2.6 Structuring Your Canvas Course Site

Structuring Your Canvas Course Site

The success of your remote course, your learners, and your teaching depends in large part on how well you design the remote environment. Let's look next at putting your course design into action in Canvas. On this page, we will discuss how to use a template to begin building your Canvas site.

Using the OSU Template

To streamline your development of a well-structured Fall course that embodies best practices in blended and remote teaching, we have created the OSU Remote and Blended Teaching Template.

Instructions for importing OSU Template into your Canvas course site are as follows:

[Steps to import this template from Canvas Commons into an empty Canvas course site to provide basic course structure: Open your empty Canvas course site, on your home page click the Import from Commons button, and enter "Oregon State Teaching Template" in the search bar. Click on the name of the template when it appears, then click on the blue "Import/Download" button.]

Instructor Support Module

When you use the OSU Remote and Blended Teaching Template you will always have helpful instructor support resources at your fingertips at the top of the Modules page.

Getting Your Students Oriented - Using the Homepage

Upon course login, the student should be directed to a welcoming home page.  There is no one correct way to set up your home page - some instructors prefer to add links to key components of the course (such as the syllabus) and others like to include a brief introduction to the instructor and/or the course content.

The OSU Remote and Blended Teaching Canvas Template has an editable home page to start this process:

The "Start Here" module includes key resources to prepare students for the start of the course--a link to the syllabus, netiquette guidelines, course structure, and feedback expectation, etc.--that you feel is necessary to know before the start of class. If you are using Zoom for lectures or other types of synchronous sessions, you will want to include a student tech support guide and orientation to Zoom videoconferences in this area to allow students to troubleshoot and become familiar with the software before the start of class.

Within the Start Here module/page, you can personalize the Instructor Information and Communication Policy page with guidelines for communication online (perhaps duplicated from your syllabus language on this topic; expected course structure, and feedback expectations.

Consider the examples below for sample verbiage about course structure and feedback expectation.

Course Structure:
This online course is divided into X Modules as listed in the Modules tool.
Each Module is X weeks long. They normally include:

1. 1. 1. 1. Material for you to read, watch, and explore;
         2. An activity such as a discussion where you interact with your classmates in a small group, and
         3. A graded assignment to allow you to work with the concepts and resources (sometimes individually, sometimes together).

If the modules are not all visible at the beginning of the term, state what the modules are and when new modules will be released (at least two weeks in advance of the module start date).

Feedback Expectations: 
I will aim to provide you with feedback on each of the assignments within X days.  Make sure to check your instructor comments when you receive a notification that something has been graded. 

Finished here?

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