Practical guides on learning design, assessment and Canvas, organised by the five PANDA stages. Sign in to see what you’ve read and save articles for later.
Prepare: The Important First Step in the PANDA Framework
Prepare sets the scene for each week of an online course. Here is what to include, how to build it in Canvas and how to keep it short enough that students actually read it.
The Engagement Cycle and How to Use It
Students rarely disengage in the middle of a task. They drop away in the gaps. The Engagement Cycle gives you three stages and nine strategies to check, with practical Canvas tips for each.
One Page vs Pre-In-Post vs PANDA: Choosing a Structure for Your Canvas Week
A one-page week, Pre-In-Post and PANDA each shape how students meet your content. This post compares their strengths and limits and shows how to choose and move between them in Canvas.
How to Use Video Effectively at Every Stage of an Online Course
Video works best when it has a clear job at each stage of a course, not when it is dropped in as a default. Here is how to use it to welcome, teach, activate, assess and reflect.
5 Tips for Building Effective Rubrics in Canvas
Five practical tips for HE academics on designing Canvas rubrics that make standards clear, speed up marking and give students feedback they can act on.
Connecting PANDA with Gagné and Bloom’s Taxonomy
See how the PANDA framework lines up with Gagné's nine events of instruction and Bloom's taxonomy, and how to build course sites in Canvas where structure, outcomes and tasks align.
5 Tips for Gamification in Canvas
Canvas has no gamification switch, but modules, Mastery Paths, quizzes and Outcomes combine to give you the key ingredients. Here are five practical tips for academics.
Five Practical Tips for Using Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction to Create Engaging Canvas Courses
Discover five practical ways to apply Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction in Canvas LMS. From grabbing attention to encouraging active learning, these strategies can help university lecturers create more purposeful and engaging online learning experiences.
How to Build Canvas Item Banks and Why
What Canvas item banks are, why they save time and improve consistency, and how to build one and draw items from it in a New Quiz.
Introduction to the PANDA Framework
PANDA gives every week of an online course the same five-part structure: Prepare, Activate, Navigate, Demonstrate and Articulate. Here is how it works and how to build it in Canvas.
5 Effective Icebreaker Ideas and Tips
Five short icebreakers you can use in the first week of a course, with practical tips and a simple way to run one as a Canvas discussion.
The New Bloom’s Taxonomy: A Practical Guide for New Academics
A plain-English guide to the revised Bloom's taxonomy for new academics: what changed in 2001, how the six levels work, and how to use them to write outcomes and align assessment.
