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Online Course Organization: Using Modules
“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” – Benjamin Franklin
Optimized course organization is a major component to success for students in your course. The ability to be able to quickly find course components will save the students time and headaches searching for things that they need. It will also save you time from answering questions as to where things are! Read below to get started.
Organizing content into Modules on Canvas reduces that amount of time students need to spend searching for course materials or assignments. You might consider using the term "module" instead of "week" because it is more malleable from semester to semester. In most cases, a module lasts a week (Monday – Sunday), so you shouldn’t need to change your course flow with this terminology. With Fall and Spring semesters having Thanksgiving and Spring break respectively, using module helps to avoid moving things around too much to accommodate the term.
We suggest instructors greet their students at the beginning of each module with a module overview. Add a title for the module and a date range, and then a summary of what the module will cover. We also suggest you include the learning objectives for the module, and an instructional activities table that lists the tasks students will be required to complete. Each instructional activities table will differ based on what components your course and each module has.
The familiarity of a patterned structure helps students understand the flow of the course and what tasks or assignments come next. For this reason, we encourage instructors to organize the course so every module follows the same organizational structure, and each instructional activities tables follows reflects that structure. Typically, the overview is followed by a Readings and Lessons page, and then Discussion Prompts and Assignments.
See below for Word templates:
See the CITL Canvas Course Template for additional information.
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