Seeing Things from the Student's Perspective in Canvas

While working within your Canvas classroom, how many times have you asked yourself, “I wonder what this looks like to my students?”  Chances are, this question has come up at least once or twice.

Did you know that you could view your Canvas classroom exactly as your student would see it?  Or that you could even participate in your classroom as a test student?  Well, you can with “Student View”! 

The “Student View” feature in your Canvas classroom allows an instructor to see a Canvas course just as a student would see it.  This feature creates a “Test Student” in your Canvas classroom that every instructor in the course has access to.  You can use “Student View” to:

•       View the course as a student

•       Post to a Discussion as a student

•       Turn in an Assignment as a student

•       View Grades as a student

•       View People in the course as a student

•       View Pages as a student

•       View the Syllabus as a student

•       View Quizzes as a student

To access “Student View”, click on “Settings” from inside your Canvas classroom (located in the left-hand navigation menu).  Next, click on the “Student View” button in the upper-right corner of the Settings screen. 

Canvas will let you know that you are in “Student View” by way of a persistent bar on the bottom of the screen.  Note that you can reset your “Test Student” by clicking on “Reset Student” in this bar.  Resetting the test student will clear all history for the test student and allow you to view the course once more as a brand new student.  Click on “Leave Student View” when you are done using this tool.

The details for the Student View feature have been sourced from Canvas’ User Guides.  Please feel free to contact the Center for Online Learning at Bay Path College (online@baypath.edu) for any questions you may about using Canvas for your Bay Path class.