A very popular question this time of year is ‘How do I get started with Canvas?’ a close second (especially from faculty new to Middlebury) – ‘What do I need to put on my syllabus?’ When the Provost’s office shared information about the basic syllabus and expectations for faculty, we took this information and integrated it into our Canvas templates.
What does this mean?
Specifically, we added an “About this Course” page to our Middlebury 12 week Canvas templates that includes all of the text in the syllabus template. In addition, we added the sample syllabus template .doc file to the Canvas templates. This means that you can replace place holder text with specifics for your course, but the structure for your course content is already in place.
What’s included in the Canvas templates?
You can see what the Canvas template looks like by visiting these links: (log in with your Middlebury credentials to view)
- This version uses the modules home page view.
- This version uses the pages home page view.
Some of the components included in the template are:
- About this course page – includes syllabus template language & formatting
- Navigating our course site – place holder for explaining how you are using Canvas in your class
- Academic Expectations for your course – place holder for faculty to enter specific academic expecations for their class & discipline
- General Course Help – a discussion forum where students can post general questions
- Middlebury Libraries Page – a page with information about accessing Middlebury Library resources & connecting with librarians. This page is designed to be customized for your discipline
- ADA Resources – Information about how students can access ADA support
- Tutoring Options – Information about CTLR offerings for students
- Technical Support – Information about getting general and specific technical assistance
- Help with Digital Assignments – Information about the services DLINQ can provide to assist you and your students with digital projects
- 12 Week modular set up
Sounds great! How do I use it?
- First you’ll need to create your blank Canvas site through the course hub. Follow these instructions to complete this step. Note: Do not edit this site until you’ve completed step 2. Any edits completed before importing the template will be overwritten.
- Then follow these instructions to import the Canvas template into your course site. (Select the option to Import into Course when prompted.)
What did we miss?
Our hope is to continually improve these templates as we get feedback from faculty, students and staff about different ideas that would make course sites better for learning. So let us know! If you have an idea or suggestion to make these better please let us know by emailing dlinq@middlebury.edu. We look forward to hearing from you and hope this helps to kickstart your semester on the right foot!