S2 E17: Exploring the Learning Management System (LMS): Canvas

Drs. Breana Bayraktar and Lila Fleming visit us to discuss Canvas, including key ideas, tips, and considerations whether you’re an experienced Canvas user or new to teaching. 

Resource: Information about the Canvas transition https://lms.gmu.edu/ 

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Rachel 0:08

Hello and welcome to Keystone Concepts in Teaching a higher education podcast from the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning. In this podcast, we share impactful and evidence based teaching practices to support all students and faculty. I'm your host, Rachel Yoho, and I'm very excited to be joined by this episode's guests to talk about Canvas, our learning management system. So in this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Lila Fleming, who's an Associate Professor in Global and Community Health, and the Bachelor's Program Director for the Community Health Program. I'm also joined by Dr. Breana Bayraktar from the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning, where she specializes in blended learning and hybrid pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching and learning. So thank you both so much for joining us. I'm very excited to have you here and talk about Canvas.

Lila 0:56

Thank you so much for having us.

Breana 0:58

Yep. Happy to be here.

Rachel 1:01

So we have a lot going on with Canvas. So whether you're new to Canvas, whether you are coming from another institution, another learning management system, whatever the case may be, hopefully we'll have something here for you. But let's talk about, just for a few minutes, the Canvas transition for Mason. We're moving the learning management system from Blackboard to Canvas, and it's been a bit of a transition. And, Breana, you've definitely been leading a lot of the training for this and Lila, you've been a faculty mentor and really on the leadership out in front for Canvas as well. So let's talk about what faculty might be considering or doing if they haven't yet learned Canvas, haven't moved to Canvas, or are perhaps are new to Mason and this learning management system.

Breana 1:46

Well, I can get us started. I would say that there's really three things that I would tell anyone, and that's to start with sort of our ongoing training resources. So at the lms.gmu.edu site, it's a place where we have a lot of information about the Canvas transition, but we will have ongoing training resources there, both asynchronous and synchronous, live opportunities. So anybody wanting to get some training will be able to find a lot of resources there. Everyone should have within Canvas a course called Growing With Canvas, and we have a lot of recorded training videos so that someone can sort of walk through step by step everything they need to get started with Canvas. And then we have an email lms@gmu.edu that people can use if they need to reach out with questions about sort of, you know, do I have my course set up yet? And any sort of problems or issues that they run into, the folks that staff that email address can either answer it or get them to the right place. So those are kind of the basic three places I would say to go.

Lila 3:00

Absolutely. I actually thought also the idea that talk to other people that have worked on Canvas already. So as a faculty member, myself and as a mentor has been really useful to get an opportunity to chat one-on-one with many of our faculty members in my college as well as other colleges. And that also helps you kind of think about what are the things that you need to get started as you're moving from Blackboard to Canvas, or if you're brand new to Canvas.

Rachel 3:27

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great perspective. Thank you. And so as we're thinking about Canvas, so whether we're new to it, whether we're not, it's a great tool, especially as we engage across different instructional modalities. So can you tell us a little bit about some of the features, like, let's sell it a little bit here. What are some of the features that maybe most of interest to faculty right now?

Lila 3:52

That's a great question, if you don't mind. I can take a little bit of that. So one of the things that I have found about Canvas is, it's easier to use. So it's a little bit more streamline LMS, which makes it easier, more intuitive for faculty members to start building their own courses. So that's one of the things that I have found really useful. And as I was kind of creating my own classes and transferring my courses from Blackboard to Canvas, there is some tools that I have found to be really useful as I build my modules. Things like the Copy To tool, which allows you to copy something like a module or a page of the module. So those are things that will kind of help you kind of transition on, or if you want to use a particular page in your course across different courses, that becomes really useful. And I have also used this duplicate feature as well that lets you, once you have a really nice page that you're like, I wanna use this in every module. For example, your module introduction page, you can use that duplicate feature to just ensure that you maintaining a very cohesive look to your online course. Particularly in a synchronous online and hybrid courses. It is very important to maintain that consistency and that will give that opportunity to maintain consistency.

Breana 5:10

I think that if you are someone who is coming to Canvas and you have not used a learning management system a lot in the past, whether it's canvas or Blackboard or a different one, I think that you'll appreciate most the sort of student centered pieces that I think make the student experience much better when using Canvas. And so thinking about the way that students will be engaging with your material, in Canvas it's largely through their to-do list, which is something Blackboard doesn't have. And their to-do list gives them sort of assignments and assessments. It spans across all of their courses. So it's one place students can go to see everything that's due. And a lot of students will use that as the primary way they interact with everything in their courses. So this is where I think really making sure that all of your assignments, even assignments that you're going to collect in person, or you're giving a grade for participation, that everything is logged in Canvas so students can see all of that and see, you know, how they're progressing through the course. You can even make pages with instructions show up on their to-do list by assigning them a due date, which I think is really great for making sure that students are at least navigating to the page and seeing the information that's there. I think if you're someone who has used an LMS lot in the past, I think what will be really helpful for you to think about is the sort of guidance or pacing pieces that Canvas will allow you to do. So you can set up requirements for the way you want students to move through your learning activities and through your assessments. And I think that's really helpful because sometimes we have students that really wanna skip ahead or they skip around within a course. And sometimes that's fine, but sometimes we really want them to have more of a structured pacing through our activities.

Rachel 7:12

We scaffold for a reason, right?

Breana 7:14

Yeah, exactly. And Canvas, I think does that really well. So those are kind of like the student pieces I think make Canvas a big change from Blackboard, but make the experience a lot better.

Lila 7:27

Yeah, and that was actually a really great point. And I also wanted to add the calendar feature that is such a great area that you can actually set calendar specific things like office hours. You can actually put in your office hours in the calendar and that will appear within that course. So you will be able to access some of that information through that syllabus link within Canvas. So students will be able to see that as well. Or even put major university deadlines that we have. Things like when to drop a course, or what are the things that you need to think about if you're applying for graduation. So you can add those dates, very important dates that maybe not necessarily are course centered, but are things that students might find useful as they're moving through their semester.

Rachel 8:12

Yeah, absolutely. We have a lot of great tools, a lot of things to make it a good experience and a pretty straightforward experience for both students and faculty. So I think we have a lot of great opportunities here. So I guess as we also talk about this, I'm interested in exploring how faculty who maybe are less new to Canvas or who are thinking about how might they level up their teaching. Particularly, how might they consider using Canvas as a tool to say level up the face-to-face experience. We don't maybe as often have that large Canvas component. So how might they consider using Canvas as that kind of tool?

Lila 8:55

That's a great question. For me, if I'm teaching a face-to-face course, one of the things that I find the LMS can be very useful is to share materials. So even starting with that point, so things like syllabus, course schedule, those things should be very easily for students to access. And that's an something that the LMS can provide. And it gives you like an organizational tool as well. So if you are an instructor that, for example, shares PowerPoints, you can do this from a week to week basis, so that way it separates the material for students as they're kind of going through the course. It also allows for you to think about maybe assignment submissions. This is a centralized way that you can have students submit their assignments rather than bringing in print copies which is also great. They're not printing, they don't have to-

Rachel 9:43

Handwriting?

Lila 9:44

Exactly. Not writing by hand. So that's always great. So these are ways that we can definitely use it in the face-to-face courses and even thinking about the grade book, how you can share and allow students to see how they're progressing in the course. I think there is nothing more fearful than being a student that you're in a class and you have no idea what your grade is. And this is an opportunity for you to use that grade book, which is pretty straightforward. So it would allow you to kind of bring up that face-to-face component in to a different level. And that would be also incredibly useful for students so they know where they're going.

Breana 10:22

I would just add onto what Lila is saying, that Mason students are coming to our courses with a lot of experience, sort of living within a learning management system. So whether they're coming to us straight from high school, or if they maybe are our transfer students from the community college system, they're very used to their teachers and their instructors using some kind of management system for materials, sharing PowerPoints, as Lila said, but also most of their assessments. And so students I think, really have an expectation that they will be able to access materials through Canvas. And so everything that we can do as instructors to make those materials available to them in a way that is gonna be really helpful and organized and accessible to all of our students, is really gonna make that experience a lot better for them. And it really makes it better for us because the more we provide sort of in that proactive and organized way, there are fewer questions that we end up fielding as the semester goes on. Where do I find this? How do I do this? Right? That's what I think is what's really great about having the LMS as a place for all of those activities. It tends to cut down on the number of those sort of, I don't know what I'm doing questions. And helps us save time for, you know, better questions from our students 'cause the questions don't end.

Rachel 11:57

Yeah, they'll be there no matter what.

Lila 12:00

Yeah, and not so many emails. Right? That actually is going to reduce that, the ability for the students to just know what they're doing rather than have to wait to hear from the instructor. So it's a centralized point.

Rachel 12:11

Absolutely. So it's a little bit more work on the front end, especially for the faculty who are moving courses from Blackboard to Canvas and going through those and proofing and changing and hopefully seeing this as, you know, maybe an opportunity too. So can you tell us a little bit more about how this beyond being, certainly, and we fully acknowledge a lot of work, how this might also be a teaching opportunity?

Breana 12:39

I think that it is a great teaching opportunity because it's a time where we can really look at our courses and see how well what we had in Blackboard is serving our students, but also serving us. So I know that for me, and I think for a lot of our colleagues, our Blackboard courses, if we taught sort of the same one every semester or every couple semesters, those courses started to get really bloated. So, you know, in my courses I would have a lot of different quizzes, a lot of different activities, discussion board options. And in Blackboard we tended to just sort of keep all of that in there and then add new things. And after a few semesters it becomes sort of this behemoth course. But the move into Canvas I think is a great time to pare that down because those materials can continue to live in your sandbox or in your sort of practice spaces, but you can selectively send specific pages and assignments into your active course, and it just makes it cleaner and easier for us to manage. But in terms of it being a teaching opportunity, I think it's a space where we can also consider how well our assessments are really helping us to evaluate our students and how well they're meeting our learning outcomes, and then thinking about the different learning activities. Are those helping students to prepare for those assessments? So like the backward design process, as you say it, it is work to be able to take our courses from Blackboard and get them Canvas ready and then, you know, really get them student ready. So while we're taking that time, I think it's also a space where we can look at the courses that we've maybe inherited or have been working with for a long time. And make sure that they're still serving our students in the best way.

Lila 14:36

Those are absolutely great points, Breana. I really do think it's so important for us to kind of go back and start kind of thinking, oh, what does it look like when I first built this course and what I really wanted students to get out of this course? So this is that opportunity to be able to really think through every material that you have and be more methodical in how we are creating those courses in Canvas. One of the things to keep in mind is you really don't want to have that kind of extra material and extra information when you have a live course. So this is where creating your courses in a sandbox is going to be really important. And in lms.gmu.edu, you can find information about how to get a sandbox from the university and that sandbox won't be connected to a semester and won't be connected to a particular set of students. So it allows you to put everything that you need in that course, and you copy those into your live course, and that allows you to ensure that your live course is nice and clean when your sandbox kind of holds everything you want.

Rachel 15:40

It's definitely good for us, good for our students. You know what we have in the live course. But that sandbox is a great, essentially play space. You know, trying out things, trying out different tools. Did this work, did this not work? Maybe I need to find another video on something, you know, before our students see it. You know, all of those kind of things. It's a great space to just explore and see how Canvas works and how we might move things around, as well as the storage like you both mentioned. So I guess also what I'd like to talk about is really focusing on adjunct faculty. With our adjunct faculty, getting access to canvas can be a big thing. So what might adjunct faculty consider or maybe know a little bit more about the process?

Breana 16:24

I think with our adjuncts in particular, going to their department point of contact, and so that might be your department chair, but it might also be sort of an administrative unit lead. That's the place to start because they're the ones that need to make sure that all of the sort of human resources pieces are all in alignment. Because that all needs to happen before anyone can even get access to Canvas. So if you're a sort of newly hired adjunct or you've come back to Mason after a break, making sure that you're fully up to date in all the HR systems is the first piece. And then I would say that they can ask who their sort of department Canvas mentor like Lila, or maybe their course coordinator is because these are folks that have had extra training and extra experience and can help someone get started. I mean, we already talked a lot about sort of the general training resources that are available, but I think reaching out to the individuals that have some experience and some expertise can be a really good way to get started. And I think I should mention as well that like we are all new to Canvas. Even our folks that are really experienced, it's still a new thing here. And so I think it's a really good opportunity to ask the questions, to say, Hey, how do you do this? How can I figure this out? Without feeling like you're asking a question that you should already know the answer to. Because we're all sort of still asking these types of questions of each other. And so hopefully everyone feels like they're in a space where they can ask questions and get help, and it's sort of an expected thing. But if you're someone who's already really comfortable with Canvas, then maybe you can be that person in your department that other colleagues can come to with their questions.

Lila 18:22

Absolutely. And to add a little bit to that as well, just make sure that you give yourself time, whether you're an adjunct or a full-time faculty member. Even though we have this great system where our Blackboard courses are being transferred onto Canvas, those courses are not ready to be taught on Canvas. So there is still going to be a lot of work that needs to happen. So the earlier you can get into that Canvas site and look at your Blackboard transfer course and being able to see what it looks like because it's not gonna look like it looked on Blackboard, it is not gonna be ready for it to be just delivered on for the next semester. There is going to be cleanup that needs to take place. So I think the sooner you are able to log onto Canvas and start looking at your course and trying to figure out how you're going to be updating it, the better. So don't wait until like a week before the semester starts. That will definitely be very difficult to do. I will highly recommend that the quicker you can get yourself into Canvas, the better. So you can plan ahead and you can have the time. Again, coming back to reviewing your course and going through all those materials you can be sure that your students are gonna have a great experience while they're in your course.

Breana 19:38

And if I can just add, we also have a group of really excellent instructional designers. And so if you are someone who wants to use some maybe more advanced third party tools, or you have some experience with Canvas at another institution and you want to kind of learn what the next steps are for making your course even better, these are folks that have a lot of expertise in all kinds of different spaces and can help you think through what you can do to make your course more engaging, more interactive, and just a lot more fun for your students. So you can set up sort of one-on-one time to work with one of our instructional designers and they're just a really great group of people.

Rachel 20:27

Yeah. Alright, well that sounds great. As we wrap up for today, I think here, you know, we're really looking at our keystone concept of engagement. So whether we're looking at faculty engagement with the learning management system, but also how faculty can use this as a tool to engage their students, we have a lot of different aspects of really thinking through that engage, how do we interact, how do our students interact, and the way we make this course an experience or a more streamlined experience. So with that, any other thoughts, parting things you'd like to share with our listeners?

Lila 21:07

I think one last thing that I would love to share is just to ensure that you have loads and loads and loads of opportunities to grow with Canvas, and I mean grow as an instructor. Grow with your students. We're all kind of on the same boat. We're all learning. Some students are gonna be brand new to this, so this is an opportunity for us to be able to talk to each other and work together to make sure that we create a really good experience, both for the faculty that are building the courses, but also for the students that are going to be taking those courses so we can ensure that they have the best learning opportunity.

Breana 21:45

I think one of the most valuable things I've done as I've built Canvas courses and taught them and then gone back to sort of revise them, I ask my students about their experience. And even to the point of asking them to pull up the Canvas site and sort of walk me through how they get to different pieces within the course. And that really reveals a lot about how they engage with our materials and what they skip over, what they don't notice. And it makes my next version even better. So if you have the opportunity to ask your students about how they're using Canvas, that can really provide a lot of interesting information, I think.

Rachel 22:30

Yeah, absolutely. Even using the Canvas Student View isn't quite maybe what we're looking at there. But it's still a good tool too. So with that, thank you so much for your time. I think we've covered a lot of good things about Canvas, so wherever people are coming from, and joining us from Blackboard to Canvas or previous use or brand new to teaching, whatever the case may be, I think we can connect with a lot of great resources. So thank you both so much for your time and I'm excited to see where all of this goes.

Lila 22:58

Thank you so much. We really appreciate being here.

Breana 23:00

Yeah, it's been a great conversation, so thank you.

Rachel 23:03

Absolutely, and make sure to catch our next episode, so every two weeks on whatever platform you listen to or streaming directly through our website as well. So thank you so much.