Discussions in Canvas

Need to log in to Canvas? Follow this link to the Canvas log in portal.

This website and resources are intended for Portland State instructors. For PSU students looking for help with Canvas and general tech support, please contact the OIT Helpdesk.
Additional Canvas resources for PSU students can be found in OIT’s Canvas Resources for Students.

Discussions are threaded conversations on a single topic. They are asynchronous, which means participants do not have to be online at the same time, making them an especially flexible communication tool. You can use Discussions for communication and for assessment.

This video provides a basic overview:

Discussions Overview

Using Discussions in Your Teaching

  • Have students introduce themselves to the class at the beginning of a semester.
  • Create a Q&A thread for the class and ask students to post questions instead of contacting you by email. You can even encourage students to respond to each other in this thread rather than waiting for you to reply.
  • Create a “water cooler” thread for students to chat about topics unrelated to the class. While this is not teaching per se, it allows students to connect with each other and helps build social presence in the course.
  • Ask students to use the media tools in the Rich Content Editor to post their responses. For learners who are more comfortable speaking than writing, this provides a means for them to respond more fluently. In a language course, this allows you to assess students’ pronunciation, grammar, etc.
  • Have students work through a case or problem.
  • Embed a media prompt (a diagram, video, etc.) for students to respond to.
  • Students can create their own discussions within Canvas Groups.

Setting Discussion Guidelines and/or Expectations

In your syllabus or on an introductory page in the Modules area, be sure to define exactly what you expect from students when posting to discussions. This can include general netiquette information, use of full sentences, citing sources, and specific information on how you will assess discussions (include quantity and quality of posts).

Considerations for Using Canvas Discussions

    • The “threaded discussion” option will make conversations easier for everyone to follow. Remember to select it when creating a discussion. (It’s not selected by default.)
    • You can use the Rich Content Editor in Canvas to format the text of your discussion prompt, add links (to other parts of the Canvas site or to other webpages), and embed videos.
    • For a graded discussion, you can review student responses in SpeedGrader. When you select a student in SpeedGrader, you will find all of that student’s posts to the discussion — which is helpful if you require students to reply to their classmates in addition to posting their own responses to the prompt.
    • You can attach a rubric to a graded discussion or require peer review for discussion responses.

Using Discussions with Groups

In a large class, consider breaking students into smaller groups and then having each group respond to discussion prompts.

Writing Good Discussion Questions

Asking the right question(s) is vital to creating a good discussion in your course. Consider the following discussion prompt:

After reading textbook chapter 5, please describe challenges that social workers face due to the social climate, economic changes, and political environment.

Once a few students have responded to the question, it’s likely they will have covered all potential answers. The rest will have little to add without being repetitive. Additionally, fact-based questions like the one above don’t help students identify their own knowledge gaps, explore multiple perspectives, or negotiate content meaning.

Instead, ask open-ended questions or questions that have more than just one or a few correct answers. These can offer additional discussion opportunities. For example:

How do you perceive that plan as adequate to the problem? What makes you think so? Where might that plan derail? What other plans are possible?

Questions that invite students to share their own point of view from their personal and/or work life can generate multiple perspectives.

Important Takeaways

Make sure responses are not “right” or “wrong” and cannot be answered with “yes” or “no.” The best discussion prompts ask students to reflect and to demonstrate higher order thinking (analysis, synthesis, comparison, evaluation). Otherwise, discussions risk becoming “homework out loud.” Students perceive them as busy work, and you won’t enjoy reading and assessing the responses.

Discussions are meant to be interactions among learners. You may want to ask students not only to post comments to the discussion questions but also to respond to one or two other students. If so, give different due dates for initial posts to discussion and for peer-to-peer interactions. This will help you avoid a situation where learners post the discussions and interactions on the last day of the discussion, giving learners no time to interact with each other.

Adapted from “Discussions in Canvas” in Start Here 102: Best Practices in Online instruction, licensed CC BY 4.0 by Grace Seo, University of Missouri.

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Using the Home Page in Canvas

Need to log in to Canvas? Follow this link to the Canvas log in portal.

This website and resources are intended for Portland State instructors. For PSU students looking for help with Canvas and general tech support, please contact the OIT Helpdesk.
Additional Canvas resources for PSU students can be found in OIT’s Canvas Resources for Students.

When students log in to your course for the first time, they need something friendly and welcoming that orients them and explicitly communicates what to do.

You have several options for your course home page, but OAI recommends setting it to a page you create (also called a Front Page). Starting new students on a syllabus page or a modules list isn’t nearly as welcoming as a page with your contact information, a picture of you, a personal welcome, and/or instructions on what to do first.

By default, your Canvas course will display announcements at the top of the page. This is where you can post important reminders or other course information. You can set how many announcements show up on the home page —but limiting to just one can help make sure students notice the most important and current information.

Course Navigation

When students log in, they will notice the course navigation bar. Canvas lets you simplify navigation by hiding items not used in your course. This can reduce confusion for your students and keep them focused on the relevant course materials.

OAI recommends using Modules to organize all your instructions, content, activities, and assignments. This gives students one central location to look for everything. By doing this, you can hide the Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, Pages, and Files pages from the navigation bar in the student view.

That means fewer “where is” questions for you and less frustration for your students!

Example Home Pages

Templates

Use a template from the Commons resource library to create your own homepage! To find one of these templates, log into your Canvas course, and click on the Commons link in the Global Navigation bar. Then select the Filter button and check the box labeled Only Portland State University Approved Resources.

Note: These homepage templates will all import into the “Pages” section of the selected course.

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Grading in Canvas

Need to log in to Canvas? Follow this link to the Canvas log in portal.

This website and resources are intended for Portland State instructors. For PSU students looking for help with Canvas and general tech support, please contact the OIT Helpdesk.
Additional Canvas resources for PSU students can be found in OIT’s Canvas Resources for Students.

The Gradebook stores all information about student progress in the course, measuring both letter grades and course outcomes. This video provides a basic overview:

Gradebook Overview Video

From the Canvas Tutorial Video Series for Instructors

Assignments and Grades

The Canvas Gradebook is closely tied to the Assignments index. Anything you want a Gradebook column for must have an Assignment associated with it. By default, assignments appear in the order you create them. This also determines their order in the Gradebook, but you can drag and drop them into the order you want.

To create weighted grades or set specific rules for groups of assignments (such as dropping the lowest score), create Assignment Groups on the Assignments page, not within the Gradebook.

Using SpeedGrader

SpeedGrader is the Canvas tool for viewing student assessment submissions and giving feedback. Using SpeedGrader should help cut down on the time you spend grading, and make grading easier. A video overview of SpeedGrader is also available.

You can use SpeedGrader to:

    • Read written submissions in the DocViewer and use the annotation tools to give feedback within the document.
    • Give feedback comments — written, multimedia, or as a file attachment — on the student’s work as a whole.
    • Give a score.
    • Use a rubric to assign points and add comments. If you use the rubric for grading, the rubric score will transfer to the student’s grade for the assignment.
    • View individual student responses to quizzes as well as logs of each student’s quiz attempts.

Accessing SpeedGrader

You can access SpeedGrader either directly from the assignment or through the Gradebook.

Adapted from “Grading in Canvas” in Start Here 102: Best Practices in Online instruction, licensed CC BY 4.0 by Grace Seo, University of Missouri.

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Using Canvas Modules

OAI recommends using Modules to develop course organization and navigation. Correctly using Modules simplifies navigation for your students. Modules let you organize instructions, content, activities, and assignments in the order you want students to progress through them. Using Modules avoids the problem of telling students to “go there and do this” and then “go somewhere else and do that.” This can be frustrating — as you may have experienced yourself in poorly designed online training.

(Re-)designing the navigation and organization of your Canvas learning environment can reduce the cognitive overload on your students and allow them to engage with what really matters — the unit material.

— From [Don’t] Get Lost! Using Good Navigation and Organization to Improve Your Canvas Site

By organizing all your instructions, content, activities, and assignments in Modules, you can hide the Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, Pages, and Files pages from the left navigation list in the student view. This gives students one central location to look for everything. That means fewer “where is” questions for you and less frustration for your students.

The more doors students have to the same items, the more confusing it is for them and the harder it is to be sure they are in the right place. In Canvas, all the other tools organize these items differently than in Modules. For example:

  • Discussions are ordered by time of the most recent comment. So if an earlier discussion is still attracting comments, it could appear above the current module discussion unless you have ordered discussions under the “pinned discussions” area.
  • Assignments are in the order created unless you grouped them by assignment and dragged-and-dropped them into your preferred order.
  • Files are grouped in folders to the extent that you build a folder structure for them. Generally, it’s best to hide the Files area from your student regardless of your planned course structure.
  • Quizzes and Discussions appear on their own tool page — and also on the Assignments Tool page if they are graded.

All these can lead students to lose their place in the course, which causes more confusion and delay.

Examples

There are two schools of thought about how to organize items in Modules.

Short Version

Each module begins with an overview Content Page that includes a list of the books or chapters for the module as well as links to other items the students are to read, watch, and explore.

A module that begins with an Overview page, which would contain links to readings, videos, activities, and other items or resources.

Long Version

Each item is a separate part of the module, including links and readings as well as activities and assignments. For reference, this course uses the long version.

A module in which each item or resource — including readings, videos, and activities — has its own link.

In Review

Making each item a separate module element can significantly increase the length of the module. Long modules can appear overwhelming to students and reduce motivation.

On the other hand, students may skip over readings and not explore links unless they are required to progress through them one at a time.

A Big Takeaway — Consistency Is Key

Once you choose your organization strategy, the best thing you can do for your students is to implement it as consistently as possible.

Face-to-face students get in the habit of going to class at the same time and the same place every week. Online students need to form habits as well, to maintain consistent performance across the term. Consistent organization in your online spaces benefits all students, regardless of your teaching modality. Making sure assignments are always due on the same day of the week and modules always begin on the same day of the week goes a long way to providing structure.

Students also benefit from consistently having a written or video overview of each module describing what they are to do and learn. The overview should also include a list of reading (identifying chapters from books or linking to digital resources) and brief assignment descriptions or links to Assignments, Discussions, or Quizzes. Some faculty members like to put the overview description or video on one page, and then readings and resources on a subsequent page — and then have assignments and activities follow individually in the module. Either way is good as long as you pick one approach and use it consistently.

Templates

Use these templates from the Commons to help you get started organizing your own modules in Canvas. (For help, review how to import and view a Commons resource in Canvas.)

Adapted from “Using Canvas Modules” in Start Here 102: Best Practices in Online instruction, licensed CC BY 4.0 by Grace Seo, University of Missouri.

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Quizzes in Canvas

Need to log in to Canvas? Follow this link to the Canvas log in portal.

This website and resources are intended for Portland State instructors. For PSU students looking for help with Canvas and general tech support, please contact the OIT Helpdesk.
Additional Canvas resources for PSU students can be found in OIT’s Canvas Resources for Students.

Though you and your students may use the terms “test” and “quiz” interchangeably, Canvas calls this type of assessment a “quiz.” You can use Canvas quizzes for assessment, review, and practice.

Canvas currently has two quiz tools: Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes. Eventually, New Quizzes is expected to replace Classic Quizzes. (Covid delayed the deployment timeline, which continues to be extended.) For now, select either Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes when you create a quiz.

Quizzes Overview

New Quizzes Overview

Comparing Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes

Most quiz options are available in either quiz tool. You might explore both and use the one you prefer. A few key features are only available in one but not the other. They’re outlined here and in the full features comparison.

    • Consider Classic Quizzes in most cases and (especially if you use Proctorio).
    • Consider New Quizzes If you use question banks extensively.

Using Canvas Quizzes in Your Teaching

No matter which tool you use, the following might spark ideas for how you can use Canvas Quizzes to extend student learning.

  • Practice quizzes (Classic Quizzes) or quizzes excluded from the final grade (New Quizzes) can help you assess student understanding of material.
  • Surveys allow students to respond to questions without being assessed on the “correctness” of their answers. These can be ungraded, or you can award points for completion. (Classic quizzes only)
  • You can add feedback to each quiz question to offer a correct answer, explanation, reference (e.g., textbook page number), and so forth.
  • You can give students multiple attempts to allow them to retake quizzes.
  • You can view quiz statistics showing how many students (and what percentage of the class) chose each possible response to a quiz question.
  • Use Moderate this Quiz to give specific students extra time or attempts. This option will appear only after you publish the quiz.

Adapted from “Quizzes in Canvas” in Start Here 102: Best Practices in Online instruction, licensed CC BY 4.0 by Grace Seo, University of Missouri.

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Canvas Course Checklist

From basic settings to content organization, this course design checklist outlines the top 15 tasks to make sure your Canvas course is ready for students. Completing all will elevate the quality of your Canvas course and ensure your students can navigate your course materials with ease.

For an editable version of this checklist, make your own copy (File > Make a Copy) of this linked Google Doc.

  • Update your profile, including name, pronouns (if comfortable), photo, and preferred contact methods. Students in all your courses can read your profile. (You only need to do this once!)
  • Review the default notification settings and adjust them to your own notification preferences if needed.

Related Links

  • Choose a Home Page. OAI recommends using the “Pages Front Page” option, which allows you to build a Home Page that best fits the needs of your course.
  • Customize your Course Navigation Menu so necessary tool links are available to students and unused tools are hidden.

Related Links

  • Add a syllabus that outlines your course expectations and is accessible and culturally inclusive.
  • Give meaningful titles to modules and items within modules. OAI recommends modules be organized by week or unit and contain all Canvas pages, files, assignments, quizzes, and other resources needed each week.
  • Check that all your Canvas pages are accessible using the built-in accessibility checker.
  • If you created video content, make sure your videos are captioned.
  • Be sure your content is published in Canvas and all links are valid.

Related Links

  • Verify any discussions are set up correctly with dates, clear instructions, examples, and other settings as needed.
  • Verify any assignments are set up correctly with dates, clear instructions, examples, and other settings as needed.
  • Verify any quizzes are set up correctly with dates, clear instructions, examples, and other settings as needed.
  • Verify the Gradebook is arranged according to your grading policy and aligned with your syllabus.

Related Links

  • Review your course content from Student View to experience your course from a student perspective.

Note: Don't forget to log into your course through the mobile app to see the mobile experience. If possible, have someone else review your course to make sure your organization and content are clear and easy to follow.

  • Check the Calendar tool to verify assignment due dates and other events scheduled for your course.
  • Don’t forget to publish the course! Once the course is published, it’s a good idea to send a welcome email to your class to let them know the course is available and how to get started.

Related Links

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Introduction to Universal Design for Learning

Contributors:Megan McFarland

This brief introduction to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides an overview of the framework and practical UDL examples. UDL is a flexible pedagogical framework to minimize barriers and increase accessibility for the fullest range of students possible. A ramp allows the full range of people to access a building while a stairway allows only some. In the same way, UDL asks us to trade “one size fits all” thinking to imagine curriculum designs that open the doors to any student. UDL focuses on increasing flexibility, choice, and relevance within three main components of curriculum design and implementation: Engagement, Representation, and Expression.

While standard accessibility practices such as structuring text for screen readers and captioning videos are part of UDL (specifically increasing the range of how content is represented), these practices do not encompass all of UDL. Applying a holistic UDL lens to your classroom means deepened comprehension, accurate assessment of student knowledge, and a truly inclusive learning environment that welcomes physical, cognitive, and cultural diversity.

UDL Basics: A Lens, Not a Checklist

So how can we apply UDL to course design? Here are a few ideas to get you started, but the possibilities are truly infinite. UDL is a lens or mindset that prioritizes increased flexibility, choice, and relevance; it should be continually adapted for your particular course(s) and students.

What is it?

How students interact with and are motivated by the instructor, peers, and content

Strategy to try

Use a variety of response options during synchronous and asynchronous sessions.

Examples

    • Verbal responses during discussion
    • Written responses in chat
    • Artistic responses (doodles, flowcharts, metaphors, etc.)
    • Small group breakout rooms
    • Paired sharing
    • Whole group call and response
    • Self-rating levels of understanding in a poll
    • Written responses in online discussion forum
    • Video responses in online discussion forum (e.g. FlipGrid)

What is it?

How information or learning experiences are taught and presented

Strategy to try

Allow students to choose when and how they receive content.

Examples

    • Optional small-group Zoom sessions
    • Readings from various source types (research articles, primary sources, fictional or artistic interpretations, etc.)
    • Videos (documentaries, news broadcasts, etc.)
    • Audio (podcasts, radio, etc.)
    • Choose Your Own (students find their own related resource and share with the class)

What is it?

How students demonstrate their knowledge

Strategy to try

Use key learning objectives as a guide to offer options for how students can show their learning.

Examples

Learning Objectives

    • Construct a thesis statement.
    • Support with at least three pieces of evidence.
    • Analyze connections between evidence.
Assessment Menu

  • Write a traditional research paper.
  • Present with slides.
  • Build a website.
  • Interview experts in a podcast.

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End of Term Checklist

You can use this article as a checklist to help you wrap up your course at the end of term. 

Canvas Gradebook

If you’ve been using the Canvas gradebook, make sure you’ve entered all of your grades, double-checking to ensure the Canvas grades accurately reflect the grading parameters you intend. Then make sure that all assignment grades have been posted for your students to review.

It’s also good practice to download a copy of the gradebook for your records.

Submit Final Grades

The grade in the Canvas gradebook is not official, so you will also need to enter your students’ grades into Banner.

Student Access to Course after the End of the Term

By default, students will no longer have access to their Canvas courses beginning the first day of the following term (i.e. Winter term courses will be available to students until the first day of Spring term). If you would just like all students to have access to your course for longer, you can change your Course End date.

If you only want to allow a specific student ongoing access to complete the course, you’ll need to follow the instructions linked below to request access for incomplete students.

Thinking Ahead

Now that the term is over, take some time to relax and celebrate your course success! In most cases, this won’t be the last time you teach this course. Take a moment to reflect on the past term and think about ways you might be able to enhance your course for future terms. OAI+ has many articles that can give you ideas about new teaching strategies that you may want to try to implement.

This is also the time to start planning your student communication for the next term. Early and regular communication with your students is important and can start weeks before the term officially begins.

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Teaching in Inclement Weather

Contributors:Lindsay Murphy

In inclement weather, PSU may have a delayed start, an early closure, or a full-day closure. Here’s how to reduce impacts to class meetings and learning outcomes and accommodate hardships and safety needs — for yourself and your students.

In Advance

At the beginning of each term, discuss the University Closure Policy and Inclement Weather Procedures with your students. Include any alternative plans or instructions in your course syllabus, so students fully understand:

  • How to get closure information before traveling to campus
  • What to expect if classes are cancelled or final exams are impacted

During Inclement Weather

When PSU remains open, exercise normal flexibility and make reasonable accommodations for students who miss class, miss an exam, or don’t submit coursework as a result of inclement weather — including effects from other community closures.

When PSU is closed, don’t require or even suggest that students be on campus. This includes early closures. When a closure occurs during a class or exam, release students immediately.

In all cases, it’s important and helpful for you to communicate course expectations to concerned students. You can send your entire class an email through your PSU Gmail account.

Considerations for Online Courses

Because online courses don’t require campus attendance, they may continue during inclement weather closures — at your discretion. Although your virtual class may remain open, the library and most other university buildings will be closed. Please exercise normal flexibility and make reasonable accommodation for weather related impacts such as:

  • Loss of access to Internet connections and devices, or even electricity
  • Changes in students’ and instructors’ work hours, childcare schedules, and more

Plan ahead for how you might accommodate power outages or other weather-related impacts. This could include:

  • Extending deadlines
  • Rescheduling exams
  • Recording class meetings
  • Not requiring students to have cameras on
  • Alternative learning activities instead of scheduled class meetings

No matter how you approach your online class during inclement weather, remember to clearly and quickly tell students your expectations and any changes. Email and online course announcements (in Canvas) are two good options for communicating with students.

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Email Templates for the Start of Term

Contributors:Misty Hamideh

Many students are anxious for information about their classes before the term starts. By communicating early, you can help establish an encouraging online environment and alleviate some of their anxiety.

Use these templates to craft a message you’ll send to students as or before the term starts. Consider also adding a short introduction paragraph or video.

Welcome Email (Faculty to Students)

Dear Students,

Welcome to [term/year]! I am excited to get the term started, but I want to first share some details about how our course will be organized this term.

Course Materials

  • All course materials will be posted on Canvas and will be available on [date].
  • I will send you the syllabus on [date]. // The syllabus is attached to this email. // The syllabus will be available online.

Class Meetings

  • The class will meet via Zoom on MTWF from [time] to [time].
  • The Zoom link for this course is [enter link].

Communication

At some points in the term, my inbox gets quite full — but I do want to hear from you. If you don’t hear back from me within two weekdays (not counting weekends), please send a follow-up email. I will appreciate the gentle reminder.

Now for a little about myself…

[add a brief introduction paragraph or video]

For questions related to advising for the undergraduate major (e.g. degree requirements, petitions, graduation), please contact [enter department advising email]

For all other questions related to undergraduate courses (e.g. technology, library, PSU resources, PSU policies, and practices), please contact [department email].

Staff will either answer your question or direct you to the relevant person or resource.

Thank you and I look forward to meeting you all soon.

Faculty / instructor name

Sharing Student Resources (Department to Students)

Consider sending this the first week of the term, to remind students of the resources available to them. Also, consider sending a department newsletter with videos to build community and connection.

Dear Students,

Your instructor will be in touch to explain the details of your course. This may involve using the learning platform, as well as other tools such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, email, and more (all free to students using a PSU Odin ID). Watch for an email from your instructor, and check the learning platform if you have access.

In the meantime, here are some resources available to you.

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