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Using Pivot Interactives with Canvas
Managing multiple Canvas courses and sections within Pivot Interactives

Managing multiple Canvas courses and sections within Pivot Interactives

Our suggestions for how to setup classes in Pivot when managing multiple Canvas courses or multiple sections within a single course.
Trevor Register avatar
Written by Trevor Register. Updated over a week ago

Introduction

While Pivot Interactives is 100% compatible with linking up with Canvas, there are certain limitations with what exactly that connection entails. One question that many teachers using Canvas have is how to handle one of these three possible scenarios:

  • Scenario 1: I have a single Canvas course with multiple sections of students.

  • Scenario 2: I have multiple Canvas courses with a single section of students in each class, and my Canvas courses are NOT cross-listed.

  • Scenario 3: I have multiple Canvas courses with a single section of students in each class, and my Canvas courses ARE cross-listed.

Whatever your particular scenario is, the task of managing multiple groups of students taking the same class is no stranger to you or to us here at Pivot Interactives.

It's first important to understand the ways in which classes in Pivot can connect to courses in Canvas. One class in Pivot can connect to multiple courses in Canvas, but not the other way around.

Additionally, Canvas has the functionality to recognize different "sections" of students within a single course. It's also important to know that classes in Pivot Interactives don't recognize those sections, so connections like this aren't possible.

Given these conditions, here are our recommendations for how to handle these three scenarios.

Scenario 1: I have a single Canvas course with multiple sections of students.

A single class in Pivot Interactives that links to the Canvas course is the best option. While Pivot won't recognize different sections within Canvas, that in no way interferes with grades passing from Pivot to Canvas.

This unfortunately does mean that you won't be able to grade individual sections of work like you can for non-Pivot assignments within Canvas.

Scenario 2: I have multiple Canvas courses with a single section of students in each class, and my Canvas courses are NOT cross-listed.

We recommend one of two options depending on your personal preferences.

Option 1

Create a class in Pivot Interactives for each Canvas course and connect them one-to-one.

This option is best if you want to be able to most easily grade your students by however they're grouped in Canvas.

The disadvantage to this option is that you would need to assign a single activity to each class in Pivot. You wouldn't need multiple copies of the same activity, there would just be some extra clicking involved in getting them assigned to your students.

Option 2

Cross-list your Canvas courses into a single Canvas Course and then link that to a single class in Pivot Interactives. The best resource for how to cross-list in Canvas can be found in this help article from the Canvas website. NOTE: Depending on how your institution has configured Canvas, you may not have this option available to you.

This option is best if you want to have everything in one place.

Once your courses are cross-listed in Canvas, you can connect them as if you were connecting a single Canvas course to a single class in Pivot.

Scenario 3: I have multiple Canvas courses with one or more sections of students in each class, and my Canvas courses ARE cross-listed.

This is effectively the same as scenario 1 since cross-listing courses in Canvas combines each section into a single Canvas course.

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