Collected below are some resources created and gathered by the Educational Technology regarding the use of Canvas' collaboration tools.
If you have any questions about these, reach out to Educational Technology.
Announcements are perhaps the easiest way to get students involved. This is because Announcements are the pipeline directly to the student's inbox giving them easy notifications about the information they need to know. In addition to reminding them and keeping them aware of important course events, you can also send out announcements for interesting course-related news items or other content.
For collaboration purposes, you can allow students to comment on your announcements so that they can respond both to you and "in front" of their fellow students with their questions or concerns.
For more information about Announcements, check out the Canvas "What are Announcements" guide.
For specific "How Do I" instructions, check out the Announcements Canvas Guides.
Discussions are the place where most instructors will get students involved in an online or hybrid course. The premise is simple: Give students a prompt and they respond. Of course, there are complexities that make the execution different for everyone but the general purpose is the same: Getting students talking about the topic and engaging in the content. As with most of these collaboration tools, how much the student may benefit from using Discussions is dependent on instructors setting clear expectations for how it is used.
We have an FAQ about Discussions and how they are managed in cross-listed courses. For that article, click here.
For more information about Discussions, check out the Canvas "What are Discussions" guide.
For specific "How Do I" instructions, check out the Discussions Canvas Guides.
Groups in Canvas are ways that you can organize short-term or long-term groups of students. There are two parts to a Group: It's Group Set and Groups.
The Group Set is a collection of groups. Within the Group Sets, you can organize your actual Groups. For example, if you want students to work on a group project for the Mid-Term and Final, but you want them to be with different students. You will create a Midterm Group Set and a Final Group Set. In those Group Sets, you create the smaller groups that you will split the class into.
The real benefit of Canvas Groups is its Group Homepage. When students are assigned to a Group, they have a Homepage created for them that they can mold into their own creation. On their end, it works almost the same as the course page for the Instructor. They can create pages, upload files, set up Collaborations, and participate in Group Discussions. Instructors also have the ability to see this homepage and add content to it as needed.
For more information about Groups, check out the Canvas "What are Groups" guide.
For specific "How Do I" instructions, check out the Groups Canvas Guides.
Canvas has a tool within its Assignments and Discussions creation to allow Instructors to require students to review and comment on other students' submissions. This is good at getting students to look at the content through another's eyes and engage with the material on a different level. As with most of these collaboration tools, how much the student may benefit from Peer-Review is dependent on instructors setting clear expectations for how it is used.
Peer Reviews can be set up manually (where the instructor selects who will review each student's work) or automatically.
For more information about Peer Reviews, check out the Canvas "What are Peer Reviews" guide.
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Collaborations are ways that students can work on documents with other students. Using either Office 365 (recommended since the students have Office 365 accounts with the University) or Google Docs. After being set up in Canvas, Instructors can share documents, spreadsheets, or PowerPoints with students and the students can collaborate on the documents within the Canvas course or Group pages.
For more information about Collaborations, check out the Canvas "What are Collaborations" guide.
For specific "How Do I" instructions, check out the Collaborations Canvas Guides.