Either one is great, and you don’t need to decide until the day of the event!

We want everyone to have an incredible experience, so we will be taking steps to ensure both in-person and virtual attendees have opportunities for engagement and support. We will have an in-person facilitator, Eva Grouling Snider Links to an external site., and a virtual facilitator, Cheri Madewell Links to an external site..

This event is intended for Canvas beginners and Canvas experts alike! If you’ve created one or more Canvas courses (or even part of a course), you are ready to participate.

Absolutely not! The “design” in Canvas Design Jam refers to act of creation: when you make your syllabus or write an assignment prompt, you are designing.

Visual design is entirely optional and will not be directly evaluated for the Canvas Innovator Awards.

What you can make is up to you—as long as you can make it in approximately 90 minutes. However, to get your creative and pedagogical juices flowing, below are some examples of the possibilities.

Resources to Improve User Experience

It is not uncommon for users to encounter challenges related to user experience on Canvas. Do you have unique or creative methods for mitigating user experience difficulties? For example, do you have a particular way you set up or use your home page to help learners navigate and find important course content and resources?

Resources to Solidify Learning

Supporting and reinforcing learning is just as important as assessing it. Do you have a unique way to solidify students’ learning? Review resources (such as common term glossaries, infographics, or study guides) or low-stakes practice assessments (such as reading responses or knowledge checks) are great examples of this. These could also be activities that exist in the space between online and in-person, such as unique discussion activities, think-pair-shares that make use of a discussion board, collaborative peer reviews, and more. This is a very broad and rich category!

Interventions

Interventions are more than just a gentle reminder about a due date. They can also be things like one-on-one messages, conferencing techniques/resources, or different techniques for leaving feedback. Do you have any creative or unique ways of using interventions via Canvas to help guide users’ journeys?

Fun/Games

Learning often can—and should—be fun! How do you incorporate fun and games into your course? This might include everything from simple activities like a Jeopardy exam review to more complex games or scavenger hunts.

Welcome Experiences

Before folks can start their journeys in our courses, they have to first set their feet on the path. Do you have creative ways of helping them do that? Examples of this might include high-engagement components like unique icebreakers or simpler things like syllabus statement walkthroughs.

Ways to Navigate “Friction Points”

How do you help users navigate hurdles to guide them to their objectives? Good examples of this might be things like empathy-building tools or activities, radical or candid discussions, or particular materials and resources to support folks through these challenges.

Examples

Users often benefit from seeing examples of the work they’re engaging in. How do you incorporate examples in your course site? Do you have creative or unique ways of using examples to support folks? For instance, if students have an upcoming exam that is typically challenging, do you have a unique quiz or review method to mimic the upcoming exam?

Guided Steps for Students Who Are Stuck

The learning journey for students isn’t always smooth, and how we help students through those rough patches is vital to their success. When your learners get stuck, do you have creative ways of helping them get unstuck? Can you create unique methods for helping learners troubleshoot particular learning challenges they encounter?

Support for Metacognitive Reflection

Reflection is a vital part of the learning process, and one often undervalued by students. Do you have tools or activities for helping learners develop their metacognitive, reflective muscles? Examples of this might be things like reflective discussions or prompts, a particular reflective structure throughout long-term projects, peer review techniques, and tools to support or structure reflection.

Nope! You are welcome to refine, revise, or build upon something you have already done. You are also welcome to make a part of a larger whole, such as a syllabus section.

We will be creating empty Canvas courses (known as development courses) for all Canvas Design Jam registrants. You should receive an email invite a few days before the event. Please work in this course site, though you are welcome to copy any materials from your other courses.

No, you are welcome to submit your work or not, whatever you prefer!

Absolutely! Please register for the event Links to an external site. so that you receive a development course to work in and stay up-to-date on event news. You can submit your work here Links to an external site. anytime before the deadline (October 31, 11:59 p.m.).

Open the submission form Links to an external site., then follow the instructions on the form.

Submissions will be evaluated by a panel of 4 judges from around the University. Learn more about how submissions will be evaluated here.

You retain full intellectual property rights to your submission. You will have an option when you submit your work to select whether you would like to receive feedback from the event judges.

If you win one of the 3 Canvas Innovator Awards, you will receive a $200 RIA contribution and a digital certificate that you can include in your personnel file. We will contact you to discuss the possibility of us “templatizing” your work and making it available to the broader Ball State community.