randomly create groups or create them manually. You can randomly choose a group leader or do so manually. You can also require peer reviews. As you might have guessed, you can manually assign peer reviewers, or that can be done randomly as well.
Students can type their work into Canvas, or they can upload a document. For speaking tasks, Canvas has a built in video recorder, so you can give a student a speaking prompt and they can record their response within Canvas. They record again and again and then submit it when they are happy with it.
You can then use the rubric you created to evaluate and give feedback on their speaking or writing.
Quizzes
Quizzes may not be new school, but there is a time and a place for a good old fashioned quiz.
Just like assignments, Canvas gives you quite a bit of control over the quizzes you design. Like assignments, you can add them to your modules, set a due date, and decide the point value. If you don’t want the students to access it right away, you can set a password and only reveal it when it’s time.
Like other quizzing tools, you can decide how long a student has to complete it, how many attempts they will get, and when they get to see their results. You can also decide to limit one question per screen, shuffle the question order, and prevent students from going back to a previous question once they’ve moved on.
You can build all your questions directly into the quiz. Alternatively, you can can create question banks and then link those banks to quizzes. You can link a bank to multiple quizzes, and you can also link multiple banks to one quiz. You can add as many questions as you like to a bank, and then decide how many questions from that bank you want on a quiz. Canvas will randomly choose the questions from the bank to pull.
There are a wide variety of question types that you can add to quizzes. Introduce more difficult question types when you feel your students need more of a challenge.