Rather than "building" or "populating" your courses in Canvas, we recommend instructors approach Canvas with the intent of designing your course site. The following best practices will help you create a clear, organized, and welcoming course site for your students.

Set Your Home Page

The home page should be welcoming and inviting and convey basic information to students. The most common options include:

Syllabus: this option includes a customizable page and a list of graded items and events organized by due date.
Modules: this home page option provides students with a table of contents to their course content.
Pages: a customizable web page that could include a picture or banner, along with course meeting days/times, office hours, instructor contact information, and a link to the syllabus.

Instructors using Announcements can also add an Announcement feed to the top of their homepage.

Talk to your students about how you intend to use the course site. Let them know where to start, where to find information, and how often you expect them to check the site for information.

Organize Your Course

Navigation

In order to make it easier for students to find what they need, we suggest to following recommendations:

Make the course navigation (on the left) as simple as possible by hiding every unused tool or tab from view.
Avoid duplication when possible [e.g. perhaps all files have been added to specific modules or there are quizzes in the course which also appear in the assignments area; this allows instructors to then hide the files and quizzes tabs from view].
The long, default menu bar can be disorienting to students when they need to find something in a course. Through consolidation and elimination of unused tabs, this navigation would likely be easier for students to use:

Sidebar with all possible pages included

Can be consolidated into

Sidebar with only relevant pages included

Content

There are several tools that can help, including:

Pages: link files, readings, videos, assignments, and any other content or context to web pages in Canvas.
Modules: a table of contents with links to individual course items
Files: uploaded materials can be organized into a weekly or topical folder.

Naming Conventions

Lastly, be very clear and simple when naming pages, assignments, files, and modules. Individual files often contain confusing naming conventions. Rename files in Canvas and use organizational conventions to make it easy locate and access.

Let students know what to expect:

Include a complete syllabus in the course site
Use due dates when you set up the assignments, quizzes, and discussions. Students will receive Canvas notifications that remind them of approaching due dates, and all of their academic responsibilities will appear on their Canvas Calendar
Use rubrics so that students fully understand your expectations

Keep students informed and engaged:

Use announcements to communicate with your entire class. Send them reminders, links to special events, or even a follow-up to important subjects in class
Encourage students review their notification settings so they don't miss important communications