Canvas Tip – Why should I use the inbox in Canvas?

Photo by Mark John Raymundo on Unsplash

Perhaps you have noticed the little mail icon labeled Inbox on the blue menu bar on the left hand bar of your screen and though “just what I need – ANOTHER inbox”. This brief post will outline a few ways in which this option (called Conversations in Canvas-speak) might offer you some benefits.

To begin, here’s a video introduction of how Conversations work in Canvas.

Benefits of using the Canvas Inbox:

  • All course related messages are grouped together (not intermingled with other emails)
  • You can filter your messages by course to view conversations only related to that course
  • Students (and faculty) can still set their notifications to receive email messages when they receive messages in their Canvas inbox if they find that helpful

Things to consider: 

  • Using right click (or option+click) functionality you can open the Canvas mailbox in another tab to keep this feature handy while you are doing other work in Canvas
  • Once a course has concluded the messaging function in Canvas can no longer be used for that course.

Office Hours = Connection

Picture of painted wall with the word 'together' on it
Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

Office hours can be a misunderstood and underutilized opportunity for students. They are often a new concept to many first year students and they are not always sure what office hours are for or how they apply to their needs as students. In the article ““Office Hours are Kind of Weird”: Reclaiming a Resource to Foster Student-Faculty Interaction” the authors suggest the following action items to help students more actively utilize office hours:

  • Make the purpose of office hours explicit. What should they be used for? Provide an example scenario to help students identify situations where they might access faculty help.
  • Create nurturing classroom environments to make students feel comfortable and safe asking for help.
  • Promote your office hours. Don’t just mention them once in your syllabus. Bring up office hours frequently along with how students can sign up for time – which leads to…
  • Use digital technologies to keep students updated as to what times are available and how they can book a time (see below for more logistical details) (Smith, Chen, Berndtson, Burson, & Griffin, 2017, p.24 – 25)

Cognitive scientist Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D. (founder of www.retrievalpractice.org) highlights the significance of connection in her blog post about 10 quick tips to make office hours powerful learning opportunities. There are some great ideas here that highlight the principles above as well as some additional ideas. A core focus that Professor Agarwal uses in her suggestions is:

Turn your office hours into connection hours, student hours, and learning hours.

Dr. Pooja K. Agarwal

Of course not everyone is sold on the idea of office hours. While digging around the research I found this article in which a professor attempted to replace personalized email communication for in person office hours. This resulted in 8000 emails with students in five sections of one class over the course of ONE semester. 

This article highlights a tension that can exist between the convenience of digital vs. in-person communications. In the article “Office Hours are Kind of Weird…” the authors directly address this complexity:

“To implement office hours in a more connected world, we suggest that the emphasis should be put on enhancing student-faculty interactions regardless of means, either in-person consultation or brief communications via digital tools. How to maintain quality student-faculty interaction in this increasingly connected world is a challenge facing faculty and institutions.”

(Smith, Chen, Berndtson, Burson, & Griffin, 2017, p. 21)

Scheduling Logistics

So if you’ve decided to encourage the use of your office hours you also need to make it easy for students to find a time to meet with you when you are not already meeting with someone else. Below we’ve outlined instructions for two different options that utilize Middlebury systems. You can also set up a consultation with a member of the Office of Digital Learning and Inquiry if you would like to discuss these options in more depth. Also – keep in mind that these meetings could happen virtually via Zoom which can be particularly helpful if a student is away from campus due to travel, illness, emergencies, etc.

Setting up Office Hours using the scheduler in Canvas

You can set up your office hours using the scheduler in Canvas which will allow students to sign up through the Canvas calendar interface. Important tips to keep in mind are that you will need to enter all of your office hours for the semester at once, or add new ones week by week. You can not generate hours via a pattern. However, if your hours are regularly scheduled on a weekly basis this is not a time consuming process.

Below is a video about the calendar in Canvas. Fast forward to 3:00 to see the specific information about the scheduler.

Ask students to request meetings with you during your scheduled office hours using Outlook.

You can also use Outlook either via the application or the web interface (go/mail) to have your students initiate scheduling a meeting during your office hours via the calendar interface. The best way to facilitate this would be to notify your students of your office hours and explain that they should use the instructions linked below to request an appointment with you. An added benefit of this process is that you can respond to requests on an appointment by appointment basis so if your schedule has changed unexpectedly you can adjust and suggest alternate times. Here’s a guide for how to use the Outlook Web App.

Canvas Gradebook

Picture of books and a notebook and a pen.
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

As the semester start date approaches we get more questions about grading and how different grading schemes can be configured in Canvas. Members of the Office of Digital Learning and Inquiry are always happy to schedule consultations to discuss this in more depth, however Canvas also provides several resources that faculty can review at their convenience as well. To get an overview of the gradebook in text form you can visit the article “What are Grades and the Gradebook”. In addition, Canvas has a great gradebook overview video that I’ve embedded below. Please note that although the title says that it is outdated – this functionality will be live until 2020. To view what options will be available in the new gradebook in 2020 please view the video at the bottom of this page.

2020 Gradebook

Small move #5: Student-centered course design using Canvas

Letters by Nico Kaiser cc licensed via Flickr at https://flic.kr/p/dohth3

In this series of blog posts I’m going to share some of the small moves that were discussed during the online session Student-Centered Course Design Using Canvas. If you were not able to participate in the session feel free to follow along here as I share some of the activities and design elements that you can implement in class to amplify the connectivity in your class.

Small Move #5: Stop – communicate and listen!

Who isn’t overwhelmed by email? Did you know you can use the message feature within Canvas to message students and classes and keep those messages connected to their relevant course spaces? Consider this a way to create a built in filter system for communications that you would otherwise have to manage manually in your email client.

Learn more about Conversations in Canvas by reading these instructions.

Canvas also offers a chat feature that allows you to conduct an open-real time chat with class participants who are online in Canvas at that moment. This is a good way to foster interactivity in an online space and check in with students as they are actively navigating your course. Just keep in mind the chat is open for viewing for the whole class and the history is retained, so messages should be general and openly sharable.

Connected Canvas Topics:

Using Conversations as an instructor

Using Chat as an instructor

What does this look like to students?

To view this functionality from a student perspective contact me to be added into a course space designed to demo this feature.

 

Small move #4: Student-centered course design using Canvas

Picture of an old teacher's desk

Teacher’s Desk – Linn School, by Todd Petrie, cc licensed on Flickr at https://flic.kr/p/omuFWN

This is the 4th in a series of posts to cover small actionable steps you can make to create a more student-centered course design in Canvas. These moves were developed from the Zoom session hosted on October 25th.

Small Move # 4: Virtual office hours

How convenient can you make it for students to have one-on-one time with you? By coupling Canvas’ scheduler function with your personal Zoom room you can offer flexible office hours without having to adhere to a set physical location meeting space.

To set up online office hours using the scheduler in Zoom follow these instructions.

To get started using Zoom visit help documentation here.

What does this look like to students?

To view this functionality from a student perspective contact me to be added into a course space designed to demo this feature.

 

Small Move #3: Student-Centered Course Design Using Canvas

Image of tired student with text "What are your students' concerns?"

How do you know unless you ask?

This is the 3rd in a series of posts to cover small actionable steps you can make to create a more student-centered course design in Canvas. These moves were developed from the Zoom session hosted on October 25th.

Small Move #3: Interest Surveys

To be able to tailor some of the content or options available to your students throughout your class is helpful to know their interests and questions as early on in the semester as possible. You can use the ungraded survey (quiz) option in Canvas to construct some quick questions that can help you collect info that would be helpful to you when making these adjustments.

As you create your questions think carefully about what information is helpful to you and how you might use that info in your course. Most will find this to be an iterative design process that they tweak each semester to best serve their needs based on previous semesters’ responses and your unique course content.

Connected Canvas Help Topics:

Creating a survey in Canvas

Viewing survey results in Canvas

What does this look like to students?

To view this functionality from a student perspective contact me to be added into a course space designed to demo this feature.

Small Move #2: Student-Centered Course Design Using Canvas

“If teaching is conceived as constructing a bridge between the subject matter and the student, learner-centered teachers keep a constant eye on both ends of the bridge.”

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, 2000, p. 136

Picture of a bridge

University Bridge by Brandon Giesbrect, cc licensed on flickr at https://flic.kr/p/avDHs9

This is the 2nd in a series of posts to cover small actionable steps you can make to create a more student-centered course design in Canvas. These moves were developed from the Zoom session hosted on October 25th.

Small Move #2: Virtual introductions – one end of the bridge

Ideally this can happen even before the class starts so that students can start to make connections and have a chance to share some of their interests and perhaps even outstanding questions about the course topic.

This is a great way to introduce learner-choice options including the opportunity to use the text, video and audio options within the discussion forum in Canvas. Be sure to enable threaded replies so that students can respond to each other and start mini-conversations along the way.

Connected Canvas Help Topics:

How to create a discussion in Canvas

What does this look like to students?

To view this functionality from a student perspective contact me to be added into a course space designed to demo this feature.

Small moves to make your Canvas course more student-centered

In this series of blog posts I’m going to share some of the small moves that were discussed during the online session Student-Centered Course Design Using Canvas. If you were not able to participate in the session feel free to follow along here as I share some of the activities and design elements that you can implement in class to amplify the connectivity in your class.

So let’s get started with small move #1 – making a virtual tour of your class site.

Move #1 – A Virtual Tour of your Class Site

One step that you can take in designing a student-centered Canvas site is that once your site is designed you can take time to give your students a virtual tour of the class space.

This can be done in-person via projection in a classroom, or asynchronously by creating a video-walk through of your course space. Below is a rough sample of what a course tour can look like. It was created on one take (with a script) using Panopto.

When you are making or sharing your course tour be sure to include your expectations for how often and how students should be accessing your course as well as:

  • How they will know new content is posted?
  • What components of Canvas are you using for your class?
  • Where can students find due dates?
  • What do they do if they have a question about the course?
  • What do they do if they have a question about Canvas?

This is a time to distinguish how you are using Canvas. Although students will encounter Canvas several times in their classes, it can be set up and configured many different ways. Taking time to introduce them to your layout and help them understand how your space works is a great way to try to avoid confusion and surface course site questions early on.

Connected Canvas Help Topics:

Canvas Course Home Page Options