“If teaching is conceived as constructing a bridge between the subject matter and the student, learner-centered teachers keep a constant eye on both ends of the bridge.”

–How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, 2000, p. 136

University Bridge by Brandon Giesbrect, cc licensed on flickr at https://flic.kr/p/avDHs9

This is the 2nd in a series of posts to cover small actionable steps you can make to create a more student-centered course design in Canvas. These moves were developed from the Zoom session hosted on October 25th.

Small Move #2: Virtual introductions – one end of the bridge

Ideally this can happen even before the class starts so that students can start to make connections and have a chance to share some of their interests and perhaps even outstanding questions about the course topic.

This is a great way to introduce learner-choice options including the opportunity to use the text, video and audio options within the discussion forum in Canvas. Be sure to enable threaded replies so that students can respond to each other and start mini-conversations along the way.

Connected Canvas Help Topics:

How to create a discussion in Canvas

What does this look like to students?

To view this functionality from a student perspective contact me to be added into a course space designed to demo this feature.