As part of our expanded outreach and communications plans, I wanted to share with you all the progress of our Teaching with Canvas Cohort.

“Teaching with Canvas” is a pilot program for the 2018-19 academic year designed to help faculty rethink and reimagine how they use the Canvas Learning Management System to engage their students and enhance instruction.  A call for participants went out late last spring to all faculty and 10 were chosen to be a part of the initial cohort.

Participating faculty receive personalized assistance over a six-month period redesigning a course in Canvas for delivery Spring 2019. Monthly cohort meetings provide faculty with a supportive and shared experience exploring thoughtful Canvas course design.  The overall goal is to marry faculty instructional goals with Canvas course best practices.

We had our first group meeting in September to introduce the Backward Course Design/Understanding by Design process, and again in October to discuss Evidence of Learning strategies for modules, along with a review of Assessment features in Canvas.  Each faculty also regularly meets with a dedicated Educational Analyst (from the Teaching & Learning Technologies team) in between monthly cohort sessions to determine course design strategy and deliverables.  We are looking forward to our final group meeting in November and a grand Canvas Course Showcase in December.

If anyone has questions about the program or the instructional design principals supporting Canvas Cohort, feel free to reach out to Dr. Dana Bryant in the ATS Teaching & Learning Technologies team at dana [dot] smith [dot] bryant [at] emory [dot] edu.