Course Homepage

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Homepage Exemplars Exemplars: Course expectations and how tos exemplars: links to supports for students and parents Course Schedule Exemplars

The Canvas course homepage is one of the first experiences and interactions students and parents/guardians have when they visit a teacher's, school's, counselor's, or other Canyons School District Canvas course. Homepages create a uniform and consistent Canvas experience, and should be designed in a way that provides information the students and parents/guardians can use to help navigate the Canvas course. The buttons above will take you to exemplars of different homepage elements. 

Required Homepage Elements:

  • Multimedia Element
    • Adding multimedia and changing the multimedia element regularly is a great way to add interest and avoid a text-heavy homepage.
    • The templates provided in Canvas Commons are a great place to start.
  • Welcome message
    • Homepage should include the teacher’s name and a welcome message.
    • The welcome message should introduce students to you and your class and provide an overview of what they will be learning this school year, month, or term.
  • Contact information
    • You can use the Scheduler tool in Canvas to set up office hour dates and times for which students can sign up.
    • Use this space to describe your preferred contact method for students and parents/guardians (e.g., email address, phone number, etc.).
    • Consider the Canvas inbox and announcements as a way to communicate with students. These are great ways to send messages to the whole class and/or individual students. 
    • Optional: Establish office hours (in-person or virtual).
  • Disclosure Statement
    • This document is something that teachers share with students and parents/guardians at the beginning of the year and/or term. Linking this document on your course homepage provides a way for students and parents/guardians to access it anytime.  
  • Canvas Expectations and Course Information: 
    • Have a section on your home page that explains your expectations for students and how you have set up your Canvas course. This can be a video, paragraph, link to a page, and more! Get creative. 
  • Link to Supports:
  • Course Schedule
    • Provide an outline of your course schedule. 
    • This can be weekly or monthly.
    • It is highly recommended that your schedule is clearly and consistently labeled, and contains dates and times if/when appropriate. 
    • It is recommended that your schedule corresponds with the course modules. This is to help students and parents/guardians locate content and assessments within the course.

Training Resources