Category: Group Work

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Using 2-Stage Exams in Online Courses

A 2-stage exam, also called collaborative testing, is a method where, in its traditional form, students complete 2 stages of an exam:

    1. First, an in-person exam is completed individually, and then
    2. In groups of 3 or 4, students complete a similar (or identical) exam collaboratively.

Since students have just completed stage 1 individually, stage 2 typically takes less time because students are solving the same problems again. In stage 2, students must participate in analysis, problem-solving, and discussion to come to a consensus and agree on a final solution.

2-stage exams are an interesting option for online courses, and might appeal to instructors because of their collaborative nature. This post will offer some advice on using this approach in your online course.
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Canvas Tip: Reset Groups After a Course Copy

If you are now a few terms into using Canvas at USask, you might have recently completed a “course copy” or “rollover” in order to take content you used in a previous term, and copy it into an empty course for a new term. (See more on this process at How do I copy content from another Canvas course using the Course Import tool?). If you use the Groups tool in your Canvas courses, there is a quirk of the Course Import function that you should know about.

During a Course Import, all Group-associated Assignments and Discussions are assigned by default to a single Group Set called “Project Groups”. No previous Group Sets are retained in the import.

How to fix this and reset your Groups will depend on whether your course had only one Group Set, or if you were using multiple Group Sets. 

Continue reading “Canvas Tip: Reset Groups After a Course Copy”

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Designing Learning Activities using Canvas Collaborations

One of the tools ICT has integrated into Canvas to help students collaborate with peers is accessible through the Collaborations link in the course navigation menu. From here, both Students and Instructors have the ability to create collaborative Word Docs, Excel Spreadsheets, or PowerPoint Presentations between members of the class.

In this post we’ll provide you with a few examples of how you might design a few different learning activities and assessments that make use of this tool integration to promote social and collaborative meaning making in your class. Continue reading “Designing Learning Activities using Canvas Collaborations”

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Students publish open textbook in collaborative assignment

An exciting integration between Canvas and Pressbooks is allowing students to take their research and writing to the next level. Pressbooks is the supported open textbook publishing platform at the University of Saskatchewan, and over this past year we’ve been supporting a number of projects that bring this textbook editor into your Canvas course. Student papers and assignments have been reimagined to contribute, more collectively, to a collaborative open publication. A textbook, an encyclopedia, a peer-reviewed collection of essays, lesson plans, article reviews, or any number of collaboratively formed publications are possible in this easy to implement group learning activity. Is this post we highlight one such project that promoted active learning using Pressbooks inside of their Canvas courses. Continue reading “Students publish open textbook in collaborative assignment”

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Peer Review in Canvas: Tool Quirks & Workarounds

In working with instructors more closely this term on implementing peer review in their new Canvas courses, we are starting to get a better sense of what issues and errors are most likely to crop up, and how to manage those. At the same time, we are learning about the quirks of the Peer Review tool in Canvas (what it works well for, and what it does not) and some situations in which going another direction might be preferable. This post will cover what we’ve learned recently, and share some tips and resources for designing peer review activities in Canvas (either with or without using the dedicated “Peer Review” tool). Continue reading “Peer Review in Canvas: Tool Quirks & Workarounds”

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7 Tips for Setting up Group Projects in Canvas

Are you looking to set up a Group project in your Canvas course? Canvas Groups offers a “small version of a course” and can be used as a collaborative tool where students can work together on projects, such as Assignments, or to split a large class up for smaller, more digestible Discussions. Using Groups to assign projects to students can also help you give shared feedback and grades back to Group members more efficiently.

The Groups tool in Canvas is quite flexible, so this article will offer tips for using Groups in some of the most commonly applicable ways. There are some best practices, and also links for further help. Continue reading “7 Tips for Setting up Group Projects in Canvas”