Canvas LMS
Shakopee Public Schools
A Decade with Canvas LMS: The Paths to Success
Minnesota
8,000 Students
Adopted Canvas LMS: 2013
Located near Minneapolis, Shakopee Public Schools serve over 8,000 students and 600 teachers. For the last ten years, they have relied on Canvas LMS to keep students and teachers connected. At InstructureCon, their Blended Learning Coordinators, Eric Hills and Kara Osmundson, showcased how they utilize Mastery Paths, shared tips for districtwide success with an LMS, and underscored the value of data with Canvas Admin Analytics.
The Challenge
Change is usually both exciting and disruptive. In 2013, Shakopee School District prepared to roll out its 1:1 program. Ahead of implementation, they adopted Canvas LMS as their learning management system. According to Hills, embracing an LMS ahead of devices was crucial to their future success.
In order to embrace technology meaningfully, personalizing learning is a priority for Shakopee. Meeting every student where they are in their learning journey is at the heart of personalized instruction. However, offering personalized learning in every classroom for their 8,000 students is a massive undertaking. Shakopee is focused on differentiation and enhancing face–to–face instruction using blended resources. Canvas LMS is a central player.
Students aren’t the only learners in the district who need individualized support. Educators also benefit from personalized learning, and the responsibility lies on Hills and Osmundson to provide teachers with the assistance and ongoing education they need to integrate technology into their daily instruction purposefully.
Key Insights
Mastery Paths in Canvas LMS help every educator personalize learning.
A districtwide vision for how to take full advantage of a learning management system supports efforts to scale consistency.
Canvas course templates are a great way to save teachers time while ensuring a consistent student experience across multiple courses.
Canvas Admin Analytics helps Shakopee better understand how instructors and students use Canvas
The Solution
“Our silver bullet was that we adopted Canvas as our official grade book for all students six through twelve…,” Hills said. Once all teachers had a need to use Canvas as a core element in their instruction, conversations about the student experience became more purposeful.
Canvas LMS provides Shakopee’s educators with a variety of avenues through which to personalize instruction. Shakopee’s Instructional and digital learning coaches facilitated professional learning around the workshop model.
Using the workshop model allowed coaches to demonstrate how teachers can use Canvas LMS to provide differentiated resources and experiences using Mastery Paths, create structures to facilitate independent learning, and integrate creation tools like Canva to allow students to choose how to demonstrate their learning.
Mastery Paths in Canvas LMS are purposeful.It makes the teacher (or instructional designer)think through each of those pieces to ensure that you supply every student with the follow-up, the assignments, and the connections they need to succeed.
Eric Hills
Blended Learning Coordinator at Shakopee Public Schools
Personalization Made Easy
Hills and Osmundson recommend Mastery Paths as a way to provide students with appropriate learning opportunities based on where they are in their learning journey. Using any graded item at the start of a module, teachers can automatically assign content to students based on their performance. Not only will it differentiate what students are tasked with, but it can allow students choice in how they demonstrate mastery of their learning.
In addition to personalizing student learning, Shakopee’s team uses Admin Analytics to personalize teacher training. Admin Analytics allows them to fully understand how classrooms use features within Canvas LMS.
“If teachers aren't using a feature that we want them to use, we identify it using Admin Analytics,” Hills said. Osmundson went on to explain how they take full advantage of these insights as they create clear support paths for staff.
One of the great uses of Admin Analytics is to look at feature use. We can drill down and say, ‘Oh, look,these three science teachers over here who are not using Modules. Let's look at their courses and have a conversation with them. So, Admin Analytics is a good way to get that data.
Kara Osmundson,
Blended Learning Coordinator
Knowing who is using what also helps schools like Shakopee implement consistent course design district-wide while aligning professional development to target useful but underutilized features.
A Common Vision
Thanks to Canvas LMS's flexible, open nature, it can serve as a digital hub for any classroom. Shakopee realized that districtwide consistency would only come through clear LMS guidelines..
“We needed a clearer vision and guidelines around how Canvas is used in a special education classroom compared to social studies or science classrooms. We still need to ensure that all students know how to use the platform and they see consistent elements and navigation across all their courses,” Osmundson said.
Shakopee Schools have embraced Canvas Mobile apps. The Teacher app is great for quickly providing student feedback, the Student app is excellent for workflow for our students using iPads, and parents use the Parent app to help them stay connected in their student’s learning journey.
Hills expressed his enthusiasm, saying, "If you were to ask me to list the things I can't do with the Canvas app, that list would be quite short."
The Results
Educators need the opportunity to grow professionally to continue providing students with the highest quality learning experiences. Canvas is one of the many resources that Shakopee is able to provide educators that directly impact the student learning experience.
“Providing professional development in Canvas LMS has been an excellent way for us to meet some of our specific relicensure needs. And so teachers are going in there and completing their courses. Everything is self-paced through a Module, and they get a certificate at the end,” Osmundson said.
As they look ahead, they are excited to continue building the future of learning for everyone at Shakopee with Canvas LMS.
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