Assessment and Evaluation
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Creating Efficiencies: Grading Discussions in Canvas
Perhaps you are using Discussions in Canvas as a supplement to your face-to-face class or using it in an online course. While students’ posts may provide evidence of their learning and allow for online engagement, giving feedback on the posts is a vital part of the process – and as you are no doubt aware, can be a very time-consuming task! Strategies to manage your marking load and provide timely, actionable, and specific feedback for students, seem to fall into three categories: 1) Lighten the load for everyone: Requiring weekly discussions may impact quality through posting and grading burnout; consider bi-weekly discussions or the option for students to post…
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You May Have Too Much Content, But What Should You Take Out?
One of my favourite blog posts is actually entitled “Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong, really” and it’s by Grant Wiggins. I know it’s a depressing title, but it speaks to the problem we often have in higher education of thinking of curriculum as content. Wiggins’ post goes back to Dewey and Tyler to clarify that higher education is not about learning the sum of knowledge: “In medicine, engineering, business, and law courses are no longer built backward from content. They are built backward from key performances and problems in the fields.” Since there is always more content as knowledge develops, and I, as an expert, might know…
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Using Poll Everywhere to Integrate Formative Assessment in Courses
Poll Everywhere is integrated polling tool at USask. As you begin planning for the fall term, you may be considering how you will make use of formative assessment in your courses, including the use of Poll Everywhere. For Learners Formative assessments allow students to obtain feedback on how well they’ve grasped concepts and improve through practice prior to assessments that are higher stakes (exams, major projects, etc.). For example, if you have been teaching about concept A during a particular class meeting (ten-minute chunks are ideal) you can create a poll in Poll Everywhere and have students answer the question individually or in groups. This practice will help students retain…
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USask Moving to Poll Everywhere for Student Response System
Beginning this month the University of Saskatchewan will be transitioning to Poll Everywhere as the integrated polling tool at USask, replacing Top Hat. This decision was made after extended consideration and demonstrations from vendors. Instructors will be able to use Poll Everywhere to: • Gather information from formative assessments, such as polling questions or open-ended responses, from their classes • Embed polls in PowerPoint presentations, including shared ones • Ask questions of an audience in a regular conference presentation • Gather information about student preference Poll Everywhere allows for: – Results to be updated live as more answers come in – A variety of types of poll questions including multiple-choice,…
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Helping Students Build Resilience
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased stress and mental health challenges for many people, including instructors, staff, and students. To help our students, and each other, to build or rebuild resilience we need to take a multi-pronged approach. While the university offers a variety of resources, there are things instructors can do within their classes to help students build resilience. A new resource created with funding from the Government of Ontario and eCampus Ontario offers information and methods on how to increase resilience for students and educators in the areas of Community Resilience, Personal Resilience, Academic Resilience, and Career Resilience. The Thriving in the Classroom is a “toolkit [that] shares the…
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Aligning Your Discussion Questions With Purpose and Desired Outcomes
Many instructors indicate that they struggle with how to come up with good questions of students, whether during a synchronous session (in-person or on Zoom) or in the discussion forums in Canvas. The purpose of this post is to help you consider three key factors when trying to decide what questions to ask in these situations: What is the purpose of the discussion? Which course outcomes do you want the discussion to align with? What evidence will you accept that students are meeting or making progress on those outcomes? The Purpose When planning for a discussion, you want to be clear about why you’re having the discussion. Is it to delve…
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Serious (about) Academic Misconduct? A lesson plan
Students encounter mixed messages when it comes to the seriousness of different forms of academic misconduct. As instructors, we may be assuming that our colleagues teach about and respond to academic misconduct issues in a similar way to ourselves, when very often, they do not. This post provides a lesson plan (using the “BOPPPS” model) for helping students see what the most serious mistakes would be in your course and why. Lesson Plan for Clarifying Expecations B is for “Bridge-in” What the instructor does What the students do Notes, Materials, Tips Introduce topic (2 – 5 min) Listen, reflect Ideas: tell a story of confusion over expectations you…
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Understanding final grades in the Canvas gradebook.
With contributions from Carmen Harder, Training Specialist, Client Experience, Client and Technology Success The dashes that you see on the Canvas gradebook indicate missing assignments. When calculating final grades Canvas does not treat these missing assignments as zero. In this example the final grade for the student is 60%. To make sure that missing assignments are given a zero grade there are two things you must do (preferably before your course starts): Apply a late submission policy -so that all late/missing assignments are graded the way you want 2. Set an assignment due date -so that Canvas knows when to apply the late or missing penalty Once…
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Assessment Design and Academic Misconduct
First, the not-so-good news There is no such thing as a “cheat-proof” assessment. Now, for the good news Instructors can reduce the likelihood of academic misconduct through assessment design and the context for assessment. Such designs and contexts are those that help students to see the value of the learning, hold positive expectations, and regard academic integrity as the norm. We can categorize these in terms of actions to take related to assessment method, nature of the restrictions or conditions set for completing the assessment, and context for the learning itself. The following table groups strategies and what we might expect students to say (in italics) about the…
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Improving Student Feedback Response Rates in Remote Courses
By David Greaves, Teaching and Learning Enhancement Specialist When it comes to student feedback, more is generally better. When we have higher response rates, we know that more student voices are being heard and that the feedback an instructor receives is more complete. To ensure that student feedback processes are effective, it is important for all parties to do their part to encourage students to complete their feedback surveys. Unfortunately, our most reliable method of improving response rates – offering dedicated time in class – is no longer an option in many courses that continue to be offered remotely. This leaves us all with the question of how to improve…
