Start-of-Year Canvas Setup

Course Settings

These settings can be adjusted in the Settings section of your course, accessible from the left-hand sidebar. 

Step 1: Publish Shells, Link Course Sections, and Add Material to Your Courses

If you are teaching multiple sections of the same course and want to crosslist them…

You are not required to crosslist sections of your course, but most teachers prefer to. It is helpful to do this first before doing all of the other steps in this guide.

• Hit publish on your shell courses — don’t worry, students can’t see these until Orientation Weekend!
  
• Follow the instructions in the “Link Multiple Sections” video in this KB. 
  
• If you have linked your sections, update your displayed course name to reflect this (e.g. something like “Literature and Composition I” or “Lit Comp I – B & C” instead of “Literature and Composition I (US)-B”)

If you want to copy some or all of the material from a previous year or from a Master Course that you created…

• Follow the instructions in the videos in this KB. You can either copy all content or choose specific content to copy over.
  
• If you choose to copy specific content, be sure to include “Course Settings” (which will automatically copy over if you are importing all content). This should automatically complete some of the steps below —but it is always worth double-checking your settings!
  
• Be sure to click “Adjust Events and Due Dates” and select “Remove.”

Step 2: Most Important Settings

• Hide grade distribution charts (KB guide)
  
• Hide totals in student grade summaries — this is required for Middle School, and for Upper School (in US, these must be made visible by 6 weeks into a Trimester, but many teachers choose to hide overall grades at the start of a Trimester)
  
• Enable “US DHS Grading Scheme” (KB guide)

Step 3: Update the Sidebar

Optional Steps

• Add an Image for your course
  
• Update your displayed course name
  
• Change other tick-box settings in this section as suits your course (e.g. allowing or disallowing students to create discussion topics or organize their own groups)

Homepage

Step 1: Make the homepage template your Landing Page

• You should already have the correct homepage template in the Pages section of your Canvas courses! Go to Pages and click the three dots next to, for example, “Upper School Math Homepage” and select “Use as Front Page.” 

Step 2: Add your course info 

• Add your course name to your homepage
  
• Add your Conference Period location

Step 3: Set up your homepage buttons 

• Assignment Sheet (US) / Weekly Sheet (MS): Link this  button to your course’s assignment sheet by selecting the image and using the link icon in the editing toolbar to add an external link (see example below)
  
• Academic Honesty & AI Policies: This button links to a Canvas Page with boilerplate policy language, including a few options for AI policies. Please update language as needed (e.g. adding department-specific policies, choosing your preferred AI policy, etc.). You may also update this button to link to an external document if you prefer, as long as your policies are readily available to students from your course’s homepage.
  
• Course Resources: You only need to use this button if you have a module containing important course information (e.g. syllabus, links to surveys, course policies, etc.). If so, please link that module to this button using the link icon to add a course link (see above). If you do not have a module like this, please feel free to delete the Course Resources button.
  
• Labs: Depending on which departmental template you used, you may have a button for “Writing Lab,” “Science Lab,” or “Math Lab.” Please double check that this button links to the correct information for this year (and, if not, please link it to this year’s lab info once available).
  
• Be sure to hit save here too!

Optional Steps

• Add personalized decorations like a header image to your page
  
• Let Emma and Sam know if you need any buttons not included in the homepage template

Gradebook Setup

Settings under Assignments

• If you use weighted assignment categories (e.g. Tests are worth 20%), you must set these up at the start of the year. Please follow these instructions to do so. 

Settings under Grades

In the Grades section, you can click the cog icon to access Gradebook Settings. There, you can enable these optional settings:

• Late Policies: Automatically apply deductions to missing and late assignments. 
  
• Grade Posting Policy: By default, grades are available to students as soon as they are entered. You may choose to enable “Manually Post Grades” to ensure that students are not distracted by grades during the school day or receive grades at the same time as their peers. This may be enabled globally or on an assignment-by-assignment basis. (Please note: manual grade posting is required for Middle School courses.)