While we recommend that Assignments, Quizzes, Files, Discussions, and Pages remain hidden because they are designed to be primarily backstage areas, modules are the primary organizing principle of your Canvas course and should be used to create a linear flow of instruction for students.
Because of the Next and Previous buttons that are added to Canvas activities when they are placed in modules, a chronological organization works best rather than creating modules that group like types of content together, such as quizzes, assignments, and discussions.
Think about the order in which you want you students to encounter each course activity. Do they need to read a content page before attempting a quiz? Do they need to contribute to a discussion before submitting an assignment?
When you add requirements to a module, students must complete the defined requirements within the module before the module will be marked complete.
You can choose to allow students to complete requirements in any order or you can require them to move through the module sequentially.
Depending on the module item type, requirements include up to five options:
View the item
Students must view the item.
Mark as done
Students must mark the assignment or page as done before they can progress to the next item. This option also synchronizes with the student List View Dashboard and completes the item for the student. This option only works when the item with this requirement is located in one module.
Contribute to page
Students must post a reply to a non-graded discussion or contribute content to an editable page.
Submit assignment
Students must submit an assignment, post a reply to a graded discussion, or submit a quiz. Entering a grade for the student will not fulfill this requirement.
Score at least
Students must meet a minimum submission score. With this option, an additional field appears where you can enter the minimum score that students must earn. This option is available for all graded assignment types.
When you set a module prerequisite, the module is locked until a student completes the required items. However, unless completion requirements are set for prior modules, students will still be able to access upcoming modules.
When selecting a prerequisite module, you can only choose from previous modules. You may need to reorder modules to correct prerequisite availability.
Note: You can only add prerequisites if you have added at least one module.
Note: If you choose to set the requirement type as completing only one option, and you want to use it with graded items, please note that all assignments with their current grades are reflected in the Gradebook. For instance, if you want a module to require a student to submit one of three assignments, the two assignments that aren’t submitted still factor into the Gradebook as unsubmitted. You may choose to manually configure the unsubmitted assignments appropriately, either by using the differentiated assignments feature or excusing the assignments in the Gradebook.
As the central feature of the Canvas architecture, modules are designed to be student friendly with minimal explanation. However, here are some links that you might find useful to share with students depending on the features you are using: