USU Canvas Tips for Students

Sending an Email to a Group

Posted on April 5, 2012 by fact

To send an email to all members of a group:

From the “Inbox,” start a new message by clicking on the new message icon
In the “To” box on the right-hand side you will see a little gray icon that looks like a phone book. If you click on it, you will see a listing of your courses and groups.
If you click on your group name you can choose to email everyone in the group or select just certain people.
Type your email. Then choose whether it is a group conversation. You can also add an attachment or record audio or video. Finally, send it to your group!

Posted in Conversations | Leave a comment

Viewing Comments on Rubric for Graded Assignments

Posted on February 16, 2012 by fact

Instructure (the company that made Canvas) has a student guide on “Where are my grades” on their website. They do not include how to see comments included in a rubric. To do so, click on “Grades” from the top navigation bar and then click on the class. You will see all of your assignments and any recorded grades for that assignment.

Click on the “See rubric results” icon.

The rubric will be displayed and you will be able to see the criteria on which your score was based and any comments for each criterion.

Any general comments made by your instructor will appear when you click on the comment bubble icon, which will appear to the left of the check box showing that the assignment has been graded.

Posted in Assignments, Grading | Tagged comments, grades, grading, rubric | Leave a comment

Course Stream (Recent Activity in Course)

Posted on February 1, 2012 by fact

If you like the look of the “Recent Activity” when you first login to Canvas, you might want to see “Recent Activity” for a specific course. To do so, choose the course from the “Courses” menu, which will take you to the course home page.

Then, click on the text link “See Course Stream”

This will change the home page layout so that you see any recent activity in your class including: new grades, comments on discussion boards, conversations from other students or the instructor, etc.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged homepage, layout, view | Leave a comment

Peer Review Discussions

Posted on November 7, 2011 by fact

Discussions are a great way to encourage interaction amongst students. Sometimes an instructor might choose to have students do a peer review of each other’s work. This post is to explain how that works.

Step 1: Post your assignment to the discussion.

Submit your assignment as a submission on the discussion board

Step 1A

Step 1B

Step 2: Find Peer Review Invitation

After the assignment due date has passed, you will receive an invitation that will be sent to your email. The email will look like this:

Email from Canvas with peer review link.

: Step 2

Click on the link in the email to go to the review page. The link appears in the initial email only, so if you get a reminder you will have to find the original email to get the link.

Step 3: Prepare to Review Your Peer’s Assignment

When you get to the peer review page, you will click on the link at the top to “Show Rubric” (if there is a rubric for the assignment). Read through the rubric so that you will know the criteria on which you will grade your peer’s work.

Step 3A

Step 3B

Step 4: Rate Peer’s Work, Based on Rubric

Step 4

After carefully reading and assessing your peer’s work, mark the criteria with the appropriate grade selection. The rating you choose for each criterion will be highlighted as you complete the rubric. Be sure to save the form before you close the rubric page.

Step 5: Provide a Peer with Comments on His or Her Assignment

Add comments to give useful feedback to your peer.

Add Comments

Step 6: Review Your Score & Feedback From Others

After your assignment has been reviewed by one of your peers, you will be able to see their review of your work. Click on “Grades” and find the title of the assignment.

Receive Feedback

To the right of the score, you will see a comment bubble and a small grid. The comment bubble will allow you to see any comments that were made by peer reviewers or your instructor. Clicking on the small grid icon will allow you to see the scored rubrics so that you can see how well you did.

Posted in Discussions | Tagged discussion, interaction, peer review | Leave a comment

Check Assignment Submissions

Posted on November 2, 2011 by fact

After submitting an assignment, you may want to check it to make sure that it looks the way that you were intending it to look.

Click on the assignment title.

On the Assignments page, click on the title of the assignment.

Then, you will notice on the right-hand side that the assignment shows an image of a green check-box with the words “Turned In!”

Right below the submission status of “Turned In!” you will notice a link titled “Submission Details.” Click on the link.

Next, you will see a page with the details of the assignment.

Click on the preview icon, the graphic of a document with a magnifying glass in front of it, to see a preview of what was submitted. (If you uploaded a file to submit as your assignment, it may take a couple of minutes after you submit for your assignment to show up in the preview window. You can refresh the page, if the next window doesn’t show up.)

You will see your assignment in a pop-up window. You may have to re-size the window so that you can see your assignment better. You can also click on the “Fullscreen” link to utilize your full screen. At the bottom of the window, you can also zoom in and out to see the document better.

If you do not like the way your assignment looks, you can click on the link to “Re-Submit Assignment.” (Note: You can only re-submit the assignment until the date that your instructor designates as the “locked after” date. If the “locked after” date is set later than the due date, you will be able to re-submit your assignment after the due date, but it will show as “late” when your instructor grades the assignment.)

After you click on the “Re-Submit Assignment” link, you will go through the same process as submitting the assignment originally. Your instructor can view prior submissions, so you may want to explain the reason for the re-submission, if your instructor did not ask you to re-submit the assignment.

Posted in Assignments | Tagged assignment, re-submit, submit, turn in | Leave a comment

What Will My Grade Be?

Posted on October 10, 2011 by fact

Have you ever taken the time to calculate what grade you need to get on the final exam to pass a class? With Canvas, it is easy to figure out where you stand in the course and how well you need to do to get a certain grade at the end of the term.

Go to “Grades” and click on the course. You will see a screen like this:

Grades for a particular course.

Click on a dash or current grade in the score column and you will get a text box where you can insert a “What If” score.

Grades with "What If" text box.

Enter a score and then click the “Return” or “Enter” key and you will see what your final grade would be if you scored that amount for that particular assignment. If your instructor has set-up a grading scheme, you will see a numeric grade (percentage) as well as a letter grade.

Grades with "What If" score and hypothetical course grade.

This hypothetical score will not be seen by your instructor. You can revert to the actual scores by clicking on the “Revert to Actual Score” button in the top-right hand corner.

Posted in Grading | Tagged grading, pass, what if | Leave a comment

Welcome!

Posted on October 10, 2011 by fact

Welcome to the Canvas Tips for Students blog. Information posted here will give you some tips and tricks on using Canvas to help make your student experience better.

Enjoy!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment