How to Use Canvas Course Navigation

A typical Course Navigation Menu. Home is always at the top, while other links like Announcements, Modules, Assignments, Grades, Syllabus, and others may be in different spots.

The Course Navigation Menu is a series of links on the left side of your course that helps you access different course areas. Your courses may look slightly different, because the instructor has the ability to reorder, add, and delete these links.

Some common links you may see:

Home: The course's home page. This may vary between courses, but is typically the modules page, assignments page, or a dedicated home page.

Announcements: The announcements page shows all of the announcements that have been posted in the course.

Modules: The modules page is a structured list of the course's content. It may be organized by content type, material, projects, or other ways depending on the course instructor's desire and method for delivering the content.

Assignments, Discussions, & Quizzes: Each page has a list of their respective coursework types. Assignments is a catchall for any coursework that involves submitting files and/or content, or are manually scored by the instructor. Discussions are coursework structured around a discussion topic allowing students to reply to the topic and one-another. Quizzes has the course's quizzes, exams, surveys, and any other coursework using Canvas' quiz engines.

Grades: The grades page shows a breakdown of graded coursework and other activities, including the received grades, total grade for the course, and a what-if grade testing feature.

People: The people page shows a list of all of the members of the course, including students, instructors, teaching assistants, etc.

Syllabus: The syllabus page hosts the course's syllabus, as well as a list of all assigned coursework and their due dates.

More information

For more in-depth information on Course Navigation and the Course Home Page, check out the Canvas Student Guide.

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