Using the Homepage in Canvas
When students log in to your course for the first time, they need something friendly and welcoming that orients them and explicitly communicates what to do. You have several options for your course home page, but we recommend setting it to a page you create called a Front Page. Starting new students on a syllabus page or a modules list isn’t nearly as welcoming as a page with a personal welcome and instructions on what to do first.
Watch the UM3D Home Page Workshop Video (29:24)
If you use the UofM template, your default Canvas course will display announcements at the top of the page. This is where you can post important reminders or other course information. You can set how many announcements show up on the home page, but we recommend just one to make sure students notice the most important and current information.
Course Navigation
When students log in, they will notice the course navigation bar located on the left. Canvas lets you simplify navigation by hiding items not used in your course. This can reduce confusion for your students and keep them focused on the relevant course materials.
We recommend using Modules to organize all your instructions, content, activities, and assignments. This gives students one central location to look for everything. By doing this, you can hide the Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, Pages, and more pages from the navigation bar in the student view. That means fewer “where is” questions for you and less frustration for your students!
Adapted from “Using the Home Page” in Start Here 102: Best Practices in Online instruction, licensed CC BY 4.0 by Grace Seo, University of Missouri.