Getting Started with the Semester
Welcoming your students with a course homepage
Whether you are teaching in a physical classroom, in a video classroom, online in Canvas, or a mixture of modalities, it’s a best practice to provide a welcome and some basic information to your students before class begins. That welcome is the first impression students get of you and of your class. While you can send an email, emails can easily be lost in a busy inbox and not all students check their IU email regularly.
A more visible way to connect with students is to add a welcoming course home page to your Canvas site and publish your site a few days before the beginning of the semester. The home page is where students land when they enter the course and taking advantage of that space can improve the odds that your students get started as smoothly as possible.
When students login to your course for the first time it helps to find something written in a friendly tone,
- that orients them to where they are,
- assures them that they are welcome,
- conveys that you want to engage with them around the course content, and
- clearly communicates what actions they need to take
There are a few basics that need to be on the homepage.
- Anything they need to do before the course begins, such as get a book you’ll be using the first week or make sure they have any needed supplies or digital tools , should be clearly listed.
- What to do to get started with the course should have a prominent place on the page. If this is an in-person or synchronous video course, it never hurts to remind them of the day, time, and location. If it’s a fully online course, always expect that some of your students have never taken an online course in Canvas. Providing explicit instructions to get started makes it easier on everyone.
- Information about you. Who you are, what you enjoy about this course, how you prefer them to contact you, and a recent picture or welcome video with you on camera.
Other information that you want students to know from the beginning, such as information about a course-long project or service learning component, can also be on the homepage or included in a welcome video.
Keep in mind that you can (and probably should) change your home page content after the first couple of weeks of the semester. If you want to keep it set to a page, that’s a good place to put updates or module recap videos. Alternatively, you can set it to be the modules list or the assignments list.
Making a home page
The default home page is set to the syllabus but Canvas allows you to set your home page to a page that you have created to welcome your students. There are videos and a job aid at the bottom of this page with instructions on using the Canvas Pages tool and changing your home page.
It’s also good to know that you can also publish your Canvas site and home page without publishing anything else in the course. Once the first couple of weeks have passed, you may want reset your home page to the modules or assignments list for easy access.
The following is an example of a simple home page template. Please note the following three items:
- If you’re using an IU eText, please point your students to the IU eText resources for students.
- If you don’t want to use Canvas email, always use your @iu.edu email address. Emailing students about coursework and grades from a personal or non-IU work email is a FERPA violation.
- Based on surveys showing that students don’t always understand that office hour time is there because you want to help them. There is movement to change the name to “student hours” to be clear about the purpose more so than the location.
You can copy from the (begin template) mark to the (end template) mark and paste it into a blank Canvas page to edit for your course information.
(begin template)
Welcome to [Edit me: Course Code – Course Title – Term!]
📋 Getting started:
- Please read the course syllabus. It is in the Syllabus tab in the course navigation menu on the left.
- Textbook: [Edit me]
- Class Location: [Edit me]
- Other information: [Edit me]
👋 Nice to meet you
Hi, my name is [Insert your name here] and I am the instructor for this course.
[Add a picture or a welcome video]
To contact me, please use [Edit me: Canvas email. I will reply to your e-mails within 48 hours. Please include a subject line with the main point of the message.]
Phone: [Edit me]
Office: [Edit me]
Student Hours: [Edit me]
❓ Need help?
- Visit the Learning.IU website for information and resources about learning at IU.
- UITS Tech Support: Open 24/7 online and by phone to help with your technology questions. In-person support hours vary.
- Canvas Student Guide: A searchable guide for answers to all your Canvas questions.
- IU Knowledge Base: A searchable guide for answers to all your IU technology questions.
(end template)
Job aids for using Canvas pages
The following video was created by Canvas to walk you through creating and using Canvas Pages. In Canvas, the Pages tool can be used to create a homepage and other content pages that you can share with your students. This video is three and a half minutes long. It has captions you can toggle on using the caption icon below the video and you can also read the pages overview script.
This second video demonstrates how to change the course homepage to the welcome page you create. The video has captions you can toggle on using the caption icon below the video. You can also review the How do I change my home page job aid from Canvas.
