First Year Canvas
New Course-Specific Canvas Blueprints
In a continued effort to improve information delivery and Canvas best practices, Parsons First Year has made some additional changes in Canvas. When you open your Canvas courses, you will notice that there is some pre-populated content.
This is what you will find as part of the new course-specific blueprints:
- Home page template
You can replace the placeholders with your own information and customize as needed. The home page is a great place to give students relevant information about the course. You can update the home page regularly as the semester progresses.
- 🛑 IMPORTANT!!! READ: Guide to what you can find in this blueprint (delete after reading)
This module has similar content that you have in this email. Please delete after reading.
- Learning Portfolio setup guide and resources
This module will help students set up their Learning Portfolio. It is recommended to keep it for the duration of the semester in case students may need support. They will have it in all their First Year Canvas courses.
- Safety resources for students
This module directs students to different safety resources. It is also recommended to keep it for the duration of the semester. It is also part of all First Year Canvas courses.
- Use of Modules example with empty shells
This gives you an example of how you can use the Modules feature in Canvas to organize and deliver your lesson plans, materials, readings, assignments, etc. This example has been created specifically for this course, based on a review of best Canvas practices from faculty. You will find the modules and their sections empty so you can populate them with your materials directly. You can then also duplicate them as needed to complete the whole course.
Canvas: Frequently Asked Questions
Templates
We recommend that you build your Canvas course using the First Year Canvas Course Template. The template is provided to speed up the process of building your course and assist students in navigating across courses. The templates are recommended, not required. Faculty may design their own Canvas, using a landing page and modules to organize assignments.
🔗 Link here for a video walkthrough of the Parsons First Year Template 21/22.
Finding the template The templates can be found in Canvas Commons by searching for “Parsons First Year Template 21/22.
Importing the template into Canvas
Once you see the template you want to use you can import it into your actual course and get started! NOTE: Apply the template before you work on your class – the template overwrites any content. After the template is applied, you can import pages, assignments and modules from previous courses.