How Can I Organize my Canvas Course?

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With moving online, you’ll most likely be adding more content to your course than before. But what is the best way to organize that content so you and your students can easily find items? Each of the methods we’re going to look at uses the Modules section in your Canvas course. Modules are particularly helpful because you can add almost anything – content pages, videos, assignments, quizzes/tests/discussions – to keep content grouped together in some way. There are a few options for organization, so let’s look at how they each function.

Modules by class day/week

This is the method we use in our fully online courses. We number each module and give it a title. Within the module, we’ll add all of the items the students need for the week (this could also be done for each class day).

A Canvas Module called "Module 1: [Title or Theme Here]." Inside the module are multiple items: A "Discover" heading with links to two pages under it. A "Demonstrate" heading with links to a quiz, a group discussion, and an assignment under it. A "Deepen" heading with two pages for additional resources and wrap-up under it. — *Screenshot of a module organized by class day/week*

We take it one step further and add in headings to help break up the content (“Discover” is lecture content/reading assignments, “Demonstrate” holds all the assignments for the week, and “Deepen” is a place for any additional resources). Adding those headings is not necessary, but it can help organize all the items you add so they can be found easily.

Modules by instructional unit

If you have weeks of content grouped together into units in your course, you can also use that method for organizing your content in Canvas. For this organizational style, you’d still create modules, but you’d name them according to the units. Then, use headings inside the unit to help separate content by module.

Canvas Module called "Unit 1: [Title or Theme Here]." Inside the module are two headings, one for each week of the unit. Under the Week 1 heading are a Week 1 Lecture, a Week 1 Discussion, and a Week 1 Assignment. Under the Week 2 heading are a Week 2 Lecture, a Week 2 Discussion, and a Week 2 Assignment. — *Screenshot of a module organized by instructional unit*

Modules by content type

While organizing your modules by class day/week or by unit is most likely easier for your students to keep track of content, you can also organize your course by content type. In this method, you’d create a module for lectures, another for discussions, another for quizzes, and keep following that pattern until you have a module for each content type in the course. With this method, it can be easier on your end to upload items, but it may be more difficult for students to find the items they need.