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Using MEETS in Canvas
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba When we listened to students in facilitated focus groups this fall about their remote learning experiences, they said it would be helpful to have a central place to meet virtually with their instructors, eliminating the need to search for meeting links and access different platforms. Your integrated Webex room in MEETS provides a consistent and easily accessible space for hosting virtual classes, office hours, and individual student appointments. Students know where to meet and do not need a special link to join the session. However, the space serves more than just utilitarian purposes. Coming together with students in MEETS also provides what many students are hungering for…
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How Canvas Supports Learner-Centred Assessment
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba This post is part of a series about using Canvas to integrate the eight Learning Technology Ecosystem Principles. In this post, we look at the Inclusive of learning-centred assessment principle. Inclusive of learning-centred assessment: Learning and feedback are iterative, and assessment comes from multiple sources, including self, peers, teachers, and outside experts. Effective assessment practices follow from a learner-centred teaching approach, with practices designed to produce evidence of the kind of learning you want to measure, aligned with the learning outcomes for the course. Feedback needs to be both affirming and corrective in order for any of us to learn, and if it is unambiguous, specific, frequent, and…
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How Canvas Tools Can Enable Connection
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba This post is part of a series about using Canvas to integrate the eight Learning Technology Ecosystem Principles. You can find more about these principles here; in this post, we look at the seventh principle. Designed to enable connection: Learners exist in accessible networks, and connect to the experiences, concepts, people, and ideas that they need. The importance of connection Research across disciplines – from anthropology, to developmental psychology, to cognitive neuroscience – demonstrates that our sociality is interwoven with our learning processes. Important factors in social pedagogy and in establishing a social learning space include building a sense of belonging and a sense of community, and instructor…
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Managing and Facilitating Discussions in Canvas
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba Once you’ve settled on why and how discussions will be used in your course and have set up the initial discussion(s) and specific guidelines for posting, let students know your plan for how you or a TA will be moderating the posts. Your involvement in discussions, especially initial ones, is vital for guiding the direction for learning – reading, commenting, encouraging, and sometimes redirecting the conversation, helps foster consistent and substantive dialogue between students and with you. Considerations around your involvement, dependent on the types and number of discussions held during the term, include: How much will you be present in the discussions with comments, questions, and…
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Setting Up Discussions in Canvas
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba This is the second post in a series of four about using discussions in Canvas to support student learning. Discussions can be set up from within a module, or from the Discussions index page found by clicking on the Discussions link in the course navigation menu on the left of the course screen. Choose ‘Discussions’ as the option for adding one within a module, or click on the +Discussion button on the Discussions Index page, top right of the screen, as below. First, choose a title that is clear and indicative of the discussion’s focus and then give explicit directions for posting. Consider including the following…
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Creating Discussions in Canvas to Support Student Learning
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba The technical creation of a discussion in Canvas is relatively straightforward and intuitive. What requires deeper initial consideration is how using the discussion tool will support student learning. Here, we look at the necessary planning for setting up purposeful discussions, then the post that follows, we’ll go through the technical aspects of discussion set-up. This is the first post of four in a series on using the Discussions tool in Canvas. Why use discussions? Substantial research over the past 20 years indicates discussion forums can be places where high quality discussions take place, to rival the quality of in-class discussions and include contributions from all students. As…
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How Canvas supports student control and ownership of learning
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba This is the sixth post in a series about how you can use Canvas to integrate the eight Learning Technology Ecosystem Principles. You can find more about these principles here, but in this post, we’ll be looking at the fifth principle. 5. Designed for student control and ownership of learning: Learners create and control spaces for learning, understanding and retaining ownership, and purposefully choosing how and when they share. Student Control and Ownership of Learning Practices that facilitate student choice can have a positive impact on their participation and motivation, and thus, academic performance. Students with choices can engage in higher-level learning for many reasons; feeling more…
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Grading Discussions in Canvas
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba You’ve set up and run your first graded discussion in Canvas – and the volume of posts seems a bit daunting. Now it’s time to assess the individual student contributions against the defined criteria and get results out to them before the next discussion goes up. Here are some tips for grading discussions, using tools in Canvas to assist you. Canvas automatically marks posts as ‘read’ when you scroll down the page (changing the green dot left of the post to white). This function might interfere with keeping track of what you’ve read, and be a time waster if you have to backtrack through posts automatically marked…
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What to Do First in Your New Canvas Course
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba Canvas offers faculty and instructors an exciting online platform with efficient and effective tools to improve the teaching and learning experience, especially during this time of remote instruction. In mid-June of 2020, Canvas courses will be available to all those who elected to be ‘Early Adopters’ and faculty whose college, department or school is implementing Canvas across courses for Fall 2020 term. We’ve decided as a Canvas implementation team, not to reinvent the wheel and instead, point you to great resources Canvas has to offer! Most people want to get familiarized first with the look and feel of Canvas. So, let’s get started by accessing your Canvas Dashboard at canvas.usask.ca (available in mid-June). Once you have…