Tag Archives: exams

Study Smart with Canvas

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Tara Million, Ph.D Student, Indigenous Studies – Photo by Julia Million, CC by 2.0

Brette D. W. Kristoff, Graduate Student – Communications Specialist, GMCTL, December 11, 2020

Even the very idea of final exam season is enough to raise a students’ blood pressure! But don’t sweat it…sometimes, opening your books is the hardest part! Study smarter, not harder, with these Canvas Study Tips.

Some USask Study Tips:

  1. Focus on the process, not the outcome. Start by simply immersing yourself in your Canvas course content. Once you’re more familiar, it won’t feel so scary!
  2. Engage in Active Studying. Simply reading and rereading your notes is not studying. Reading and review are important “pre-studying” steps, but you must also actively engage with the material. You also need to connect and give meaning to what you are reading. Here are some active studying tips we like:
    1. Take notes when reading or watching lectures. 
    2. Create concept maps, or other visual aids to help your brain make sense of all the information.
    3. Use a story, an acronym, or a rhyme to help retain names, dates, and ideas. 
  3. Take time for you.
    1. Schedule regular study breaks which includes getting outside, being physically active, and remembering to eat. 
    2. Take some time to call or connect with your loved ones. 
    3. Review these USask remote learning studying tips. 

Review Canvas Course Content and Panopto Lectures: 

A good place to begin when preparing for final exams is to review the course syllabus before studying. Yes…dust off that old thing and review the course outline, chapter titles, and the course outcomes as described by the instructor at the beginning of the term. Then, go back and highlight the areas most relevant for the final exam: 

  • Questions you might ask yourself include: What topics will be covered on the final exam? Of these topics, which ones do I feel most competent in and which areas or chapters do I feel the least confident in?

Tips for Avoiding Procrastination

  1. Plan out your exam schedule, and pencil in study time. This will help you develop a more accurate plan of how much time you have to prepare for each exam. Creating and committing to a study schedule is a good way to stay organized and be more prepared!
  2. Set time-limits on your social media apps, or keep your mobile phone in a different room while studying to limit distractions. Dividing your study time into reasonable chunks is a good stratgey. Set an alarm for 20-30 minutes and leave your phone in the other room. When the time is up, you can get up and stretch and have a bathroom break, and then set the alarm again. 
  3. Keep your internet tabs limited and organized by using a different window for each of your courses.  Keep related tabs open, close all the rest.

Be Prepared for a Different Experience

   Exams in Canvas will need new strategies.

  1. If this is the first time you’re doing an exam in Canvas Quizzes (or Canvas New Quizzes), know that the quiz tool can be set up to show only one question at a time and prevent you from returning to a previous question. So the exam-taking strategies you used in the past (like looking over the whole exam first, and planning your time and order of doing questions), might not apply for this kind of exam, so you’ll need to be flexible and ‘go with’ the situation.
  2. If you can go back to other questions, look for the question name in the right sidebar, if your quiz looks like this.
  3. You can click the flag next to a question name/number as a reminder to go back to that question. The flag then appears beside the question name in the righ sidebar. . 
  4. Or if your quiz is like the one below, click on the pin icon [1] to bold it, marking that question for review later, and click on the Question Navigator arrow [2], to reveal previous question details.
  5. Collapse the Question Navigator again with the same arrow.
  6.  Watch the “Time Elapsed” or “Time Remaining” below the questions list in the right- hand sidebar to track your time, shown below,          or top – middle for New Quizzes.

 

 

Good luck on all your finals!

We acknowledge that the University of Saskatchewan’s main campus is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another.

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.

Tips for Taking Quizzes in Canvas

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“Pumpkin Patch” by B. D. W. Kristoff, CC BY 2.0

Brette D. W. Kristoff, Graduate Student – Communications Specialist, GMCTL, 

October 9, 2020

One of the biggest changes this term will be the online test and quiz format. Open book?! More like scrambling to find your laptop charger half-way through…

Here are some tips to help ace your Canvas Quizzes this term!

1) In your Canvas Course Navigation, find the Quizzes in the menu.

  • Depending on how your instructors have set up the course, you might be able to see some, or all, of your upcoming quizzes. Select the available quiz that’s due. 

      Here are a couple of examples of Canvas Quiz instructions, in different formats – the second one is from ‘new quizzes’:

  • Your instructor has different options for how to set up a Canvas quiz (multiple choice, true/false, or fill-in the blank styled questions for example).Questions might show one at a time (if so, figure out if you can back track in different quiz formats – classic or new).The hints below are for the ‘classic’ format.
    •  The point value of each question will show in the top corner once you begin a new question. 
  • The Questions sidebar is a helpful tool for navigating the quiz [see #2 in the figure below]. This list will show you which questions have been completed (they’ll be slightly faded out), and which questions are left.
    • If your instructor allows for more than one attempt on a question, you can Flag a question to come back to it later. These questions will have a yellowish tab next to them.
    • Canvas Quizzes will save automatically, so even if you get booted out for some reason, your work will still be there. Use the Questions tab to return to the question you were working on.

2) Keep an eye on the time!

  • Canvas quizzes will autosubmit at the end of the allotted time. 
    • This means if your quiz is due at midnight and will take 60 minutes, be sure to start the quiz early enough to complete the exam.
  • Once you begin a Canvas quiz, a Time Running box will appear on the margin of your screen automatically (under the Questions list).
    • Depending on how your instructor has designed the quiz or exam, the Time Running will show you how much time you have left to complete the quiz.
      • You can choose to hide the TIme Running window, if that stresses you out. 
        • Tip: If you know the general format of the quiz ahead of time, determine how much time this will roughly leave you for each question! 

3) Prep your virtual exam-space ahead of time

  • While the Canvas mobile app is super useful on the go, it’s not recommended you take quizzes on the mobile Canvas app.
  • Instead, use a fully-charged computer or laptop with Chrome or Firefox as your internet browser.
  • Restart your computer just before the quiz. Make sure you’re logged on plugged in , and ready to go before your exam is scheduled.
  • Make sure your internet connection is strong and that you’re in a quiet, private place to write any exams. Use an ethernet cable if possible.

Wondering how your assignment grades will impact your overall average? Check out these Canvas Student tips for using the Canvas “What-if?” grades tool.

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.

3 Canvas Tips to Stay Organized

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Brette D. W. Kristoff, Graduate Student – Communications Specialist, GMCTL

October 1, 2020

Staying organized and on top of your coursework is easier with Canvas. Here are a few tips to help you use Canvas tools this term!

1. It’s important to keep all your deadlines together, in one place. This is the function of the Canvas Calendar—all your important Canvas course dates will be synced to your Calendar when your instructors update the course schedule to Canvas.

    • Visually, this will help you map out the flow of the term. Take note of all major deadlines and assignments (Any weeks where you have multiple things due? If so, prioritize, and plan ahead accordingly!)  

2. One time I couldn’t get my computer to turn on 3 minutes before a timed final exam. To avoid this stress, I recommend you give yourself some time (15 minutes at least!) to secure your web connection and platform access before any remote learning sessions, MEETS, or online exams (worst case, you’ll have more time to review your notes). 

Here’s a list of web browsers supported by Canvas. 

  • Tip: Unsupported browsers such as Internet Explorer will not run Canvas properly. Most other major Internet browsers will work just fine for most Canvas functions.
  • For troubleshooting tips and IT help, go here.

3. Try out the What-If Grades function on Canvas to predict your grades and averages: 

  •  Under your Grades tab, select the course and assignment and enter a hypothetical score to see the What-If result (sorry, this won’t change your actual grade – only instructors can do that). So feel free to plug in any numbers at first to get the feel for it! 
  • Canvas will show you how this new hypothetical score would affect your overall grades. This can be done with all upcoming or completed assignments or tests.
  • Predicting your grades like this will give you a better sense of your overall grade standing in each of your courses.

Click the arrow beside your What-If grade to revert to your original score.

Remote learning is an adjustment for everyone but Canvas is designed to streamline our student experience. What’s been your biggest adjustment in transitioning to remote learning?

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.