Canva: Resource for E-Learning

Canvas has been around for some time now, “Founded in 2008. Launched Canvas in 2011” (Correia, 2020). Due to the current pandemic (COVID-19) that we are all facing with social distancing and many schools are not able to meet face to face, some school districts have implemented the use of canvas to connect with students as a resource for teaching and learning.

“Canvas is a web-based learning management system, or LMS. It is used by learning institutions, educators, and students to access and manage online course learning materials and communicate about skill development and learning achievement… Canvas LMS is an open and reliable web-based software that allows institutions to manage digital learning, educators to create and present online learning materials and assess student learning, and students to engage in courses and receive feedback about skill development and learning achievement” (What is Canvas, 2020).

Students using Canvas are able to connect with various learner engagement strategy such as independent study, as noted “independent study is available to students from kindergarten through high school, designed to respond to the student’s specific educational needs, interests, aptitudes, and abilities within the confines of the school board policy. Students who participate in independent study take the same courses as students in regular classes” (Independent Study, n.d.). Canvas provides teachers with the opportunity to give each student in their classroom individualized instruction while teaching the same curriculum. Canvas give instructors the ability to meet the needs of many learners (differentiating instructions) and promotes learners to become self-motivated and discipline in their learning. Students are able to have resources such as notes, games, set time to complete work, one on one time with their instructor as they work at their own pace during distance learning. "Many people complain that they have trouble locating high-quality online content...the United States as from companies in the online management space which have begun offering MOOCS, such as blackboard and Canvas" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 253). Canvas have many high-quality content online that is engaging, informative, and engaging.

Example of a students dashboard in CANVAS

Active Participation:

Active participation is where a user takes an action in a course to be actively involved and engaged in their learning. Students who are involved with courses online, should have various learning opportunity to be permit and encourage to actively engage and participate with their independent studies. Active participation can only be as beneficial to the layout of the assignments, multi-media presentation, organization of the materials, structure of assignment and the ability for learning to be experimental instead of just informational presentation. Active participation improves learners motivation in their learning, they are able to learn more quickly through trials and errors, retain information from various multimedia or activity presentation for them to be engaged in and they have the opportunity to actively engaged with others learners on line through small group interaction, in which they are able to share their ideas or knowledge about a topic. The online journal, Creative and Innovative Online Teaching Strategies: Facilitation for Active Participation the author states, “Providing an abundance of online resources gives students an avenue to further explore the material…This further promotes an active collaborative learning process. ” (Sharoff, 2019). Students are able to actively participate with canvas through various avenues such as assignments submission, responding to discussion question, comment on an assignment, interactive educational games, small group projects, one on one with the instructor, creating their own resources, taking an assessment, and the ability to explore more resources online during their independent study.

Relevant Learning

Relevant learning is beneficial aspect of independent study as an engagement strategy for learners, because the materials that the learners will be learning will be more useful to them if its more centered based to their interest. Relevant learning is beneficial to students who have a personal connection to the material that is being presented to them. Instructors can make that connection, by showing learners why the materials are beneficial to their lives, through real world presentation, media, hands on learning, projects, future career and visualized presentations. Relevant learning is a form of effective learning, in which the instructors presents meaningful activities for students that is engaging, and students are able to make a connection to the activity by accessing their prior knowledge. Instructors have to make the materials relevant to their students, through demonstrations and explanations of the topic at hand and provide useful resources that students can access, which connects to their various learning style. Canvas has the ability for instructors to create various group of learner’s base on what resources is more relevant to the learners as they continue their independent studies. The online journal, A New Learning Model on Physical Education: 5E Learning Cycle the authors states, “In order to build relevant experiences of the subject matter, models can be provided by the teacher, which will enable the learners to manipulate. Learners can communicate and share their ideas among themselves” (Senturk& Camliyer, 2016). Canvas instructors have the ability to demonstrate learning of a topic through the use of various instructional methods, that learners are able to manipulate as they continue on with their independent study gaining a deeper understanding of the materials as it connects to their academic future while making various connections that is relevant to the learner. As noted from the canvas website, “Relevant learning has the ability to inspire learners for their future” (The Value of Relevant Learning, 2019).

Instant Feedback

Instant Feedback promotes active participation learning that is relevant to the learners as they continue to remain engaged in the academic journey during independent study. Providing students with instant feedback is a way to keep students motivated in the learning process. Students are able to have a deeper understanding of materials they are more proficient in and what materials they are not proficient in. Students can focus more time and research materials to help enhance their learning of materials that they need to work on. Teachers are able to see what other resources that they can provide for students to work on, based on the students work and if they can move a student to a higher or a lower level of the content, being able to differentiate each students academic journey, making it more relevant to the students. Feedback is highly important, but feedback has to be more student center than class centered. Student center feedback gives students information on their own learning process by identifying areas that they are strong in and areas that they may be weak in. The online journal, Put yourself in their shoes: A qualitative exploration of perceptions of effective translation teaching in universities, the author states “individualized feedback is preferred because students can receive more comments tailored to their own performance, and teachers can have a more thorough idea about the individual student’s learning progress…This may lead to more work load for teachers, but only in this way can the learning outcomes be maximized” (Huang, 2019). Individualized feedback not only identify students’ academic level, but students also are aware of what they need to work on and why. Teachers are able to cater to each child weakness, by adding resources that are individualized to that student in Canvas through the use of many resources as followed: multi-media, step by step tutorial, one on one tutoring sessions, discussion questions, interactive games, visualization, etc. Canvas uses SpeedGrader, where educators can leave feedback for students using various of methods as text, media, and audio. As noted from the canvas website, “You can leave feedback for your students using text, an attached file, video, or audio.  Assignment comments also display as a new thread in conversations. If your students submitted a writing assignment and you want to leave comments in the document, learn how to use Canvas Doc Viewer in SpeedGrader. A student can view your Doc Viewer comments from the assignment Submission Details page” (How do I leave feedback comments for student submissions in SpeedGrader?, 2020). Instructors are able to cater their feedback response as it caters to each child learning style and the relevance of the information as it connects to the learner’s independent study.

Conclusion

Independent study is a fantastic learners’ engagement strategy for learners as they interact with Canvas throughout their educational journey. Canvas provides instructors with many resources to educate, challenge and engage learners as they access informative materials that they will need to gain a deeper understanding of the content area that they will be exposed to. Learners have many resources available to them as well, as they research materials that they will need to do their assignments, learners can summit their assignments through numerous methods but are not limited to media, text and audio. Canvas provide learners the opportunity to be actively patriciate in their learning, which promotes motivation and engagement. Learns are able to have resources and materials cater to them that are more relevant to their educational needs and they can receive individualized feedback all while using Canvas. Canvas is a great instructional web-based learning management system, or LMS tools for the 21-st century especially during these unseeing times that we are all facing currently.

References

Canvas LMS. (2014). Get to know Canvas K-12 [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D6ijOYUdj0

Correia, A. (n.d.). The Evolution and Diffusion of Learning Management Systems: The Case of Canvas LMS. Retrieved August 21, 2020, from https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/drivechange/chapter/the-evolution-and-diffusion-of-learning-management-systems-the-case-of-canvas-lms/

How do I leave feedback comments for student submissions in SpeedGrader? (2020, August 15). Retrieved August 21, 2020, from https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-leave-feedback-comments-for-student-submissions-in/ta-p/764

Huang, Z. (2019). “Put yourself in their shoes”: A qualitative exploration of perceptions of effective translation teaching in universities. The International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Research, 11(1), 114-129. doi:10.12807/ti.111201.2019.a07

Independent Study. (n.d.). Retrieved August 21, 2020, from https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/eo/is/

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. (2017). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (4th Edition) (What’s New in Ed Psych / Tests & Measurements) (4th ed.) [E-book]. Pearson. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9780134237039

Senturk, H. E., & Camliyer, H. (2016). A New Learning Model on Physical Education: 5E Learning Cycle. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 4(1), 26-29. doi:10.13189/ujer.2016.040104

Sharoff, L. (2019). Creative and Innovative Online Teaching Strategies: Facilitation for Active Participation. The Journal of Educators Online, 16. doi:10.9743/jeo.2019.16.2.9

The Value of Relevant Learning. (2019, January 22). Retrieved August 21, 2020, from https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/K12-Users/The-Value-of-Relevant-Learning/ba-p/279122

What is Canvas? (2020, August 20). Retrieved August 21, 2020, from https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/What-is-Canvas/ta-p/45