Designing a Canvas course requires careful consideration of how to make video content engaging, accessible, and sustainable over time. One highly effective strategy is content chunking , which not only enhances student learning but also streamlines the process of creating, editing, and reusing instructional materials. What Is Content Chunking? Content chunking involves dividing instructional material into shorter, more manageable segments that are easier for students to process and retain. This method has proven particularly effective in online and hybrid learning environments when it comes to video. Research shows that student engagement is highest when videos range between 6 and 15 minutes. In contrast, a 45‑minute video lecture can feel overwhelming and discourage active participation. While most lessons require more than six minutes to cover essential concepts, chunking allows instructors to distribute content across multiple concise videos. These can either be built sequentiall...

  Overview The University has recently added three new FeedbackFruits tools to its academic technology ecosystem: Interactive Document , Interactive Video , and Interactive Audio . This blog post shares how three instructors used these tools to actively engage their students with course materials and with their peers. In today's diverse educational landscape, traditional lectures and static readings often fall short. Many instructors continue to look for innovative ways to deliver content and facilitate meaningful student interaction with that content. If this sounds familiar, read on to see how FeedbackFruits interactive tools can be used to create dynamic, highly engaging learning activities. Interactive Documents: Transform Readings into Dynamic Conversations If you would like your students to move beyond passively reading assigned texts, the Interactive Document tool can help you turn reading assignments into collaborative workspaces, fostering accountability and deeper com...

This post summarizes the session, Create Accessible Canvas Content, from January 9, 2025. Session facilitators–DM Lavoie, from the Office of Digital Accessibility, and Rebecca George-Burrs, from Academic Technology Support Services–teamed up to demonstrate how to apply the 7 Core Skills of Digital Accessibility in the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE). Use the table of contents to navigate to each of the core skills in this article: Use Headings to Format Text Format Accessible Lists Use Accessible Color Contrast Write Accessible Link Text Create Accessible Tables Use Alternative Text (alt text) for all Images Use Accessible Media Overview In order to meet the expanded Title II of the ADA , the UMN community is working to make our digital content accessible. For those using Canvas, the RCE provides tools to create accessible Pages, Announcements, Discussions, Assignments and Quizzes throughout a course site. In fact, the RCE provides ways to use all 7 Core Skills of Accessib...

Overview Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) and the Office for Digital Accessibility (ODA) tested the usability of the Canvas: Remove Course Content article text and video with UMN instructors. Participants identified three key findings: time commitment, rationale, and archiving. The project team addressed the findings by making targeted changes to the article. Usability partnership & study process For this study, the Canvas: Remove Course Content article was selected for two reasons:  instructors and staff are preparing to meet the April 2026 digital accessibility deadline ATSS had heard from the academic technology community that some instructors are confused about removing vs. deleting content from a Canvas course With the University of Minnesota Usability Services team, our project team developed a focus question to guide our study: What motivates people to improve the accessibility of their course? We then determined the criteria for participant recruitment, ...

Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) partnered with Instructure , the parent company of Canvas, to conduct a usability study on some of Instructure’s most recent updates to the Canvas Discussion tool. The study aimed to understand user experiences to implement changes and/or improve training.  Usability partnership & study process Since 2015, the University of Minnesota academic technology teams have conducted usability studies to understand how instructors and students use different learning technologies. This work is carried out with internal and external stakeholders such as University of Minnesota academic technology leadership, the academic technology community , and our learning technology vendors. For this study, the Canvas Discussions tool was selected for two reasons: Instructure was redesigning the tool, and it’s used in approximately 25% of University of Minnesota academic courses as shown in the graph below. Discussions are heavily used in those courses: as o...

This post summarizes the August 2024 Canvas Gradebook Set-up session facilitated by Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS). During the session, ATSS consultants presented an overview of getting started with the Canvas Gradebook and its settings, discussed streamlining grading throughout the semester, and shared resources for advanced tips and tricks. Key Takeaways The role of the Canvas Gradebook in addressing access and inclusion Challenges facing students: academic stress, student mental health, transparency, anxiety about grades and class performance Challenges facing instructors: burnout, grading and time commitments, transparency in grading practices and assessments, ungrading We do not intend to imply that simply using the Canvas Gradebook will single-handedly eliminate the previously mentioned issues. However, we bring them to think about a small change that could be taken to set yourself and your students up for a semester with more ease.  Canvas Gradebook settings A...

In April 2024, Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) conducted focus group sessions with UMN instructors. The sessions’ goals were to: understand instructors’ level of awareness about generative AI.  understand how instructors perceive acceptable use of generative AI for their academic courses. learn how instructors would like to be involved with shaping how generative AI is used in education and what support, if any, instructors desired around the use of generative AI. Note: throughout this post, ‘generative AI’ and ‘AI’ are both used to refer to the broad category of artificial intelligence that can produce content such as text, images, video, audio, and/or code. Focus group process ATSS partners with Usability Services to establish the session goals, determine participant recruiting criteria, craft the interview protocol, and set the ground rules for the focus group sessions. During the sessions, the project team takes notes and documents their observations, including di...

The process of submitting final grades can be daunting. This post breaks down the grade submission process into discrete steps and provides guidance for each step of the way. Step 1: Check the grading scheme The grading scheme is the breakdown of percentages and letter grades and is used to calculate grades that students see in the Canvas gradebook. The default grading scheme in Canvas sites differs from the UMN Letter Grade Scheme. For example, the UMN Grade Scheme has an “A” at 93-100% whereas the default Canvas scheme has an “A” at 94-100%.  You may have already set the grading scheme at the start of the semester, so if you change it at the end, notify students as their grades may change from what they have been monitoring.  The first minute of the following video shows how to check/set the grading scheme in your Canvas course (the rest of the video shows Steps 2, 3 & 4). Step 2: Update gradebook scores All empty/blank grades need a score or another value like “EX” for ...

In a “flipped classroom” students get the course lecture or learning material before they come to class. Then, classroom time presents an opportunity to engage students in new ways. This strategy is one of many active learning strategies to more fully engage students in course materials.  We ( ATSS ) had the opportunity to talk with Victor Barocas about his experience “flipping” his classes. Professor Barocas, who teaches in the College of Science and Engineering, began by flipping a new class he was scheduled to teach in 2018. The experiment worked wonders. Today, he is working on flipping his third course because this method of teaching has elevated his students' learning and his own satisfaction as a teacher. Read edited excerpts from our interview below. What does your flipped classroom look like? Students watch a recorded video lecture before class. For the recorded video lecture, I talk for 15 - 20 minutes about the concept and then do a problem. Every video for my class ...

Co-authored by Lauren Marsh (ATSS) and Mary Jetter (CEI).  Are you wondering how and when your students should use generative AI? Are you exploring how to harness generative AI to augment your teaching? Many instructors are asking these questions as they contemplate using generative AI in their courses. Recently, the Emerging Technology Faculty Fellows were asked to try an experiment following these steps: Review resources that address the appropriate use of GenAI, for example, Appropriate Use of ChatGPT and Similar Generative AI Tools .  Then consider the web resource Advancing Meaningful Learning in the Age of AI,  which provides a revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy intended to help instructors evaluate and make changes to course assignments or assessments in light of GenAI.  Identify a single assignment from your course. Break the assignment into a series of sequential tasks. For each task, consider the following prompts: Decide whether or not students cou...