In Blackboard, the left-side navigation bar provides most of the organizational information and structure for the site; Canvas doesn’t do that. In Canvas, the organizational structure comes from Modules, so the left navigation bar is far more limited. And — get ready for this — your Instructional Design Team actually recommends limiting the navigation options even more!
Take a step back for a moment and think about how your own course flows. You chart out a path through the material and guide students in that direction. Some courses include varying elements of choice, but even then, faculty still direct students to move from point A to point B to point C, etc.
Canvas Modules is designed to recreate your chosen path through the course so that students can follow along without too many detours. Ironically, a full Course Navigation Bar in Canvas will do the opposite. It can become a significant distraction for your students and keep them from seeing all of your carefully curated materials. Just like in our geography analogy, limiting the navigation options in Canvas will keep students moving together along your designated route.
Recommendations
Since you will be using Modules, you should definitely remove all of these index pages from your Course Navigation:
- Assignments
- Discussions
- Files
- Pages
- Quizzes
Your Course Navigation Bar should definitely include all of these:
- Syllabus
- Announcements
- Modules
- Grades
- People
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Rubrics
- New Analytics
- Panorama
For the other available links (e.g., Echo360, Zoom, publisher platforms), add them to Course Navigation only if your students will be using them. You can always add/remove links later.
Instructions
Prefer text? Read How Do I Manage My Course Navigation Links?
TL;DR
In the Course Navigation Bar, less is always more! Fewer navigation options means fewer ways for students to get lost or distracted.