Hi, my name is Katharine Costello and I’m here to inform you, the administrators

and professors of Penn State Abington, on the tips and tricks to creating an amazing
Canvas page for you and your students. During this presentation I will be showcasing a
few examples of existing Canvas pages. I have taken the time to analyze their
conventions and formatting in order to inform the faculty on the multitude of Canvas
features in the hope of giving clarity on how to use this relatively new program. My
ultimate goal is to make all professors aware of frequently used tools that support
student learning. As I am a student, I can tell you what my peers and I seek from online
resources and help you improve your existing pages.

Some basic conventions of Canvas pages are the organization of links to your
syllabus, modules for different units, returned grades for the students with comments,
and more! (We will dive deeper into the specifics as I go over the examples.)

The first example shown here is very streamlined. It is very helpful to have the
syllabus as the first thing students view when opening the page. However, there is no
other information for students to access.

The second example I have displayed is not only attractive to the eye, but it is
also packed with useful resources for students. It is clear that this professor uses
Canvas to frequently update students about upcoming assignments, administer quizzes,
and return grades. An engaging activity that is also included on this Canvas page is the
discussion feature. Here, students are able to interact with each other. This is
particularly helpful as it allows students to interact outside of class and can help quieter
students join conversations that they may not have if it were not online.

In the third example, the professor takes advantage of the module feature and
organizes their posts by week number. This can be a huge help to students who may
have trouble with dates as they can collapse the assignments as the weeks go by.
Additionally, this professor posts all of the assignments a week in advance and they
appear under their students’ Canvas calendars. In my opinion, this is the most useful
feature and should be used much more frequently than it is.

As you can see here, when professors choose to post their assignments through
Canvas they all show up together on one calendar. With this, the students can have
easier access to their homework and visualize their work. And this really helps students
time manage better. However, this feature is only of significant benefit to students who
have most or all of their professors choose to post their assignments in this fashion.

Overall, I want to bring to your attention the most crucial elements for you to
publish on your own Canvas pages. The most important features that professors should
post when using Canvas with their students are a syllabus page, an updated grade
page, and an assignment page with due dates that are linked to the calendar feature.
These all promote student learning and should be utilized more frequently. And I would
like to acknowledge that this is especially important for professor’s of first year students
as they are the least experienced and need all of the resources they can get. My advice
in regards to having more consistent layouts for different Canvas pages would be to
consider implementing training for professors who may need help.

All in all, I appreciate you taking the time to listen to my analysis and feedback on
canvas pages and hope you consider my advice to enhance student learning!