The Canvas Course Spotlight Program: Standout Canvas Courses, According to Students

In Part One of this two-part series, we introduced you to the Canvas Course Spotlight program, which offers Cornell students the chance to highlight and recognize design elements of Canvas courses that have positively impacted their learning experience. We also discussed the general patterns among the recognitions we received in our first run of the program, and provided five tips for faculty based on the most common student feedback.

In all, students recognized 70 courses across several colleges at Cornell. While every one of these courses deserves commendation, in this blog we’ll explore the three courses that received praise across five or more distinct categories, earning a special spotlight for the sheer scope of their positive impact. We celebrated these courses on Oct. 1 during our What Works: Creating Engaging Learning Experiences event.

Read more about how we designed and implemented the Canvas Course Spotlight program here.

CHEM 2510: Introduction to Experimental Organic Chemistry

Course-level:
Intermediate Laboratory Requirement

Course size:
365 students

Cynthia Kinsland

Senior Lecturer, Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, College of Arts & Sciences

The Canvas course for Dr. Cynthia Kinsland’s Spring ‘25 version of CHEM 2510 was recognized for organization, navigation, communication, assessment, and flexibility.

  • Organization

    Canvas Modules page

    Students appreciate the organization of this course’s Modules, with lab content organized chronologically — “neatly compacted into modules for each week’s lab” — and lecture content organized more categorically — “with modules for posted Lecture Slides, Exam Information, Course Information, etc.”

     

  • Communication & Navigation

    Canvas Discussions page

    “[T]he course also effectively uses the Discussions page” — allowing students to generate discussion topics for a Q&A that can be easily accessed from the Course Navigation menu.

    “It allows me as the student to feel more connected with course administration, even if I can’t make it to in-person office hours.”

  • Assessment

    Because — as one student put it — “it sucks to upload assignments to Gradescope”, the Canvas API is utilized to allow students to easily submit work through Canvas Assignments, have it sent out to Gradescope for processing by TAs, and have the grades sent back into Canvas. For ideas on how to incorporate this in your course, check out our video, “Enhancing Grading Consistency: Canvas API & Gradescope for Graduate TAs,” at right.

     

  • Flexibility & Navigation

    Panopto Recordings page

    “Additionally, all in-class lectures are recorded and posted afterwards in the Panopto Recordings tab” in the Course Navigation menu — allowing students flexibility in attendance and additional content to utilize while studying.

    “I have a direct time conflict with another class, and if it wasn’t for the easily accessible recordings I would completely miss out on in-class details.”

CS 2800: Mathematical Foundations of Computing

Course level:
Intermediate Core Requirement

Course size:
352 students

Matthew Eichhorn

Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, Cornell Bowers CIS

Dr. Matthew Eichhorn’s Canvas space for his Fall ‘24 CS 2800 course stands out as being recognized in all seven areas of student recognition — organization, navigation, communication, assessment, timeliness, flexibility, and clarity.

  • Organization & Navigation

    Canvas homepage with a course schedule table with direct links to course content

    The Home page includes a table schedule for the entire course — organization that linked every lecture note, homework, and assignment by date. This effectively creates a linked course calendar — “that linked every lecture note, homework, and assignment by date” — helping students navigate to the specific content needed for each class session.

    “Having access to these things right when you open the Canvas motivated me to take full advantage of the lecture slides, class notes, and other material, which is something I would have done less of if they were organized more haphazardly.”

  • Navigation

    Canvas Course Navigation with links to Home, Modules, Ed Discussion, Gradescope, and Grades

    The course “fully utilized the built-in tabs” of the Course Navigation menu effectively, including necessary third-party tools, modules, and grading, while excluding unnecessary links.

     

  • Organization

    Canvas Modules page with modules organized chronologically and then by content type

    The Modules page was “well-organized,” with content organized both chronologically and by content.

     

  • Timeliness, Assessment, & Communication

    Grade weighting by assignment groups from the Assignments page

    “Grading was always done in a timely manner,” with “grades [that] were accurately calculated and uploaded to the Grades tab.” This was possible because of use of the Assignments tool and the Weighted Grading feature, as well as a clearly communicated grading breakdown in the syllabus. Students also appreciated that SpeedGrader was used to provide “feedback on homework [that] was super helpful,” with “direct comments on what we did wrong rather than a generic rubric.”

     

  • Flexibility

    Homework with two file versions for students

    Assignments are “offered as a Latex file or a plain PDF” which is valued by “people who [prefer] to do their homework differently.”

     

  • Clarity & Communication

    Ed Discussion with Q&A discussions started by students

    Students appreciated that “files are named and/or linked by both lecture number and title,” as well as a page with labelled pictures of the course staff that helped students “learn the names of [their] discussion section TAs.” Additionally, students lauded the use of Ed Discussion, an online discussion tool that helps to promote student-centered conversation — where “the professor was very active” and students “would be notified of any changes.”

     

ILROB 3760: Sport Psychology

Course level:
Upper-Level Elective

Course size:
119 students

Emily Zitek

Associate Professor, Department of Organizational Behavior, College of Arts & Sciences and School of Industrial and Labor Relations

The Spring ‘25 version of Dr. Emily Zitek’s ILROB 3760 Canvas course was recognized for organization, navigation, communication, assessment, and timeliness.

  • Organization & Communication

    Canvas Modules page with modules organized chronologically and labelled by theme

    The Modules page features “[c]learly divided modules,” with content organized chronologically and labelled with themes.

     

  • Navigation, Timeliness, Communication, & Assessment

    Canvas Assignments page with Assignments selected in the course navigation menu

    Students “appreciate that assignments in this class were posted to Canvas well ahead of their due dates,” available through the Assignments tab in the Course Navigation menu, and Announcements were used to remind students of pending due dates.

    “In classes that haven’t used Canvas as effectively as this one, I find it difficult (and know it is difficult for some of my classmates) to keep track of assignment deadlines and class readings.”

The Future of the Canvas Course Spotlight Program

Due to the strong student response in its first semester, the Canvas Course Spotlight program ran again in October, 2025, and will return March 16-22, 2026. From this next run, we hope to continue to gain more insight about Cornell students’ experiences in Canvas. We’ll share more tips as we analyze new recognitions and hope to again be able to publicly recognize faculty for many more spotlit courses.

Thank you to all of the faculty out there doing their best to use Canvas in ways that best support their students’ learning.