Ball State UniversityThe Teaching Innovation Blog

Explore how the web design practice of “Mobile First” can be applied to course design to create mobile-friendly courses.

Before we start, a quick warning. I’m going to assume that you value creating a good learning environment for all your students. Your students are using smartphones all the time, and that includes interacting with your course (more than 70% of Ball State students regularly use the Canvas mobile app). At the core of this post is the question, “How can we better design courses for students using mobile devices?”

If you want to be a curmudgeon about students using mobile devices – inside your class or outside your class – then this is not the place for you. You have been warned.

What Is “Mobile First”?

Historically, websites have been developed first and foremost for larger devices like desktops and laptops, then adapted (often with ugly results) for mobile devices. 

While modern websites are more similar across all devices, there are still differences in the user experience on different devices. 

For example, online shops often present products in a carousel which large-screen users browse through left and right arrow buttons. On mobile devices, those buttons must be very carefully placed to still fit on a narrow screen and not cover the product information. Plus, many users know to swipe left or right, so those gestures need to work consistently. 

The reality of web development is that anyone building a website will be doing so on a larger screen, generally a monitor. They likely also were trained to build large-screen websites. So, it’s no wonder that many developers will spend 95% of their time creating the large-screen website, then the final 5% tweaking it to work well on mobile devices. 

By prioritizing “desktop first,” though, mobile becomes a retrofitted afterthought. This inevitably results in gaps and missed opportunities where mobile users get the short end of the stick. 

In contrast, a “mobile-first” approach flips this and focuses on making the mobile website the “foundation,” then adding in features and options that will only be workable on larger screens. In a world of mediocre mobile websites, those that are designed mobile-first tend to shine bright for mobile users. This approach also benefits large-screen users, as most mobile-first websites carry over design elements that benefit the desktop experience, such as more compact navigation menus.

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What Does This Have to Do with Teaching?

It’s likely that you build your course in Canvas (and often access it) on a laptop or desktop. So, it’s only natural that your tacit assumption is that students will also access it on a laptop or desktop. After all, if you have them taking quizzes, responding to discussion boards, and writing essays, then they must be using larger screens for that. (Hahahahaha. No.) 

The reality is that mobile devices are mostly woven into the fabric of our lives, especially for younger adults. Students may check on what they have to do in your course on their bus ride home. They may listen to a school-related podcast while commuting. They may start a quiz in the library on their phone when their laptop battery dies just to finish it later in their room with the laptop plugged in. 

In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 15% of American adults are smartphone dependent, meaning they have a smartphone but no home broadband internet connection. 

Unfortunately for our students, teachers generally aren’t thinking about the LMS and course technologies with a mobile-first approach. We’re designing courses and coursework for familiar devices like laptops and desktops, then perhaps we’ll add in a few concessions to mobile devices. 

Practically, this means that students (again, more than 70% of them) are met by frustrations at many different points in the learning process. Maybe they can’t access a key reading that they want to do. Maybe they’re asked to download a file that’s prohibitively large for mobile devices. Maybe they are asked to read something on a website that doesn’t work on mobile. 

While some learning activities will only be the province of larger devices, a significant portion of learning in online environments can be done well on mobile devices if it is designed for those devices in the first place. Everything from interacting with learning materials to taking quizzes to writing on discussion boards to checking progress in a module to asking questions of peers or the teacher can be done well with mobile devices. 

Don’t we owe it to the 70+% of students using these devices to make our learning experiences work for them?

Mobile-First Teaching Practices

What follows are some teaching practices that are informed by a mobile-first approach. Note that none of these are mobile-only, as 4-5% of your students do not own a smartphone at all. The idea here is to design in a way that is mobile conscious and yet also works well for users of other devices (many of whom will also use mobile). 

  • Chunking is the process of taking larger concepts, knowledge, or processes and dividing them into a handful of smaller pieces, usually 4-6 pieces. This is beneficial for mobile learners, as it allows for more opportunities for “microlearning” or learning in short bursts. When you commit to chunking, your students can meaningfully interact with your course while waiting for the bus or eating breakfast. 
  • Audio recordings of readings allow learners to use their mobile device to interact with course materials at almost any time. For example, a student with a long commute may not be able to carve out time for sitting down to read articles but may be able to listen to them on their commute. Accessible PDFs are a great starting point here, as they can work with text-to-speech software. Many publishers are moving toward native text-to-speech options, as well, such as Taylor and Francis. 
  • Captioned videos, like audio recordings, offer learners the freedom to interact with course materials in a variety of settings. For instance, many students work in loud environments. If videos are not captioned, they may have to wait until they are at home or in the library to watch them. With captions, though, they can watch during a break at work if they want to do so. 
  • Don’t bury information. When you put key information, such as the due dates for a project or your email address, in downloadable documents that are only linked in specific places in your course, you make it much more difficult for students using mobile devices to quickly and easily locate that information. As much as possible, put this information in Canvas Pages, preferably with easy access from your home page or Modules. 
  • Designing your LMS content for mobile devices also goes a long way toward reducing frustration for mobile users. While the mobile app for LMS’s like Canvas does a lot of heavy lifting to make content mobile-friendly, you also need to be aware of how the content looks on mobile devices. I recommend downloading the Canvas Student mobile app and opening your course on it. Some content – especially large images, videos, and other software embeds – does not work well even in the mobile app. 
  • Accepting video and/or audio submissions for assignments and/or discussions can help busy students complete coursework from their mobile devices. While this approach obviously won’t work for all coursework, I recommend starting with low-stakes assignments and assignments/discussions where the thinking matters much more than the form. Most faculty default to the written form because they are familiar with it, but you may be surprised by how delightful and insightful video and audio submissions can be. 
  • Choosing mobile-friendly sources can prevent the frustrations that learners encounter when they try to access a required course material only to find that it is near-unusable on a mobile device. Pay particular attention to your course textbook and any other major sources you are using. If students cannot access a course material in its entirety on a mobile device, then they are forced to find other devices and may be more unlikely to work with that material. 
  • Minimizing the number of logins students have to go through makes accessing course materials quicker and easier. Many services, especially those through universities, require 3 or 4 logins total to access the content. For the busy student on the go, this is essentially the same as it not being usable on a mobile device. Where possible, make your content immediately accessible, straight from the LMS, without additional portals or logins. 
  • Splitting essay questions into a separate quiz can help students take the “automatic” parts of the quiz that are easy to do on mobile devices first, then complete the essay questions on another device at a later point. While this isn’t always feasible for grading purposes, if it does work for your grading system, then it can encourage students to use their mobile devices for completing quizzes. 
  • Converting files to PDF from common formats like Microsoft Word can help students using mobile devices access those files without downloading special apps on their phones. Try to download any file your students will need to access on your phone – if it does not open natively, then it’s likely students will have issues opening the file as well. 

You may notice a common theme among these techniques. Access your course through a mobile device and you will likely find many areas where the user experience can be improved. Your students, who are absolutely already using their mobile devices to access your course, will thank you. 

What mobile-friendly or mobile-first design techniques do you use in your courses? Weigh in through the comments below.

References

Pew Research Center. “Mobile Technology and Home Broadband 2021.” Updated June 3, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/06/03/mobile-technology-and-home-broadband-2021/ 

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Help students manage the course workload in your class with Canvas features by reducing the need for reminders and making important steps more visible.

The demands on university students are extraordinarily high. Our students manage demanding course workloads, high-grade expectations, and career readiness tasks in the classroom. Yet, the expectations do not stop there. Students are attempting to balance academic expectations alongside jobs and social responsibilities. It’s a heavy burden to say the least.

COVID-19 has sharpened this problem for many students. A September 2020 study of undergraduates in a large public university system in Texas found that 71% of students indicated their stress and anxiety had increased due to COVID-19 (only 9% said it had decreased).

While it’s worth reconsidering the student course workload in your class, redesigning your requirements can be a daunting prospect. We’re here today to provide tips to help your course feel more achievable with Canvas features that help students manage their own tasks.

These features benefit both students and teachers. Your students can more easily see what they need to do in your course, and you can reduce the need for reminders and minimize the number of students who miss or skip important steps.

Course Workload Feature #1: Student To-Do List

The student to-do list in Canvas is a powerful way to help students know what they need to do in your course. While much of the to-do list is automatically populated by items with the Due Date feature set in Canvas, you can also control what appears there for your courses.

The to-do list is quite commonly used by students to manage their tasks. It’s prominently located in the right sidebar on desktops, and it has a dedicated button in the mobile app menu. (Don’t think your students use the app? It’s likely more than half of your students are using the app.)

Here’s what goes on the student to-do list from your course:

  • Quizzes are automatically added, even Practice Quizzes
  • Assignments are automatically added, even ones not requiring a submission
  • Discussion boards are automatically added if they are graded; ungraded discussion boards are not added unless you check the “Add to student to-do” box
  • Pages are not added unless you check the “Add to student to-do” box
  • Calendar events are automatically added

Adding a Page to student to-do lists will create a button at the bottom of the Page for students to “Mark as done.” There are no specific requirements for this other than checking the box. However, it’s a great way to indicate the importance of doing something for students, as they have an extra step to do before it moves off their to-do list.

Canvas buttons: Mark as done and Next

Here are a few tips for making the most out of the student to-do list:

  • For ungraded Discussion Boards, always check the “Add to student to-do” box. This ensures that contributing to the forum shows up on students’ radar.
  • On any Page that needs to be reviewed by a particular date, check the “Add to student to-do” box. For example, if you want students to review some model papers before class, create a Page titled “Review Model Papers,” upload the papers, and mark it on their to-do list.
  • Consider adding Calendar events for important dates in the course. For example, if students need to choose a partner by a particular date, add that to the Calendar and it will appear in students’ task lists. This is particularly helpful to highlight key dates in a semester-long project, as you might not necessarily have an Assignment created for every step along the way.

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Course Workload Features #2 and #3: Module Prerequisites and Requirements

Canvas modules are an excellent way to organize your course and structure a week or unit’s work for students. Two features in particular can help students ensure they are on track and know what they need to complete: Prerequisites and Requirements.

After you create a module, click the three dots to the right of the module and select “Edit.” This will bring up a pop-up where you can add Prerequisites and Requirements.

Prerequisites control the availability of a module to your students. They allow you to indicate which modules must be completed before the module you are editing is available to students. You can add multiple Prerequisites or have only one. Leave this area alone if you want the module to be available without restrictions.

Module prerequisites in Edit Module Settings screen in Canvas

Requirements, on the other hand, control what counts as “completing” the module. If you don’t have any Prerequisites set, the only thing Requirements controls is when the module shows as complete (green check mark) for students. The check mark is a powerful motivator for many students, and using Requirements allows you to make it crystal clear what students need to do.

Module Requirements in Edit Module Settings screen in Canvas

In the Requirements section, you select individual items in the module and indicate what students must do for it to be considered “complete.” These options include: 

  • View the Item: Students get a check mark for simply opening the item in Canvas, regardless of how long they spend on it. 
  • Mark as Done: This is used in conjunction with the “Student To-do” feature discussed earlier. When students select the “Mark as Done” button on the page, it will display a green check mark for the item in the module. 
  • Contribute to the Page: This is used for discussion boards and gives students a check mark when they have added to the DB. (Can also be used for collaborative, student-edited Pages.) 
  • Submit the Assignment: This can be used on Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussion Boards to show a check mark once submitted. 
  • Score At Least: This can be used on Quizzes to show a check mark once students have reached a particular score threshold. 

You can use any combination of these to clearly communicate to students what you expect of them. For example, consider a module with readings, videos, sample project reviews, discussion boards, a quiz, and an assignment. By configuring each of these items with the appropriate selection, you create a clear list of activities for students to complete in the module. As they go, the module shows their progress and indicates what they have left to do, helping them to manage their overall course workload. 

Student View of module shows checkmarks on completed items and empty circles on uncompleted items

As you can see, using Requirements allows you to essentially turn each module into a dynamic to-do list for students, one that responds to what they have done. It also allows students to miss items but have a clear visual indicator of what they should go back to complete. 

One caveat to Requirements is that you should use them with Prerequisites cautiously. If you set Requirements on a module, then set that module as a Prerequisite for a later module, this can potentially lock students out of the later module. This is helpful if you absolutely want students to do something before a module being available. Not all students, though, follow the same path through the course, and combining Requirements and Prerequisites can cause frustration for students who don’t follow the path you’ve laid out exactly. 

Quick Recap 

Hopefully you’ve got some great ideas about how to help students manage the course workload in your class. Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve covered: 

  • Use “Add to student to-do” to give students an important nudge to complete ungraded items, such as Pages and ungraded Discussion Boards. 
  • Use “Prerequisites” under Module > Edit to lock a particular module until students have completed previous modules. 
  • Use “Requirements” under Module > Edit to turn a module into a dynamic to-do list that responds to students’ actions based on your configurations. 

How could you use Student To-Do and Module Prerequisites and Requirements to help your students manage the course workload in your class? Weigh in below in the comments!

References

Davidson, Cathy N. “Quantity Is Not Rigor.” Inside Higher Ed, May 13, 2020. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/05/13/academics-should-rethink-way-they-assign-homework-opinion 

Son, Changwon, Sudeep Hegde, Alec Smith, Xiaomei Wang, and Farzan Sasangohar. “Effects of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 22, no. 9 (2020): e21279, https://doi.org/10.2196%2F21279.

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