Inside a Canvas Course Shell

Every course has its own layout. However, most of the functions are shared among a great number of courses so you will always need to navigate the same main tabs inside a Canvas course.

The first page you will see by default is the course's home page, which often looks like this

The red square here is meant to indicate which tab you're on. Canvas will show you by making the font a few shades darker and adding a side border. In the course home, you will usually see summary information about the latest announcements and graded activities, as well as whatever the professor has designed as the course homepage (sometimes it is nothing at all).

The important navigation points inside of canvas are:

• Syllabus
• Announcements
• Modules
• Discussions
• Grades

You will need to access these tabs at least once, so we'll break down their functions for you briefly.

Syllabus

You will have already seen this at least once before when a project was presented to you. Still, most courses include either a breakdown of class activities on this page or a link to a downloadable file with all syllabus details. Please remember to check all the important sections. This page has a course calendar on the top right corner with upcoming due dates as well.

Announcements

One of the tabs you want to check frequently. Professors communicate with all students through these means. Any changes in schedule, updates, reminders, important instructions, class-wide feedback, or anything else the professor needs everyone in the class to know will be posted here. Every time you log in, check these! You don't want to miss an important course update and have issues with the class.

Modules

This is where the action takes place for in-class projects. Most courses will be organized so the navigation is mainly done through the modules tab. Content will be organized either by module or by week and all activities and readings are listed in this view. In this tab, it will be easiest to keep up with the class content including activities and material. You will often be able to access discussion assignments in this view as well.

Discussions

In this tab, you will find a list of all discussion posts where you can share your contributions. This tab is especially helpful for finding optional or dateless discussion assignments that might not be listed anywhere else.

Grades

In this tab, you will find all the links for the assignment's submissions and their respective grading. Here you will be able to see the grades you've gotten and also the professor's feedback for each assignment once it's graded.