Becoming Canvas Certified

My district planned to slowly roll out our new learning management system before the pandemic. Six months later, when the pandemic forced us all to move to online learning, they decided to break the dam, let the waters loose, and dive right into the deep end of the Canvas pool. While the subsequent year was overwhelming and left many teachers feeling like they were barely keeping their heads above water, it was the right decision. 

As the school’s instructional coach, I worked non-stop as I often supported extremely panicked teachers trying to get instruction to remote students during one of the most challenging years of our lives. Ultimately, this experience led to empowered teachers who know Canvas better than they ever could have imagined, progressed our district’s mission, and allowed students to have more access to education from anywhere and at any time. 

To hone my skills even further, the instructional coaches in my district decided to take the Core 1: Foundational Frameworks Course in 2021. While I was familiar with Canvas, taking a course from the student perspective broadened my understanding of the user experience. One of us decided to continue and complete the six-course series to become a Canvas Certified Educator. I paused, overwhelmed with pandemic teaching, but returned to the experience after she finished and won a free course package. 

Being a student and seeking new experiences can always help us grow. Would I recommend this certification for teacher-leaders using Canvas? Yes. Even if you’re familiar with Canvas, the experience can come with unexpected lessons. It took about five months to complete all of the courses, as I took one course at a time, but I found the workload manageable and appropriately paced. 

A person taking these courses may gain valuable insight into our students’ experiences by being a student in the process.

Student view is a helpful feature in Canvas, but it can be limited. Being an actual student allowed me to practice submitting assignments, viewing feedback, and working through a module. I noticed what I liked and would have liked from a course, noted the design features, and observed how the timing of discussions/feedback impacted my learning. During the experience, I also noticed embedded features, including audio and video. I appreciated how these resources affected my learning and started adjusting my courses to improve the student experience. Being a student challenges us to reflect, and I truly appreciated this aspect of taking these courses. 

Exploring and navigating a Canvas course can help us to build more aesthetic and intuitively designed courses. 

Aesthetics impact how much time people spend on a page. The tl;dr of it all can turn students off from using resources. Also, students might shut down or become frustrated if something is hard to find or if there are too many ways to access an assignment. Creating a consistent look and flow to the course homepage, modules, and assignments improves accessibility. Using tools like Canva to beautify or enhance the aesthetics can make pages seem more professional and polished. The better the layout, the more engagement will occur. 

Speaking of engagement, using resources embedded in Canvas pages can spark new ideas about how we might create richer resources for our students. 

I love embedding a Padlet or a Google Slide into Canvas. Creating rich embedded resources that students can explore, reference, and read makes the learning experience more accessible. While taking these courses, I found new ways to share resources with students. Genially is a tool that I had not used before these courses. I appreciated how cleanly it was embedded in the page. I also learned how to create tabs in Canvas, which will take my course design to a new level. I am still working on this feature and exploring how I might use it to share my daily agenda slides, and this feature would only have been on my radar if I had taken these courses. 

While I learned a lot about Canvas from these courses, I was also able to explore instructional design theories beyond a single tech tool. 

In addition to learning more about the LMS, I gained perspective on various instructional strategies. Participating in a self-paced course may encourage Canvas-certified educators to explore blended learning strategies and instructional practices that may not have been used before. I had a choice and voice in what I learned and what I produced to demonstrate mastery. I was able to explore mastery pathways and work at my own pace, and I was able to connect with others asynchronously through Canvas discussions. 

If you’re looking to hone your Canvas skills and are in a teacher-leader position, this certification may be the right fit for you. While, at times, I felt a little isolated working at my own pace, I truly enjoyed the self-reflection process. I also appreciated the aesthetics and course design, which helped me create two Canvas courses for workshops that I led last summer. We can learn from every experience; if you’re seeking to become better acquainted with what might be with Canvas, check out the Canvas Certified Educator courses.