Top tips from the first week of teaching with Canvas

The following message was emailed to instructors and staff on 08/25/2023

Dear Colleague,

The first week of the fall semester is almost done! We want to share a few observations based on the support requests we’ve received. Hopefully, you will find these tips helpful as you refine your courses or seek out additional support.

When you ask for help

Whether you contact our Center for instructional support or the Technology Support Center about more technical issues, don’t forget to include your course number(s) and section(s). This will expedite support, especially when a member of the team needs to view your course in order to diagnose an issue.

Help resources for your students

You aren’t expected to provide technical support for your students! There are a number of places students can find support:

• Please refer your students to the student Canvas home in the Help Center  . Students should start with the ISU overview video.
• Canvas is also covered in the Intro to Technology orientation course, many knowledge articles created by Illinois State, and knowledge articles  and videos available from Canvas.
• Two optional training modules are available in the Illinois State University Canvas Commons for you to add to your courses – one trains students on navigating Canvas and the other on Canvas Studio.
• Most importantly, the Technology Support Center is available by phone, chat, email, webform, and in person for questions about Canvas and all things ISU technology.

Unpublish, don’t delete!

There is no 100% reliable way to recover deleted items from Canvas course sites. We strongly recommend that instructors unpublish items (like assignments, pages, or modules) rather than delete them.

Microsoft Teams

Planning to use Microsoft Teams as a part of your course? If so, the process works a little differently than it did with ReggieNet. Check out this help guide to learn more.

Changing participant roles

Need to assign a teaching assistant more control over course content or a student auditor to your class? Consult this guide to participant roles and how to reassign them. And this chart gives a detailed explanation of what each role does in Illinois State’s version of Canvas.

Students can’t see a specific tool

If a tool isn’t showing up on the course navigation in student view:

1. Go to Settings > Navigation.
2. Locate the tool in the list.
3. Select the three dots (more options).
4. Enable (or disable if you want to take away student access).

Students can’t see Announcements?

Even if you make the Announcements tool available to students, they won’t see it until after you publish at least one announcement.

Need to rename a cross-listed (combined) course?

Instructors now have the ability to cross-list two or more Canvas courses (similar to the old Course Combinations available in ReggieNet). However, instructors do not have the ability to change the name of the resulting course. If you need a different name for the combined course, please email ProDev@ilstu.edu with the desired title. One of our support team members will be able to make the change for you.

Upcoming workshops

The Center for Integrated Professional Development will hold workshops (both in-person and online) and open office hours during the week of August 28. See the schedule on our Technology Short Courses page.