Send Messages to Students in Canvas Student success in your online course depends on prompt, reliable, and efficient communication with you, their instructor. Fortunately, Canvas gives you an array of messaging tools you can use to keep your students informed and engaged. Understanding these different systems, and the best use-case for each, will help you […]
Category: Canvas Spotlight
Tools: Microsoft Teams If you teach courses online, you’re probably familiar with sharing your screen in your class meetings on Teams. Teams recently launched an update that provides you with multiple presentation modes. You can now share your screen and your webcam feed simultaneously in several different formats. When used appropriately, these new presentation modes […]
Tools: New and Classic Quizzes During your time as an instructor, you have likely had students ask for extra time or multiple attempts to complete a quiz. Some students may provide an official letter from the Access Center stating their legally required accommodations. When a student does not have an official Access Center letter, it […]
Late Policies
Tools: Gradebook Students missing deadlines is an inescapable part of the classroom experience, whether in-person or virtual. You probably communicate your late work policies clearly in your syllabus, but it’s also important to ensure that those rules are formally implemented in Canvas as well. By correctly using Canvas’ Late Policies, you can have it make […]
Tool: Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions As instructors, you want to provide your students with the best chance at succeeding in your courses. To this point, chances are you have had a student ask for a deadline extension. Maybe the student needed accommodations in your course, or maybe life (or in some cases technology) just got […]
Formula questions are an easy way for math and science instructors to create numerically-randomized questions for their students. To make a formula question, the instructor adds a mathematical formula with variables and variable ranges to the quiz question. The value of the variable will be different for every quiz attempt. This means that students will […]
Sharing Files with Students
Tools: Canvas Files Giving students access to digital files is important for online courses and can add value to in-person teaching as well. Powerpoints, PDFs, spreadsheets and more can be used to present content to your students as effectively as possible. The built-in tools in Canvas make sharing files with your students easy and simple […]
Tools: SpeedGrader Library Occasionally, you might find yourself repeating the same feedback again and again when reviewing multiple students’ submissions for an assignment. Canvas has recently launched a Comment Library in SpeedGrader to help with this problem. You can now add frequently used comments into the SpeedGrader Library and then insert them into the grading […]
Tools: Canvas Quizzes Many instructors new to teaching online count on the assessments traditionally used in a face-to-face course. That could mean uploading or sending tests as a Word document or PDF to students. Students would then need to download that document, complete the assessment, and then reupload it with their answers, which the instructor […]
Set Up Assignment Submissions
Tools: Assignments The Submission Type setting has a significant impact on how students interact with and submit a Canvas assignment. The No Submission and On Paper options create a column in the gradebook but do not allow students to submit a file to the Canvas assignment. This is a great way to grade assignments that […]