Focusing on modules as the main avenue for course navigation has a variety of benefits! Let’s discuss the most important ones:

Allows a simplified course navigation menu! By placing all your content in well-organized and sequential modules, students are always going to the same place to find the materials or assignments they need! All the other links can be hidden in order to keep things simple. As a result, you could have a nice simple menu that looks something like below, where the menu contains ONLY what the students absolutely need to be able to complete the course. There is no question about where the "action" will take place because everything is accessible through the Modules link:

Rather than an overly complex menu that looks like this, where the menu contains many items that students do NOT need to access. While learning activities COULD be accessed in Quizzes, Discussions, Assignments, etc., it is a far more simplified experience for the student simply to go to Modules for everything! In addition, the Quizzes, Assignments, and Discussions pages are intended for use by Instructors, so the organization of the activities on those pages may not make sense to students. It is far easier for them to proceed through sequential modules for everything than to jump around between different areas of Canvas to find their next activity.

Course menu with all links enabled, including unnecessary ones, making it far more complex than it needs to be.

Modules have “Next” and “Previous” buttons within each element. This allows students to proceed from one element to the next (e.g. Learning materials to assignment to quiz, etc.) without ever having to go back to the main modules page. In this case, the student is looking at the Objectives page from the module and can select Next to go to Assigned Readings, or Previous to go directly back to the Introduction. In this fashion, the student will proceed through all the activities in the module in exactly the order you wish them to!

A Canvas page displaying the Previous and Next buttons which allow students to navigate elements of a module.

Review Demonstration Video Below: