About ten years ago, during my first year teaching in DC Public Schools, I realized something. The method of teaching that I had been trained to use - delivering a single lesson to all of my students every day - was never going to meet all of my learners' diverse needs.
My lessons themselves were (at least in my opinion) engaging and well-planned. But the students in my class needed so many different things!
- Some had advanced skills, needed a challenge, and found my daily lessons boring.
- Some had gaps in their learning, needed extra support, and found my daily lessons confusing.
- Some were chronically absent and missed out altogether.
I had heard of alternative approaches—self-paced learning and mastery-based grading—and they sounded appealing, but I wasn’t sure how they could actually work.
Then, my instructional coach showed me how to set up Canvas LMS, using requirements and prerequisites to create clear learning paths for students. And it changed everything. I figured out - as I’ll describe below - how to make Canvas the digital home base for a class in which students:
- Accessed direct instruction at their own paces, through instructional videos, anytime and anywhere.
- Spent most of class time working together or with me, in small, data-driven groups.
- Achieved real proficiency in each successive skill before advancing to the next.
I shared my approach with my colleagues, who also had access to Canvas, and it worked for them, too! Today I help lead the Modern Classrooms Project, which has empowered more than 80,000 educators worldwide to build classrooms that respond to learners’ diverse needs. And while we support educators who use a wide variety of learning management systems, Canvas remains special to me. After all, it’s the one I used!
Here’s what I did.
Step 1: Digitize Direct Instruction
When I delivered a single lesson every day, I couldn't provide each student with the level of challenge and support they needed. Some students were ahead and bored, others were behind and lost, and others weren’t there at all. I needed an approach that could engage them all.
So, I recorded my direct instruction on video. My videos were very simple - I just recorded my screen while I presented a slideshow - but my students could now watch at home or in school. More importantly, they could pause my videos to take notes, re-watch parts when they had questions, or fast-forward through topics they already understood. They could learn with their families too. And best of all, I could spend my time in class working closely with individual students rather than lecturing from my whiteboard.
This may sound daunting, but I encourage you to give it a try! You can deliver the exact same explanations that you’d give in class, but you’re just explaining on video. Once you have that video, your students can always refer back to it if they need reinforcement or extra practice. And tools like Canvas Studio make recording, editing, and sharing videos simple and smooth.
Step 2: Create Clear Learning Paths
Once you’ve digitized direct instruction, you need to show students where and how to access it. In my experience, the easiest way to do that is by creating Canvas Modules that present content logically and linearly. That way, students can see exactly what they should do after each video or assignment. They can also begin to learn at their own paces, which ensures that every student will be appropriately challenged—and therefore engaged—every day.
If you want to make these learning paths even more straightforward, use requirements to ensure that students advance through the module in your desired order. This prevents learners from accessing content they aren’t yet prepared to understand, which can create learning gaps and damage learners’ self-esteem, and it also makes it easy for learners to see (a) how much they’ve already done and (b) what they have left to do. Making students move through requirements sequentially keeps them on track, even when they are all moving at different paces.
Finally, keep these modules relatively short - at least at first - so students feel a sense of agency and accomplishment. It can be tempting to fill your Canvas course with all sorts of great content, but you don’t want students to feel overwhelmed, especially when they are just starting to pace themselves. So make your self-paced modules feel manageable, and give students fresh starts regularly. Over time, they’ll become more and more comfortable taking ownership of the learning experience.
Step 3: Check for Understanding With Just-In-Time Assessments
Ultimately, the point of all this—and the point of teaching in the first place—is to help students understand new things. So once you’ve digitized direct instruction and created self-paced learning paths, you need a way to see whether students understand.
To do this, I recommend you create brief assessments of your learning objectives and let students take each assessment whenever they feel ready. If a student passes an assessment, they move on to the next objective in your learning path! If not, you can take the time to address that student’s misconceptions and give them another chance to reach mastery. This prevents learning gaps and helps students build deserved self-confidence.
I always liked giving my checks for understanding on paper—I find it easier to provide feedback and ensure that students complete these assignments without outside help—but I know lots of great teachers who use Canvas Quizzes for the same purpose. In these teachers’ classrooms, students are developing real proficiency because that’s exactly what their teachers require.
Final Thoughts: You Can Do This!
The approach I’ve described here - blended, self-paced, mastery-based instruction - may seem complex. And I admit that it does require planning and coordination. However, the three steps I’ve described above are easy to implement on their own, especially if you have Canvas LMS as a digital home base. Once you have your Canvas course up and running, like thousands of other Modern Classroom educators worldwide, I’m confident you’ll enjoy teaching like never before.
Remember: I was a Canvas teacher just like you. So, if I could use Canvas to meet all of my learners’ needs, I’m confident you can, too. And I’m excited to see what you and your students achieve!
Robert Barnett co-founded the Modern Classrooms Project, which has empowered 80,000+ educators in 180+ countries to meet every learner’s needs. Before that he taught math, computer science, English, social studies, and law, from the middle-school to university levels, at public and private schools in the U.S. and abroad. He is the author of Meet Every Learner’s Needs: Redesigning Instruction So All Learners Can Succeed, and he hopes his children will learn in Modern Classrooms someday!