Canvas: Course Sections
Instructors/admins can create course sections within their Canvas course. Course sections can be useful if you need to separate users into custom groups. Having sections can allow instructors and TAs to post targeted content in Announcements, Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, and the Inbox tool.
A Canvas course Section is basically a segment of the class roster used for administrative purposes:
- Instructor needs to assign different assignments to different sets of students (e.g., only grad students should complete this assignment). Canvas guide: Assign Assignment to Section.
- Instructor needs to assign different due dates for the same assignment to different sets of students (e.g., undergrads have different due dates than grads).
- Instructor needs to send announcements or messages to different sets of students. Canvas guide: Post Announcement.
- Take attendance for a specific section. Canvas Guide.
- Filter gradebook by a section. Canvas guide: Filter Gradebook.
- Create Canvas Calendar events for a section. Canvas guide: How do I use the Calendar as an instructor?
- Sections can be given start and end dates that override Course dates - very useful if using sections to allow for different cohorts to start the Course at different times. Canvas guide: How do I change the start and end dates for a course section as an instructor?
Differentiating Course Content by Section
Instructors have the option to assign each section its unique version of an assignment, discussion, or quiz. Even if the assignment is the same for all sections within a course, instructors can also assign unique due dates to each section.
Learn more about differentiated assignments and due dates.
Additional option to differentiate course content—Mastery Paths
Mastery Paths allows you to customize learning experiences for students based on performance. You can enable Mastery Paths to automatically assign coursework based on the score achieved for a previous assignment. Learn more about what is Mastery Paths.
Other Section Features
Filter Gradebook and Speedgrader by Sections
Sections can also be used to filter the Gradebook, differentiating TA access to students, and communicating with students through Canvas.
Sorting Canvas Gradebook by Sections:
- Click on Grades in Course Navigation.
- Select the View option and choose Filters > Sections.
- Select the section in the dropdown menu in the upper right corner.
Announcements
Announcements are a simple way to provide targeted communication to specific sections, meaning students will only receive the information that is relevant to them. Using the ‘Post to’ box, Announcements can be sent to individual or multiple sections.
Additional resources
A few additional considerations for sections:
- Students can see the name of their section—keep this in mind when choosing a naming convention.
- There is the option to limit users to only interact with other users in the same section—this can be helpful for restricting student interaction, and for assigning markers to section.
Please see these pages for additional information about Canvas sections:
How do I add a section to a course as an instructor?