Creating a Visual Classroom Session in Canvas Assignments

You can create a link to visual classrooms in Modules and in Assignments. They work fairly similarly, but if you intend to sync grades back to canvas you should create the Visual Classroom link as an assignment.

Create a New Assignment

Select Submission Type "External Tool"

Select Visual Classroom From The List

Save or Save & Publish the Assignment

Create your Group (you will only have to do this once per course)

You will only have to create your group once per course. Once the group is created, it is linked to your course. Links that are created with the Visual Classroom integration will be tied to this group.

Sections are optional subgroups of your course.  They are different from small in-class teams that you might use in your live classes.

Go to Your Sessions

Groups = the students in your course

Activities = a collection of discussions and questions that students will participate in

Sessions = how you can assign an Activity to a group of students. You will need to create sessions before your students can participate in Visual Classroom.

Create a New Session

Note: after you have set up your class as a group in Visual Classroom, your students will be taken to their list of active sessions. This will include future sessions as well as sessions from other classes. This is why it is important to name your session very explicitly and that the name matches the assignment in Canvas.

An example would be: "2020 - Bio101 - Visual Classroom Assignment #1"

Set Up A New Session

Join the Session

One optional thing you can do is to replace the URL in your assignment settings with the LMS Launch URL shown above.  This is not necessary but will allow your students to be taken directly to the Session. 

Add Prompts to your Newly Created Session

You can learn more about creating and running sessions on the Visual Classroom Teacher Help.