As law professors teaching an intensive first-year course, we must build connections with students so we can teach effectively and help students succeed. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to teach our Legal Practice courses remotely, we looked for ways to build and foster these connections through improved use of online tools, such as our course's Canvas Learning Management System. This tool that once sat in the background became critical as a way to provide entry points for our student's interactions with us as their professors, their colleagues, and the course itself. It also allowed us to make the course more inviting, interactive, and inclusive. Since returning to in-person learning we have maintained and expanded several of these improvements. During this presentation we will share four specific examples of improvements we made to help students connect and to create space for those connections: (1) creating more visually appealing “liquid syllabi”; (2) using discussion boards for video introductions (previously discussed at https://www.lwionline.org/article/community-building-better-outcomes-our-silver-lining-teaching-pandemic); (3) using discussion boards for interactive assignments such as research projects; and (4) using the Announcements function to create a weekly class newsletter (previously discussed at https://lssse.indiana.edu/blog/guest-post-how-sending-one-e-mail-a-week-helped-me-connect-better-to-my-law-students/). At the end of the session, participants will have concrete, effective, and easy-to-replicate methods of using Canvas to strengthen their teaching.

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