Ramp Up Faster: Growing with Canvas Lite

erin_keefe
Instructure
Instructure
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Growing with Canvas is the teacher training course provided free in the Canvas Commons by the Learning Services Team at Instructure. Institutions can download or import it into their instance, customize it to fit their needs, and use it to help train their teachers how to use Canvas. To date, it’s been downloaded or imported over 5,500 times. 

 

We think it’s a great starting point. But, if you are trying to shift to remote learning rapidly due to school closures, it might be a little too much information for you right now. So here are some tips for how to slim it down - what I’m affectionately calling Growing with Canvas Lite. (There is an accompanying Google Sheet that lists every piece of the course and whether or not you should publish it - keep reading). 

 

Ready? Here we go!

 

Tip 1: Set the Home Page to Modules. We’re going for fewer clicks here! 


Tip 2: Remove the requirements from the Modules. Currently the course is optimized for asynchronous individual learning, meaning it forces a path for the learner. Take off the requirements and let the teachers pick from the list of the topics they need or want to learn in the order they want or need to learn it.

 

Tip 3: Don’t worry about the Introduction Module. It’s some stage-setting that’s nice to have in a full course, but we’re not focused on that right now, so let’s not publish it.

 

Tip 4: Consider not publishing the pieces the teachers have to submit. Throughout the course there are chances for teachers to apply what they are learning - a variety of Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes. It’s a nice-to-have when you have more time. For now? Consider skipping them.

 

Tip 5: Don’t worry about Module 5: Harvesting or Module 6: Completed Growing with Canvas. Module 5 has some of the higher-level Canvas concepts that your teachers probably don’t need right now, things like Groups, Commons, and importing/copying, while Module 6 is the course wrap-up. If you’re looking for quickest and most important, save these Modules for later. It’s possible you might need the concepts in Module 5...but unpublish for now.

 

Tip 6: Don’t worry about the Badges. This course is built to award them, but you don’t have to use any of that for now.

 

Tip 7: Don’t delete anything from the course. Just unpublish it, in case you want to use it later!

 

Tip 8: There’s no wrong way to customize this course. Publish the pieces that are important to you and your teachers. 

 

For an easy sheet that details what is Essential/Important/Optional in the course, check this out - Growing with Canvas Lite. Using this info you can take the course from 53 items to 20, and not lose any critical content. 

 

If you have any questions or concerns, we’re here to help. Just reply below!