July 2025 Newsletter and Table of Contents

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New Differentiation Tags Feature for Personalized Learning in Canvas
Illustration by Storyset If you’ve ever wished you could send just-in-time practice to one slice of your class, or get insights about how students with specific characteristics a…

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Illustration of different people as parts of a whole, labeled "New Canvas Feature"
Illustration by Storyset

If you’ve ever wished you could send just-in-time practice to one slice of your class, or get insights about how students with specific characteristics are doing, Differentiation Tags is a new Canvas feature that can help. With a few clicks, you can create your own (private) tags for your students based on their specific needs, interests, etc., and then use the regular “Assign To” menu to push resources only to that tag group. 

Yavapai College has enabled the Differentiation Tags feature so our faculty can begin thinking about how to best use this differentiation feature to improve student success.

How Differentiation Tags Work

  • Create a tag on the People page—think “Likes due date reminders”, “Nursing program”, or “First Gen”.
  • Associate students with your tag (they never see the tag).
  • Use your tags as customizable filters in the Canvas tools you already use, such as:
    • in the “Assign To” field to differentiate due dates for Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes. (Canvas handles conflicts automatically—the latest due date wins if a student is assigned more than one differentiation tag.)
    • as a custom view when filtering the Gradebook.
    • in the "to" field when you send a message from the Inbox.
  • You can even assign a full Module based on differentiation tags.

For a visual overview with a bit more information, view the Differentiation Tags Feature Overview video (3:53):

Quick Ideas for Differentiation Tags

Scenario What to tag Payoff for students
Skill-gap differentiation “Needs Fractions Review” vs. “Ready for Enrichment” Assign struggling learners foundational practice while advanced peers tackle stretch problems 
Interest-driven projects “Climate Policy,” “Green Tech,” “Environmental Justice” Students self-select a focus area; you push tailored readings and discussion boards to each tag, boosting learner engagement 
Early-alert cohorts “Score < 70% Week 3” Share extra support resources and invite students to office hours before grades slide
Honors program “Honors” Assign diferentiated assignments for honors program students 
Majors and non-majors “Majors,” “Non-Majors” Track majors vs. non-majors outcomes in STEM courses and use the data to make pedagogical improvements to course content 

Ready to Try?

Next time you’re on the People page, select Manage Tags, create a tag, tag students, and then apply the tag to filter your gradebook or send a targeted message. Try it for alternative assignments or giving different due dates to certain students.

What ways can you think of to use Differentiation Tags to address differences in student preparation, interests, and strengths? How might you use them to offer a variety of learning pathways that differ in terms of content, focus, activities, or outcome within the same course? 

Please feel free to answer by adding a comment. We'd love to hear your ideas. If you'd like help with ideas or implementation for using Differentiation Tags to gather data for different student groupings in one or more of your courses, Richard Pierce, TSS Relationship Manager, would love to help you — contact him with questions. TeLS staff can also help you think this through from an instructional design perspective. 

Where to find more information

Canvas Community

Engage with Canvas developers working on this feature and Canvas users who've tried it out.

Canvas Instructor Guides

Location: Yavapai College

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