Sparking Interest, Saving Time, Supporting Students: The Power of Khanmigo & Canvas LMS

Picture this: it’s Sunday evening, you’re staring at your work laptop, planning lessons for the upcoming week, and your creativity feels like it clocked out earlier than it should have. You need a hook to make tomorrow’s history lesson resonate, clear instructions to guide students through a new assignment, and maybe a sprinkle of inspiration to tie it all together.

Sound familiar? This is often how I spent weekends as a middle and high school social studies teacher—and, to be honest, it’s how I spend time in my current educational technology role, too. Whether I’m outlining professional development that is exciting, inviting, and clear for my adult learners or brainstorming ways to help teachers use new tools effectively, there are times when creativity flows effortlessly and others when I feel stuck or short on fresh ideas. I think, as educators, we’ve all been there!

Whether it’s brainstorming a lesson starter that ties ancient civilizations to today’s trends or crafting student-friendly checklists to boost executive functioning, Khanmigo is like having an assistant in your corner.

I first heard about the Khanmigo and Canvas integration through InstructureCon updates, my statewide Canvas user group (INCUE), and my district’s amazing customer success manager, who provided the nitty-gritty details to get the integration up and running for our staff members.

AI has been a hot topic in Indiana for a while now—many districts, like mine, received grants from the state to pilot select AI tools like Khanmigo. Seeing state guidance that featured examples of districts already using Khanmigo made me feel like this integration could be a powerful avenue to support diverse learners as well as the workload of their amazing teachers. 

Making Connections for Every Student

Khanmigo’s integration in Canvas provides teachers with several easy-to-use generators focused on common teacher tasks. The “make it relevant” feature, and “real-world context” are a few of my favorites to show teachers. 

As a former middle school social studies teacher, I’ve always been passionate about finding ways to connect students to the curriculum. My students studied ancient Eastern Hemisphere civilizations that were distant in time and geographically remote. I loved coming up with creative ways to spark student interest in ancient Mesopotamia or the Indus Valley Civilization, but sometimes that task was challenging. The Khanmigo “make it relevant” generator is the perfect assistant when making connections is challenging! 

This generator allows you to plug in your standards or topic and information about your students and their interests. Many teachers use surveys to learn about their students’ hobbies and preferences—why not use that information to create exciting lesson hooks or projects? Imagine blending a student’s love for basketball with a lesson on the Great Wall of China or comparing their favorite video game’s strategy to historical warfare tactics. Khanmigo makes it easy to weave student interests into lesson hooks, sparking curiosity and connection in ways that would’ve taken hours to brainstorm on my own.

Additionally, Khanmigo’s ability to help craft clear instructions is a game-changer for supporting executive functioning skills. Universal Design for Learning (UDL, CAST) is a core part of my district, where it has been the instructional guiding framework for over two decades. UDL is also featured prominently in the 2024 National Educational Technology Plan from the U.S. Department of Education. It emphasizes that teachers are designers of the learning environment (both physical and digital) and encourages proactive planning for learner variability by providing flexible options to minimize barriers.

A key focus of the updated UDL guidelines is providing executive functioning support to learners. Executive functioning skills—like staying focused, organizing tasks, and sustaining motivation—aren’t innate; they’re taught. Khanmigo is a powerful tool for helping teachers provide that support. Teachers can use Khanmigo to create clear, concise directions and add them to Canvas assignments, Discussions, Pages, and Modules in just a few clicks. The tool also helps generate checklists and draft rubrics, which teachers can incorporate into assignments and leveraged in SpeedGrader. The result? Students gain clarity and structure, boosting their ability to succeed independently.

Real-World Wins with Khanmigo for Teachers & Trainers

Khanmigo has been a helpful tool to many teachers in our district since we have turned on the integration and provided training opportunities. Teachers are saving time, igniting creativity, and fostering more accessible classrooms. These wins align beautifully with Universal Design for Learning (UDL), at the core of everything we do.

As someone who trains teachers, I’ve also seen firsthand how valuable Khanmigo can be. For example, I’ve used it to clarify instructions for leveraging technology tools during professional development sessions. Clear, concise instructions are critical when introducing new tools, and Khanmigo helps me ensure that my directions are accessible and easy to follow. During teacher training, I’ve also modeled how to use Khanmigo to create informational texts about AI. 

Demonstrating how the tool can help simplify complex topics like AI has been a great way to inspire educators to use it in their own classrooms. These examples showcase Khanmigo’s versatility and highlight its ability to support teachers and students in navigating technology and learning.

In one of our middle schools, math teachers used Khanmigo’s discussion generator to create rich, process-focused questions for station rotations. For example, they entered multiple math process standards into the discussion prompt generator in Khanmigo to develop questions that encouraged deep mathematical discourse—a skill critical for helping teachers identify student understanding and allowing students to process and solidify their understanding of topics. They make connections, clarify misconceptions, and deepen their knowledge by explaining their thinking.

As winter weather makes its way into Indiana, our district uses eLearning days for virtual instruction. Teachers have used Khanmigo to adapt lesson plans for virtual learning while still providing options for students to show their understanding in creative ways. For example, a group of biology teachers brainstormed activities that balance online and offline tasks. One idea involved students creating 3D models of mitosis and explaining the process in multiple formats.

Plus, let’s not forget Khanmigo's helpfulness when stuck in a creative rut! Teachers have used the tool to write poems about historical figures, create goofy songs and raps about computer science vocabulary, or generate real-world math problems to answer the age-old student question, “When will I ever use this?” 

Looking Ahead

What’s next for us with Khanmigo? I’m especially eager to dive into the “refresh my knowledge” generator. As the second semester rolls in, this feature will help teachers review content they haven’t taught in a while and design engaging review activities for students.

I can’t wait to see how other educators in my district and beyond unlock Khanmigo's potential. Over the coming weeks, we are hosting numerous professional development sessions that lightly touch on the “how” behind using Khanmigo but focus more on providing teachers with time to practice and share their use cases with their peers. I am excited to see the many ways educators use Khanmigo to help personalize lesson hooks, clarify instructions, and other new ways. 

Providing teachers with time and space to share their wins is a great way to help them find inspiration and support and enhance the learning environments for all learners. As we dig further into the Khanmigo and Canvas integration, let’s continue to celebrate time saved, more creativity sparked, and classrooms that are truly designed to meet the needs of all learners.