[Modules] Hiding and Viewing Modules for Individual Sections

[GideonWilliams]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas LMS

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Parts of this have been mentioned in previous requests (Modules within Modules and others) and I wonder if this is more to do with the needs of K12 than beyond?

We run a model based on UK curriculum which may be different to other school models (10+ subjects in a timetable, classes selected by ability, external examinations in 2/3 year groups, different content taught depending on the class etc). Having begun our implementation of Canvas the last thing we wished to do is create individual courses for each class and teacher in a subject. With up to 9 classes in a subject this would be an administrative nightmare and would go against much of what I believe a VLE is for - forward facing, collaborative, personalised, sharing of resources etc.

The reality is at school level it is very very difficult to create a core course that is truly personalised without some form of conditions/restrictions especially as "content is king". We add our classes as separate sections which enables assignments to be posted to individual classes. We would dearly like Canvas to go further and enable this option for other content such as pages/links etc.

The idea being suggested though is for teachers to be able to hide/view modules for individual sections

This would allow content (pages, links etc) to be viewed by individual sections. It would give teachers and students the best of both worlds. Modules could be 'turned on' for all sections or individual sections. It would allow you to create differentiated blocks of content/resources eg for those students who are perhaps sitting the 'Higher Level' exam. It would also allow us to support subjects where they have banded/set ability groups. It would also support subjects where topics are done on rotation due to resourcing. It would also reduce the risk of common core subjects such as Maths/Science developing vast 'silos' of resources/modules and making navigation harder than it should be. Would it also be less messy than Conditional activities?

I know that some suggestions have talked about creating extra courses but with the majority of our students having up to 15 courses to manage, the last thing I wish to see is doubling up courses and reducing engagement.

I think this is more of a K12 issue and it would be nice to see a little bit of love sent their way...

UPDATE: APRIL 2018

I was at the Dutch Users Group consortium on Friday. This consortium represents a sizeable and growing number of universities, colleges and schools within the Netherlands. As a group, we identified a number of ideas we wished to take forward and the one above emerged as a clear favourite (without any prompting from me!)

This is now an idea that has support across multiple educational organisations and the benefits of this idea are seen as hugely positive and wide ranging.

As the last comment on this was 16 months ago and 2 years since the idea was published, it would be nice to know what progress, if any, has been made here.

[dli1]

This capability should not apply solely to modules but to pages and assignments as well.  The main problem is that whatever structure a given instructor uses for their course, it is cumbersome to create individual exceptions (for any number of good reasons) without affecting all students with confusing announcements and access that are undesirable.  This was a standard feature in Blackboard and I have lost it in the shift to Canvas.  And NO, adaptive release does not serve exactly the same purpose in many situations.

[GideonWilliams]

I am hugely disappointed that Canvas does not consider this a key feature especially from a pedgogical standpoint. They are not even prepared to do this for sections - https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/5319-hiding-and-viewing-modules-for-individual-sections?sr=sea...‌ . The feedback that I have been given is that the request does not have interest beyond a particular user group (Netherlands) which I believe is simply not true.

[millersd]

A similar idea/request is rising in popular vote and could use all of your support.  Here is the link: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/5689-unlocking-modules-for-individual-students 

[GideonWilliams]

Thanks  @millersd  . I have contacted the Dutch Users Group to encourage them to throw their support behind this idea.

[GideonWilliams]

Another EDtech idea mothballed for a further year. Personalisation of learning content is such an important feature. We need the flexibility of providing different content for different individuals outside of Mastery Paths and external Conditions. We also need to encourage staff to share content in live ways not through Teacher only courses. 

[angela5]

Hi Stefanie,

I still think this would be an amazing idea and so useful!

Angela Chartrand

[linkrohn]

On a University level, we are able to have students onground connect to segments online to do make-up sessions.  The problem is in our lengthy courses (22 weeks) with multiple instructors; the students clutter the grading speedgrader and confuse the instructors as to who is in attendance in those non-audited courses.  This is not use friendly for the administrators, instructors, and students.

This needs to be considered a priority.

Lin Krohn

[jfountain]

We need the ability to publish modules by section and/or by student.  Thank you!

[candice_mcphers]

We could really use this feature.

We would like for instructors to be able to override requirement completion for individual students.  Moodle now has this feature in its adaptive release function. It happens for Moodle in the area where teachers go to monitor completion. 

In Canvas, it would be great to add this ability in the "View Progress" area for for student completion of modules. In the list of items to be completed by the student, create a switch teachers can flip to mark that item as complete.

Reasoning

This would be useful in a number of extenuating circumstances where a single student or more needed to skip a particular item.

In our particular use case, sometimes we have to move students to a different instructor's shell to even out enrollments size (for our virtual program, our enrollments are in flux and not always set in stone prior to the term). When this happens, those students temporarily "Lose" their check marks and panic. It doesn't matter if we've given them workarounds or told them not to panic. It is frustrating to them and the instructor.  If that instructor could go in and manually give back the checks based on the progress they had made in the previous teacher's course, that would be great!

A workaround has been provided here Bypassing Requirements/Prerequisites though it is not ideal for our particular use case. 

[laura-harste]

In light of increased concerns over Accessibility and helping our differently abled learners.  We have many students in need of accommodations and it would help them if they could have their "extended time" start earlier, rather than have our more challenged learners always a few days to a week behind the rest of their peers.