In this fall’s first Active Teaching Lab on August 20, 2019, over 20 participants from numerous departments and programs gathered to share examples from their Canvas course sites, discussed past experiences, and proposed ways to improve in the future.

Takeaways from the Lab:

“Module 0” can be designed as an opportunity for students and instructors to start the year off strong!

• Centralize Access to Course Information through Canvas Pages to house deadlines, important links, and other critical information about your course.
• Communicate Student Responsibilities in all facets of academic success, including time expectations, technology requirements, peer-peer and peer-teacher interaction standards, and suggest where to seek help from campus services. Consider a statement in the syllabus that refers students to campus resources and acknowledges the challenges of completing coursework with less-than-reliable technology.
• Foster community and relationships by offering students opportunities to learn about one another as well as the instructor. One contributor suggested inviting former students to give written or recorded testimonials about study strategies, better time management, and more!
• Use “Module 0” introduce and train students on the different features of Canvas, especially those that you will use over the course of the semester (e.g., how to upload assignments, access Discussions, log-in to video conferencing, etc.
• Take the time to show students how to change their notification settings on their devices: iOS and Android instructions here.

For more information visit the session’s activity sheet.

Video

The Active Teaching Lab is a Faculty Engagement program with sessions held on Wednesdays from 1:00-2:00pm and Fridays from 8:30-9:45am, both sessions are in the Middleton Building (1305 Linden Dr.), room 120. Check out upcoming Labs or read the recaps from past Labs. We build interdisciplinary conversations that are more emergent than a presenter and more dynamic than a panel — a conversation with colleagues sharing challenges, solutions, and experiments on topics selected by a variety of stakeholders.

Sign up for regular Lab announcements by sending an email to join-activeteaching@lists.wisc.edu.