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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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Immersive Reader Enhances Accessibility in Canvas
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba The Immersive Reader option in Canvas helps students access your course materials, whether they have a certain learning or medical disability, use English as an additional language – or could simply benefit from its text-to-speech function. The Immersive Reader button, at the top right-hand of Pages, Assignments, the Course Home Page, and Syllabus page, gives users access to a multitude of functions. Fortunately, the button appears automatically; therefore as an instructor, all you need to do is make students aware of the function and embed any text directly into the Rich Content Editor when composing a page or assignment. What can the Immersive Reader do? Read and…
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Masking protocols and a values-based approach to norms in the classroom
As we start to anticipate the needs of students and instructors at the start of term, we recognize that some folks will be on-campus and in-person for the first time since the pandemic began. We know that setting the tone for the class at the start of term is very important and we wanted to address masking and distancing practices you may wish to consider with your class from the first day. The university has established procedures and practices to the best of their ability with the most current information. Please stay informed by reading the covid19 website regularly and checking USask email communications. At the time of this publication,…
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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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Syllabus Links to Academic Misconduct Regulations: Necessary but not Sufficient
The syllabus describes the course, outlines the requirements, and sets the expectations. Important expectations relate to academic integrity, and ensuring academic misconduct is avoided. Updated Template at USask The University’s syllabus template has recently updated some of the standard information related to academic integrity, templates, available here. See the sections on academic integrity for language related to acceptable and unacceptable use of Generative AI that instructors can adapt as per their rules and expectations. Students will see links to the Governance Office site where academic integrity and its value are articulated, links to supports and skill building programs and resources available through the Library, and links to the academic misconduct…
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Collaboration technical tools
One of the essential goals of the Learning Technology Ecosystem at USask is to allow students to connect to others. While collaboration skills are one of the essential skills most employers describe, the need for collaboration tools is actually more immediate. When students have the opportunity to think through things actively with others, they learn more than they if they only listen to a professor talk about them, and they are more likely to be able to apply what they learn. Best ways to support collaboration Focus on talking to others during the learning, like working on questions or discussing, instead of group projects. When you do group projects, don’t…
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GMCTL to Launch New Open Course on Open in Early February
The University of Saskatchewan is a leader in Canada around open educational resources (e.g. textbooks) and is moving toward wider integration of open pedagogy (students as contributors, not just consumers of knowledge). As part of this, and in the spirit of open educational practices (OEP), on February 1, 2022 we are launching a new open course to assist instructors in learning about all aspects of OEP. Open educational practices are a range of practices based on the idea that collaborating on the creation of and freely sharing knowledge, research, and learning materials benefits all of us. Key aspects of OEP include: Materials are accessible Anyone can create, collaborate on, and…
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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…
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USask spaces that flex with the type of learning
Many USask classrooms have been designed with one thing in mind – successful transmission of information from the faculty member to the students. Even as technologies changed over time, that model did not – we just added screens, data projectors for our slideshows, and cameras and microphones to capture a lecture. Current theories of learning tell us that people learn some things well by hearing about them, but they need to pair that with talking to others about it, practicing and getting feedback, and actively doing for most types of learning. We are now designing flexible classrooms that can do each of these types of learning in a sequence, all…
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Turn Pre-Class Readings into Social Learning
When we design courses, we carefully choose readings or videos for students to review before coming to class. We then plan for the fantastic discussions and activities that will occur in class. All too often, when we arrive in class, we quickly realize that most of the students have not engaged with the pre-class materials in any meaningful way. This forces us to shift our plans and leaves us discouraged. Perusall is a tool in the USask Learning Technology Ecosystem that is specifically designed to get students meaningfully engaging with the pre-class materials. It is what is known as a social annotation tool. It transforms pre-class readings and videos into…