How to Start Building Your Course Part 1

Last updated on July 24, 2024

For students and instructors alike, starting a new course can be intimidating. As an instructor, you may not know where or how to begin building the class in Canvas, whereas students may be disoriented if there isn’t a clear place to start or a warm welcome from their teacher. Fortunately, by following the steps outlined in this spotlight, you will have all the basic tools to start a course from scratch and ensure your students are well-received in the first few weeks of the term. With the MSU Denver Blueprint and the CTLD Ready site (including tutorials and live support), you are well-equipped to begin building and facilitating your course. 

While starting to build your course may seem like you are looking at a blank slate, our Canvas Blueprint can be leveraged to make your process efficient and effective. With it, you can craft your syllabus, a Course Information Module, and organize your first modules using tried-and-true instructional principles. Throughout this process, you might also want to reference resources like the Canvas Quick Start Guide and Ready, Set, Go tutorials—aides that provide practical insights and troubleshooting assistance. 

While this Spotlight aims to get your course up and running, it should be highlighted that the key to bringing your course to life is your engagement. As students enter your course, your unique presence as their instructor enlivens the subject. By following this guide to getting your course up and running, you will be able to build the basics of an instructionally sound course while engaging learners from day one.

Best Practices

What is the most efficient way to start building my course?

• Use the MSU Denver Blueprint. Course development can be overwhelming, and following the blueprint in your course shell eases the cognitive load you take on by building content from scratch. The MSU Denver Blueprint gives you carefully curated template materials to build from. When in doubt about what type of content to add or where to add it, rely on the Blueprint and templated material.
• Communicate early with the chair of your department about existing content for your course. If your chair or colleague provides you with course content, it is strongly recommended to follow the CTLD Course Copy Guide. This will ensure you start your course with a clean import, free of duplicate materials that often confuse students. 

How can I start using instructional design techniques?

• Build your syllabus using the syllabus tool. Using the syllabus tool is the simplest and easiest way to ensure your students have an accurate view of the course. If you are building your course from scratch and writing your own syllabus, the template material will prove invaluable. If you’ve imported a previous course’s syllabus by following the CTLD Course Copy Guide, review the syllabus to ensure dates, names, and other course information within it are accurate. 
• Engage your students with instructor presence in the Course Information module. The Course Information module in the MSU Denver Blueprint provides many pages of templated material, and it is certainly the best place to introduce yourself. Use it to include information not only about the course but also your interest in the subject, your aspirations for the class, and your personal interests. Fully leveraging the Course Information Module and humanizing yourself on the Instructor Introduction page should not be underrated. 
• Begin building your course using Advanced Module Building Techniques. Doing so sets the pace, tone, and structure for the course. These techniques will help you use powerful instructional design techniques such as chunking, alignment, and priming. These topics will covered more in-depth in the next installation of this Spotlight, How to Start Building Your Course pt. 2. 

What mistakes should I avoid as I begin building my course?

• Once you’ve finished this Spotlight and are ready to start building your course, check out the CTLD Spotlight on Common Mistakes to Avoid in Canvas. This Spotlight will help you to avoid common issues before they ever occur. 
• Should you hit a roadblock in your course building, don’t hesitate to visit our Instructional Design Support hours. We can help with the snags and technical issues in Canvas that come along with building a new course, as well as offer advice and feedback on sound instructional design strategies to maximize your course’s impact. 

Let’s walk through it together

Using the MSU Denver Blueprint

Using the MSU Blueprint is a fairly broad concept. Here, we will simply identify the most crucial features of it and how to use them.

• Template Modules: template modules include the Course Information module, University Policies and Resources module, and Sample Module.
  • Course Information Module: Your Course Overview, Instructor Introduction, and Course Alignment Map are the main areas you will be adapting and modifying in this module. We will take a closer look at the Course Alignment map in the second installation of this Spotlight.
    • Note: Do not modify the University Policies and Resources Module. See below.
• Template Material: In any template module, you will find pages with sample language and template material in brackets. By editing them with the Rich Content Editor, or the main text box, you can maintain the structure and topic while you replace the text with course information. 
• Policies and Resources Module: This module contains all of the mandatory resources to provide to students. You don’t need to make any changes to this module unless you want to add any departmental policies and resources to supplement the available information.
• Syllabus: The Syllabus Link in the navigation menu on the left leads you to a template syllabus that can be edited like a page. This page includes a course calendar and a To-Do list for students. 

Import Existing Content for Your Course

Communicate with the chair of your department as early as possible to find out whether your course has been taught before and if they or a colleague can share relevant content with you. If you have already done this and you are sure there is no content to be imported, skip to the Syllabus Tool section of this spotlight. 

• Importing content should be done using the CTLD Course Copy Guide. This will make sure your content is free of duplicate material that is often due to copying Blueprint materials that are already in the course you are copying into. 
• After you import your course materials, it is still very important to look through the Syllabus, Course Information module, Alignment Map, and all other materials to modify the contents to fit your course. This includes names, dates, due dates, and point values, to name a few. 

Build Your Syllabus Using the Syllabus Tool

The syllabus tool is a design element that is crucial to the success of your course in the beginning stages. Check out the CTLD tutorial on Using the Syllabus Tool for more details. 

• Using the Syllabus tool is one of the most important steps to building your course. Whether you imported existing material or are building a course from scratch, it is strongly recommended to use the syllabus tool template. 
• After navigating to the syllabus, modify it by clicking “Edit” in the upper right corner. It can then be edited exactly the same way you might edit text on a page. Copy, paste, delete, and type the information the template material prompts you to add. 

Leverage Instructor Presence and Engagement

As you build your course, add your presence where possible. This may seem like a small detail, but it is hard to overestimate the positive effect instructor presence can have. A few examples of how to do this are provided below:

• Add a recorded Instructor Introduction. Introducing yourself via video recording is the most effective way to offer a warm welcome to students. Include your credentials, your aspirations for how the class will influence learners, and perhaps a personal hobby or fun fact about yourself. When students see and hear you they are more likely to be invested in the course. To bring your content to life with multimedia, and more specifically our video hosting platform,YuJa, see the CTLD Spotlight on Incorporating YuJa Into Your Course. 
• Contribute to discussions. Students will likely respond to an introductory discussion so make sure you personally respond to show them you will be engaging with them individually from the outset. Respond to students in discussions throughout the course by posing thought-provoking questions, offering alternative points of view, or providing feedback on their posts. Review the CTLD Spotlight on New Discussions for a deeper understanding of how to use discussions in your course. 
• Use the Canvas Inbox feature. Use the Canvas inbox to send messages to the entire class or individual students. Using this messaging tool helps to proactively communicate with students to stay on track in a course as well as send out whole-course messages. Review the CTLD Spotlight on Communicating with Students for more details. 
• Offer feedback in various forms. Offering feedback guides your students to better outcomes while engaging with them. Timely feedback also allows a student to reflect on their work with your specific critiques in mind. Check out the CTLD Spotlight on Varying Feedback Methods for more information on how to add feedback to your course. 

Use Advanced Module Building Techniques

Once your course has a syllabus and Course Information module completed, it is time to begin building your course with modules. Review the CTLD Spotlight on Advanced Module Building Techniques to familiarize yourself with this process. It will help you decide how you want to structure your modules so they are consistent and easy to understand. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you begin to build your modules:

• Use the Sample Module in the MSU Denver Blueprint. Follow the Sample Module‘s structure to incorporate well-known instructional design techniques, such as chunking and priming. It also provides examples of how and where to use multimedia. 
• Only publish materials you want students to see. When designing a course from the ground up, it is common to have incomplete modules, assignments, pages, or quizzes. Make sure that only the materials and modules you’ve completed are published. Check out the CTLD Spotlight on Adding Items to Modules for more information on publishing or unpublishing content. 

What Next?

Once you’re ready to incorporate more tried-and-true instructional design techniques in your course, move on to the second installation of this Spotlight: How to Start Building Your Course pt. 2.