From Blank Canvas to Active Learning: Using Agentic AI to Design Courses Faster and Better

This workshop demonstrates how agentic AI can automate routine Canvas build-out (modules, pages, assignments, rubrics, prompts) while preserving faculty control, freeing instructors to focus on learning goals, activity design, and student interaction. Rather than treating AI as a content generator, we show how it can function as an instructional design assistant, executing structured tasks, iterating quickly, and translating pedagogical intent into LMS architecture.

Participants will learn how to:
Use agentic AI workflows to generate a complete, editable Canvas course skeleton aligned to their learning goals
Distinguish between automation that saves time and delegation that compromises pedagogy
Identify where human judgment is essential (and where AI execution is appropriate)
Articulate guardrails for privacy, FERPA, and institutional compliance when experimenting with AI agents.

Note: this is a demonstration and participants will not directly edit a canvas site

Facilitators: Sarah Senk (Cal Poly, English) and Taiyo Inoue (Cal Poly, Mathematics)

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