Update Your Course for the New Term

Last updated on December 15, 2025

As an instructor preparing your course for a new term, you may find yourself balancing several different tasks at once. Even with existing course content from a previous term, you will still need to customize and make changes to content, due dates, and in some cases, technology, to keep your course relevant for a new group of students and a brand new term.

Fortunately, there are a few techniques and tools you can use to make updating a previous course for a new semester quicker, easier, and less stressful. This Canvas Spotlight will cover some best practices and techniques to prepare your existing course for a new term.

Best Practices and Featured Tutorials

• Reference the Copy a Canvas Course into the New Semester guide for detailed steps on how to copy/migrate your course.
• Copy your previous course into one of your sandboxes before making updates rather than updating the previous course. That way, if there are any questions about the previous course, it’s still set up exactly the same as it was when you taught it.
  1. Once you’ve made the changes in your sandbox shell, copy it over to your new semester shell.
  2. To learn more about using sandboxes, visit our tutorial, “Everything You Need to Know about Sandboxes.”
• Thoroughly review your previous course to identify what worked, what didn’t, and what, if anything, you would like to change. One idea is to make a note of any areas where you have manually added due dates. Anything manually entered will not be automatically updated for the new term if you use Canvas’s option to edit assignment dates.
  • Visit the Ready, Set, Go section of the CTLD Ready Website or Virtual Drop-in Hours for additional ideas.
• Update all due dates in the course simultaneously by using the adjust assignment due dates page. This saves time and enables you to view all of your assignments and due dates on the same page to give you a big-picture perspective of your course schedule and flow.
• If you are teaching a synchronous online course, set up your class and online lectures in Teams. For more detail on setting up Teams classes, visit our tutorials, “Set up a ‘Course Team’ in Teams” and “Schedule a Recurring Meeting in Teams.”
• If you didn’t find what you’re looking for or have additional questions, please visit our Virtual Support Drop-in hours.

Staying Current

• Due to the rapid pace higher education must adapt to AI, MSU Denver’s Provost states every course at MSU Denver should explicitly address the use of generative AI in the syllabus or other course information. Review the Generative AI Syllabus Language Considerations document to develop a section addressing Generative AI in your syllabus. Doing so will ensure that you always have a policy on Generative AI in your course that can be edited and updated between semesters and as technology changes our educational landscape. Make sure to check out the CTLD Ready Site’s Resources for Generative AI page to learn more about AI in education and its possible implications for your course. MSU Denver’s Generative Artificial Intelligence Taskforce will continue to make up-to-date recommendations for you to consider adding to your course at the end and beginning of semesters.

Let’s walk through it together

Adjust Due Dates for All Assignments

1. Go to MSU Denver’s Faculty and Staff Hub.
2. Click Quick Links on the top right of the page.
3. Click Canvas from the menu options that appear.
4. Log in to your Canvas Account.
5. Select the Course you’d like to work in.
6. Click Assignments in the left-hand navigation menu.
7. Click the More Options (3-Dots) icon in the top right-hand corner of the page.
8. Click Edit Assignment Dates in the drop-down menu.
9. Scroll down the page and check/change that each assignment has an associated Due Date.
   • If a student doesn’t submit work to an Assignment/Quiz/Graded Discussion with no due date, they won’t receive any penalty to their grade. Therefore all graded work needs a due date.
10. Click Save in the top right-hand corner of the page if you made any changes.

Set up a “Course Team” in Teams

1. Open the Microsoft Teams app from your computer.
2. Select the Teams tab on the left side of the screen to open the Teams area.
3. Click the Join or Create a Team button (which my be in the top right or the bottom left).
4. Click the Create a Team button.
5. Select the Class team type.
6. Type the course name in the Team Name text box.
7. Type a description of the course in the Description text box.
8. Click Create on the bottom right of the pop-up menu.
9. Type the name of a student in the Type a name or email text box under Add members to Test Class.
   • Note: You can also skip this step and send students the invite link to add themselves instead. To do thism Click the Three Dots to the right of the Class name, and select Copy Link. You can then share the link to students using your preferred mode of communication.
10. Click the Student’s Name once it appears in the drop-down list to add them to your Student list.
11. Add more Students individually by following steps 8 and 9.
    • Note: It is helpful to have your class roster from Banner to complete this process.
12. Click the Add button to add all of the students you have selected to the class team.
    • Note: You can also click on the More Options Menu (three dots) and choose Get Link to Channel. Click the Copy button and email your students the link to invite them into the course.

Set up a Recurring Meeting in Teams

1. Open the Microsoft Teams app from your computer.
2. Select the Teams tab on the left side of the screen to open the Teams area.
3. Select the Class you want to set a recurring meeting for.
4. Click the Camera icon in the upper right part of the screen.
5. Select Schedule a Meeting from the drop-down menu.
6. Type in a Title, for example, “Class Meeting.”
7. Set the Date and Time.
8. Click Does not repeat.
9. Select Weekly from the drop-down menu.
10. Select often the meeting will repeat using the “Repeat every” drop down boxes.
    • This will automatically set as repeat every 1 week.
11. Select the Days of the Week the meeting will occur.
    • If the meeting will be more than once a week, select all the days the meeting will happen. Any repeat settings will apply to all days selected.
12. Click Select date next to End to select the date for the last meeting.
13. Click Save.
14. Type in any Meeting Details in the text box.
15. Click on Send in the upper right part of the screen. This will send an email to each of your students to accept the calendar invite.