Course Design Considerations

Course Design Considerations in Canvas

An effective course design is intentional planning of a course to help students achieve the desired learning outcomes.

To deliver impactful learning experiences, you need to consider:

1. The importance of Needs Analysis – 3 W’s: Who, What and Why
2. Create a roadmap to the learning journey, collecting and organizing the content
3. Delivery of compelling instructions
4. Evaluation of the Learning Outcomes

Your course needs the following course navigation links:

1. Home: The landing page
2. Announcements: Course announcements
3. Modules: Course content with Quizzes and assignments organized in groups
4. Discussions: All available discussions
5. Grades: All grades from graded activities
6. Zoom : For synchronous class meetings

The Home page should look like a front page of a website with easy access to the following information:

1. Pages with general information:
   • course introduction,
   • outcomes,
   • course materials,
   • contact information,…
2. Navigation Buttons:  that links to the different modules in the course
3. Main course materials: course text, e-resources etc.
4. Links to some course tools that need extra visibility or an explanation.

A Sample Home Page with navigation buttons

To create navigation buttons, you can use: MS Word, canva.com, Google docs, google drawings, etc.
Steps to create button image using canva.com:

• • • Create a free an account in canva. It is FREE!!!
    • Click on Create a Design on the upper right corner.
    • Select a banner or a flyer.
    • From the tool bar on the left side, select the desired template from Templates.
    • Edit the text in the template to your needs.
    • Select suitable photo from Photos.
    • Select icons and shapes from Elements to add to your button.
    • Click on Download button on the top right corner.
    • Select the File Type as PNG(High Quality).
    • Click Download to save the image of the button to your computer.
    • A sample image of my button.

  

The above steps can also be followed to create a banner for the course home page.

To create navigation buttons in the Canvas Home Page:

• • Open the Course Home Page.
  • In the Rich Content Editor, insert the image of the button, using the Image tool.
  • Select the image and resize the button to the desired size.
  • Select the button and click on the Link tool.
  • Select Course Link or External Link from the drop down list.
  • Select the desired link.