Learn how to assign specific Canvas Modules or Pages to students in your Canvas course site.

With the new Releasing Modules to Students feature available in Canvas, you can easily assign individual students and sections course material and assessments tailored just for them.

Releasing Differentiated Content

As a master’s student many years ago, I identified an undergraduate course that aligned with my thesis topic. The instructor generously agreed to adapt the curriculum, requiring additional readings and advanced assessments appropriate for a graduate course.

In that same scenario today, the instructor could assign differentiated content to students in Canvas by releasing a Module or Page just for them with the “Assign To” function. The “Assign To” functionality was already available for assignments, including graded discussions and quizzes, and is now available for Modules and Pages.

Follow these easy steps to assign differentiated content. First, select the three dots in the Module (or Page) you want to share with individual student(s), and then select Assign To.

Then, choose which student(s) you want to assign to this Module. Only those students to whom you Assign will see the Module as long as it’s published in your Canvas course.

Additional Use Cases

Instructors can release Modules to students to share alternate curricula while maintaining privacy. This may be beneficial for courses with two different groups of students, such as a course with both university-enrolled and dual credit high school or honor students. You can release different content and keep students’ status private. This feature will allow instructors to assign differentiated content to master’s and doctoral students who engage in the same course but achieve different objectives and/or different assessments. In addition to assigning differentiated curriculum to individual students, you can also use the “Assign To” functionality in a different course section.

Instructors can also use this feature to provide students with additional support and practice opportunities, advanced course material, and elective content. You can read more about this feature and additional use cases on the Canvas blog.

Possible Future Additions

Based on input from Canvas Community members, future iterations of this feature may include additional options to “Assign To” Groups and to “no one.” Assigning Modules to “no one” could be helpful if you want to publish a Module but not yet assign it or ensure the published Module is only viewable to those with appropriate permissions, such as Teacher or TA roles. A third requested option from the Canvas Community is to allow availability dates for different students. This would enable instructors to make a Module available to individual students within a specific time frame, such as early access to content not yet available to the rest of the students due to travel, university-sponsored obligations, or planned medical care.

Conclusion

The new Releasing Modules to Students and Sections feature in Canvas opens the possibility of assigning tailored content to individual students or groups. How would you use this feature in your course? We would love to hear your ideas for pedagogical applications and welcome your comments below.