Struggling to learn something? Trying something complex or hard? There is nothing like feedback to help you learn well. For many of us teaching in higher education, however, providing feedback is an aspiration. We know it is important, but we struggle to provide it early or sometimes at all, particularly in large classes. Even when…
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba 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…
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba Small formatting changes on Canvas Pages, Assignments, Quizzes and the Syllabus page can make your course more accessible. Using the suggestions below will improve clarity, readability, and navigation for all your students. In the Rich Content Editor (RCE) menu bar, illustrated below: The drop-down menu on the Paragraph option [1] has three…
During in-class discussions, the entire class and the instructor may be part of the same discussion, but sometimes instructors put students into smaller groups, with multiple discussions happening around the room. While the instructor may be able to walk around the room and listen in on what the students are saying, they can’t catch everything…
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba The exchange of questions and responses is vital to teaching and learning. The types of questions we pose as instructors should grab our students’ attention and curiosity, reinforce key points, encourage reflection, and foster active learning. Discussions in Canvas – Asking Good Questions – Part 1 explored creating open-ended questions by using…
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba Asking questions is one of the most powerful tools we have as instructors. Just like asking good questions in class, promoting discussion with questions that capture students’ attention and stimulate intellectual engagement can be facilitated online, using Canvas Discussions. Crafting questions for a discussion forum depends on the purpose of the discussion,…
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…
Zoom is a web conferencing tool available in Canvas. To be enabled, it has to be added to the course navigation menu. Zoom can be used to schedule lectures, group meetings or appointments. Students can join any virtual meeting directly through Canvas and can review any recorded sessions through the Zoom Meetings link. The videos…
Canvas has just released an online attendance dashboard for instructors who are teaching online and who want to define attendance around students’ interactions within Canvas. You can access the online attendance dashboard through the New Analytics link either from the course navigation menu or through the course homepage. This dashboard gives instructors an at-a-glance view…
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba As instructors and teaching assistants, we invest a great deal of time in giving feedback to students to enhance their learning and improve their performance. Giving meaningful feedback involves describing what we experience when excellence catches our attention, building on the strengths demonstrated, and guiding learners to see what excellence looks like. Students…