Instructional design ideas, online teaching tools, and best practices for learning from the USask Distance Education Unit
Both the Canvas Assignments tool and the Canvas Quiz tool can be used for replicating a “take-home” style of exam, or a written exam, in an online or remote course setting. This post will discuss how to decide if this is the right approach for your course, how to set it up in Canvas, and some details for administering it to ensure a smooth launch come exam time. Continue reading “Administering Written Exams via Canvas”
Have you ever wanted to organize your content in Canvas pages in a way that chunks the content nicely, and reduces the amount of scrolling required on the page? One approach you might consider is presenting your content using tabs. This post will show you how (and give you the HTML code snippets to try it yourself!).
Continue reading “Create Tabs in Canvas Pages with this HTML Trick”
How do you determine the weight of an assessment? Do you think about student effort, or high-priority learning outcomes, or perhaps which assessments are most reliable? What seems “right” for assessment weights will vary depending on who you ask, including students. Why not let them decide? Flexible assessment weighting gives students greater control over their learning, and it can lead to a better overall course experience. If the concept sounds too novel, there are also ways to “personalize” flexible weighting to fit your comfort level.
Continue reading “Flexible Assessment Weighting: Offering Students Choice”
Have you ever wanted to include a simple knowledge check or self-check question in Canvas pages that would give you an easy way to build-in immediate feedback to the learner? One quick way to do this on your Canvas pages, with just a bit of HTML code, is to insert a button with a “popup” dialog box. This post will show you how (and give you the HTML code snippets to try it yourself!).
Continue reading “Create a Button and Dialog Box in Canvas Pages with this HTML Trick”
Poll Everywhere is a web-based polling tool now available at USask. It allows for group engagement, feedback, and interaction through live online polling, surveys, Q&As, quizzes, word clouds, and more. Poll Everywhere is also a fairly flexible tool, and can be used for teaching and learning in face-to-face synchronous, online synchronous (i.e., Zoom), and online asynchronous situations. This post will focus on providing some tips and ideas for using Poll Everywhere in your asynchronous online courses, including instructions for how to embed the activity into a Canvas page.
Continue reading “Using Poll Everywhere in an Asynchronous Online Course”