How to Customize Your Canvas Dashboard (Student Guide)

Course cards can display your current score, but the option is off by default and lives on the card itself, not in settings.

1. Open your Canvas dashboard (the home icon in the global navigation).
2. Find the course card you want and click the three-dot menu in its top-right corner.
3. Check the box next to the grades option, then click Apply.
4. Repeat for each course card — the setting is per course, not global.

If you don't see the option, your instructor has hidden totals for that course, or grades are muted while grading is in progress. No dashboard setting overrides that.

Canvas shows the official course name, like "PHY1154-04 FA26". You can replace that with a nickname only you see.

1. Click the three-dot menu on the course card.
2. Type a nickname in the Nickname field — for example, Physics.
3. Pick a color from the swatches; that color carries into the calendar and syllabus views.
4. Click Apply. The nickname is yours only — classmates and instructors still see the real name.

You cannot delete a course, but you can stop it from appearing as a card by unfavoriting it.

1. Go to Courses in the global navigation, then All Courses.
2. Find the star next to each course — filled stars are the courses shown on your dashboard.
3. Click the star to unfavorite a course and remove its card.
4. Concluded or past-term courses drop off automatically once the term ends.

If no course is starred, Canvas falls back to showing all active courses, so star the ones you want rather than unstarring everything.

The three-dot menu at the top right of the dashboard switches views. Card view is the grid of course cards. List view is a single to-do list of upcoming work across every class — usually the most useful of the three during a busy week. Recent Activity is a feed of announcements, grades, and discussion posts.

• You cannot reorder course cards by dragging them into your own priority order.
• You cannot combine grades, upcoming assignments, and announcements onto a single screen.
• You cannot set your own due-date windows, like "only show me the next two days".
• You cannot get reminders on a schedule you choose.