Checklists Within Modules: Using Canvas Requirements

Using Canvas is big work for young students-- or students of any age! It's big work for teachers too! One helpful tool our grade level has found is Canvas Requirements. They provide an easy checklist of all the learning activities encompassed in our modules. Maybe it can help you and your students!

Canvas module Prerequisites and Requirements are tools that can help your students track and show completed work within modules in various ways. This is helpful to the student, parent, and teacher. Before we take a look at how it works, let’s define these terms.

Prerequisites

Setting a prerequisite means that one activity in a module must be shown complete before other activities in the module can be accessed. Each activity must then be shown complete in order for the module to be considered completed.

Requirements

Setting requirements means each activity within the module must be shown complete in order for the module to be considered completed. The difference is that students may access all activities within the module at anytime. They do not have to complete one before another.

Today I will show you how to utilize Requirements to track progress within a module.

Some Canvas activities are discussions, assignments, pages, and quizzes. There are different requirement options within each one. In the video below I will show how to choose and set requirements within a module.

Setting Requirements Helps Students

When students click MODULES and look at what is listed under each module title, circles will appear to the right of the activity name. As they complete the work in whatever form determined in the requirement, a checkmark will appear in the circle. This helps students keep track of all types of work from pages, to assignments, to quizzes, to discussions in one place. Other options for checklists within Canvas extract only parts of what is in a module based on the type of activity it is, thus not all work expected to be done is show in the same place. Using requirements keeps the module shown in tact without the need to jump to different places to progress. See the student view in the video below.

Setting Requirements Helps Parents

Parents have given positive feedback about our requirements checklists. Our parents prefer to look at Canvas through the eyes of their students. They choose to be observers of their child's account, or just look on the student ipad with their child. What they like is the clear way it shows what is, or is not completed quickly and easily. They can also scroll with their child through previously published modules to see if any learning activities may have been overlooked.

Setting Requirements Helps Teachers

Teachers have the option to “VIEW PROGRESS” through all the published modules for every student. In one or two clicks you can see any particular student’s progress within any published modules. There are patterns of behavior that can be determined by analyzing this information. You can easily see if a student is consistently skipping a certain subject area, type of activity, is highly engaged, or finding Canvas learning engagement a challenge. Take a look at the slides below to see how to access this information.

Using Requirements Complements the Badge Reward System

In the February 16th blog entry titled, “You Deserve a Sticker- Using Canvas Badges," my teaching partner, Kim Schrank, teaches how to connect student reward badges to the modules. In order to use this student badge reward system, you must set requirements or prerequisites on your modules. If you have not had the opportunity to look back at her blog post, I highly recommend you do. The badges put a much needed positive spin on the hard work students are doing in Canvas everyday. I think you will love it and so will they! 

Give Canvas Requirements and Badges a try! They are simple, low time commitments that offer big rewards!

Emily Hoppel

3rd Grade Virtual Teacher & Promise Road Elementary Learning Specialist