Canvas

Here are resources to help you prepare your Canvas course and teach it, with everything from getting started with a new course to self-paced in-depth Canvas tutorials.

Get Started with Canvas


Navigating Your New Canvas Course

Using any tool for the first time can be overwhelming. This guide can help focus your attention on what matters most.

Key Things to Know about Your New Canvas Course

Canvas and D2L have many similarities and overlapping functions — but also some key differences you’re likely to encounter as you prepare to teach.

Canvas Course Checklist

From basic settings to content organization, here are the top tasks to make sure your Canvas course is ready for students.

Easy Wins in Canvas

Here are a few popular Canvas features to be especially excited about.

Canvas Quick Guide

Having trouble keeping a handle on all of the Canvas settings? We have a Quick Guide you can now download and use for easy reference.

End of Term Canvas Grading Checklist

As you near the end of the term, it is a good idea to make sure the Canvas grades accurately reflect your students' work and that all assignment grades have been posted for your students to review.

Canvas Tutorials

These step-by-step tutorials will show you how to do whatever you need to accomplish in Canvas — whether you’re teaching fully online, fully in-class, or a hybrid.

Canvas Student Support and Syllabus Statement

OAI supports only faculty, but here are some ways for students to get help with Canvas.

Learn Canvas


Managing Your Canvas Site

Canvas has many features and tools for teaching a course. But you also need these “under the hood” functions for managing your course.

Using the Home Page in Canvas

When students log in to your course for the first time, they need something friendly and welcoming that orients them and explicitly communicates what to do.

Organizing Content in Canvas

Canvas has several tools for adding content to your course. Once it’s added, here’s how to organize that content in ways students will find consistent and predictable.

Assignments in Canvas

Assignments in Canvas is both a specific kind of assessment and any Canvas activity associated with a grade.

Discussions in Canvas

Discussions are especially flexible tools, useful both for communication and for assessment.

Communicating in Canvas

Canvas has several ways to communicate with your students. Here are two of them.

Student Interactions in Canvas

Whether you’re teaching fully online, blended, or in-person, here’s help for developing space to support student interaction in your digital classroom.

Quizzes in Canvas

Though you and your students may use “test” and “quiz” interchangeably, Canvas calls this type of assessment a “quiz.” Here’s how to use Canvas quizzes for assessment, review, and practice.

Grading in Canvas

The Gradebook stores all information about student progress in the course, measuring both letter grades and course outcomes. Here’s an overview.

Take It Further


Navigating Your New Canvas Course

Using any tool for the first time can be overwhelming. This guide can help focus your attention on what matters most.

Meet Canvas Commons

Commons is a learning object repository (LOR) that helps educators find, import, and share learning resources in their Canvas courses.

Canvas @ PSU

Canvas Workshops

Weekly Canvas workshops can take your learning further, help solve problems, and answer your questions as you get to know Canvas.

Register