UTampa Prepares for a Bright Future With Canvas

My name is Jenna Lash. I am the director in ITS Academic Solutions. UTampo's culture is amazing. The university has a lot of history with Plant Hall, our original building on campus, and that now being such a staple when you think of Tampa as a city in general. We've grown so much. When I started here, our entire enrollment was around fifteen hundred, and our incoming classes are now about three thousand.

Our students come from all over the country really in search of an experience that is personalized, that is engaging. One of the things we're really focused on strategically is improving graduation rates. We've been on our previous LMS for twenty one years, and technology does at one point become outdated. We've had Spartan Studies launching. Spartan Studies is our core curriculum here at the university that every undergraduate student goes through.

Milestones that they hit and certain assignments that they turn in that we then pull for assessment. Rolling out a new core curriculum and a new learning management system at the same time can be daunting. It's all started with having faculty be part of the selection process. I've used a few different LMSs before. One of the things that I really liked about the transition to Canvas, I've done it a few times at different schools, and it's always very easy, very seamless.

Canvas has made creating excellent course content much easier. Canvas being in the cloud and being able to seamlessly integrate with other applications is really important for us. Many faculty were very excited. Faculty, staff, students, very excited to be moving over to Canvas. I would have them say, when are we getting Canvas? When are we getting Canvas? I really like Canvas because of the ways that you can personalize.

One of them is changing the color on your dashboard. So I can make all my assignments different colors and organize it that way. Mostly, I use it for my assignments and my homeworks and to give an exam. That was also new to me, like, giving an exam on an application. That was so easy.

Here at the University of Tampa was my first time ever using Canvas. Before then, I used Schoology, Google Classroom, and I'd say Canvas definitely is the best platform to stay organized with my classes. It makes me see the announcements. It, I have all my homeworks over there. I can keep a record of everything.

So it is like a bridge between the teacher and the student, and it is it has helped us a lot. It's useful to have the app in addition to having it on my computer. It helps me stay engaged with my classmates, people who have profile pictures. I get the notifications right on my phone when things are graded or when things are assigned, so I always have access to my assignments and my grades. I've really enjoyed using Canvas, specifically the mobile Canvas.

Feedback comes in the form of, I read your message that you wrote in the margins, and I was really confused, confused, but then you have the audio feedback. So that was really helpful. So I think so far students have really enjoyed having that. The fact that Canvas can provide real time analytics and a lot of data to understand how students are engaging with courses is incredibly helpful. Utilizing the technology and what it has in it allows us to focus on really being able to to work with our students and help our students learn and grow.

It has been a huge, huge tool for us in the college that would really help to enhance the teaching and learning in the classroom and the student experience and engagement, and hopefully overall student success and graduation rates as well. I think it is so important to be a lifelong learner, and I just wanted to keep learning as long as I can. And even after I graduate college, I'm gonna continue learning. I've been a student for, like, twenty five years of my life now, and throughout my life, I plan to learn many more skills that will help me grow as a man. What I enjoy most about the work that I do is making a difference in people's lives.