Canvas Insider Journal - Weeks Two and Three of an Academic Term
Canvas Insider Journal - Weeks Two and Three of an Academic Term
After the excitement of the first week of an academic term fades, it’s down-to-business time with lectures, essays, quizzes, discussions, and other course materials. Also, the busy course enrollment/disenrollment period concludes, and the faculty have their rosters mostly in place.
This is a peek at what weeks two and three look like for a Canvas Admin at Western Washington University*:
Helping teachers with quiz accommodations - Some students may be granted additional time extensions or multiple attempts for course quizzes. I often advise a two-step process for faculty to allow additional time for students.
Helping teacher navigate course content originally created by a colleague - It could be due to health reasons, or other employment status changes, but when a faculty officially takes over a Canvas course for another teacher, there are often questions raised about just what they did in the course setup. I often get to play translator for my client inheriting the course to explain the why specific point values were given to assignments, how rubrics were assembled, and surmising why the original teacher created group sets for collaborative curriculum. In many cases, I get to guide the new faculty into quick adjustments to scoring gradebook changes (assignment weighted groups are our friends) and provide suggestions for optimizing or streamlining content where the original teacher…might not have been the most organized with their content.
Student Incompletes - Based on a number of circumstances, some students may take an incomplete for a past course to be completed some time in the future. At the teacher’s request, I can extend access to a prior-term course only for the teacher and the student for a specified timeframe. Also, with permission from the Registrar, I can add that student into a current-term course if the curriculum they need to complete involves in-person presentations or group assignments.
Gradebook Optimization - Often during the short break between terms, faculty are rushing to update content and set up assessments aligned with their course syllabus. A number of my clients at WWU have scheduled one-to-one consultations with me early in the quarter because they know I have ideas up my sleeve to make their gradebook more streamlined. For example, I suggest deleting zero-point no-submission assignments that only are for reminders to students to read chapters of the book before the class date. Instead, content pages containing the reminder text and dates added to students’ to-do list have been well received by my clients. A slimmer gradebook is a valued outcome after we have our personalized consultation.
As I shared in my previous weeks’ posts, this is a bit of a “time capsule” for a future Canvas Admin at WWU to reference, whether they are a successor or a temporary fill-in while I am absent from office from taking vacation or other reasons. Or it might be a helpful conversation starts for one of my fabulous Canvas Insiders out there? Drop me a line if you’d like to learn more about how I quickly respond to first-week course requests in Canvas-land!
Thanks for your time.
-Chris
*Western Washington University has about 15,000 students, 1,000 faculty, and about 2,000 staff...give or take. Western gives teachers of academic courses a large amount of agency in developing their academic courses without standardized blueprint or template courses. Western chooses to not require teachers to pass any formalized training before gaining access to their academic course(s). Teachers are able to rename their courses if they choose, and are permitted to add LTI Apps from the available selections in their course. Western’s faculty have the ability to cross-list their courses for an academic term, import content from a previous term, and are able to access prior-term academic courses with read-only rights. They are able to add other WWU personnel to academic courses in numerous roles, save for the student and observer roles. And many other permissions are given to teachers…