What Is It?
This article will focus on navigation through Canvas courses and not Canvas itself, allowing students to have a guide on how to navigate a particular course and how courses are laid out.
Who Can Use It?
Anyone with access to a Canvas course.
Where Can I Use It?
Courses
The courses a given student is enrolled in can be viewed by clicking on the courses tab, which will pop out a tab listing all the courses a student is enrolled in and can view.
Course View and Home
The home page for the course can be viewed from the home tab. Here, the course name and recent announcements within the course can be viewed, with course content on the home page varying course by course.
Announcements
Announcements in the course can be viewed in the "Announcements" tab. Here, instructors will post updates to the course including assignments, due dates, exams, and course materials as the course progresses.
Syllabus
The Syllabus tab shows the syllabus for the desired course. This serves as an outline to the class, including grading scale/metric, course content, instructor, meeting times/dates, and policies on academic dishonesty within the course. In the example below, the syllabus is listed as a PDF that can be downloaded and viewed separately from the course.
Modules
The "Modules" tab is where a user can access course material and assignments on the course, including quizzes, surveys, assignments, and potentially online exams. Course materials such as lectures and readings may also be posted in the modules tab, to be referred back to in the event of quizzes, exams, or in-person classes and discussions.
Grades
The "Grades" tab allows students to look through their grades for their various assignments. The total score is calculated out of how many points the student scored against how many are possible, and also displays the due date of the listed assignment.
The total for all grades in the course including assignments, class discussions, quizzes, exams, and more are listed at the bottom of the page, calculating the total for each separately, as well as an overall grade for the class, represented by the total at the bottom of the page.
People
All students and instructors in the class can be viewed in the course under the "People" tab. This will list all students, instructors, and teacher assistants in the class, and their biographies and profile information can be viewed by clicking on the name in the "People" tab. If a student has their contact information listed on their biography, they can be reached out to via that contact information.
The biography of a given student will look like the example below, filled out with text that a student can customize under their account profile.
Collaborations and Office 365
Collaborations is a tab in the course which can be used to, as the name implies, collaborate with other students to be able to complete assignments in a group project or settings. This can be done by uploading files to Microsoft 365 or Microsoft OneDrive, and copying and sharing the link to the document to other members within the group.
