Canvas New Quizzes Update: Fill in the Blank RCE

Summary

In New Quizzes, this feature allows Instructors to add content as part of the question stem and make portions of the content fillable in the student response.

Change Benefit

This change allows instructors to create fill-in-the-blank questions with rich content such as scientific or mathematical formulas or a table. Additionally, instructors can format fill-in-the-blank questions to appear on separate, distinct lines.

Feature Workflow

new quizzes question editor
New Quizzes question editor

When adding a fill-in-the-blank question, type a statement in the rich content editor and surround a word with backticks to indicate where a student fills in the answer.

fill in the blank answer options
Fill in the Blank Answer Options

In the Answer Type drop-down menu, select the Dropdown option [1], enter the correct answers and distractor answers, if needed. Possible Answer Types include a dropdown, open entry, or word bank [2].

Check out the overview video below.

Canvas Tip: New Analytics to Support Students

Did you know that New Analytics provides detailed reports about grades, activity in Canvas, and missing assignments? Take a look at the information below to learn more. This can be used to support your teaching with data and an easy way to communicate with students and families that need support.

*Credit to Nicole Pate of Del Sol Academy for the informational slides. Link to slides.

Submit a tech ticket if you have questions about this feature.

PCEP Year-Long Courses now with Grading Periods

summary of grading period implications

High School teachers of PCEP year-long courses, please be aware that Grading Periods will be set up in your Canvas courses denoting each semester.

Year-Long PCEP Coursessummary of grading period implications

  • Teachers will have access to make edits, give feedback, and grade assignments in Canvas for first semester until 11:59 pm on February 2, 2022. After that date, the grades will not be editable.
  • Students will continue to have access to submit assignments with due dates in the first semester UNLESS YOU HAVE AN AVAILABLE UNTIL DATE OF JAN. 28 OR EARLIER.  You can edit those dates in bulk by following the steps here.

Semester 2 began January 31st, 2022.  You can filter your grade book to view assignments with due dates in the Semester 2 grading period by following the steps here.

The information above was also noted in our January 18, 2022 blog post.

If you have questions, please submit a tech ticket.

Zoom Features for your Virtual Classes

Zoom Updates

There have been some updates to Zoom that help facilitate online learning for teachers and students. Check them out below.

  1. Save Zoom recording directly to Canvas. You can now save your Zoom recordings directly to Canvas Studio to easily integrate and share with your students. It just requires a few clicks to set this up in Canvas. Video tutorial.
  2. Create a seating chart in Gallery View. In your account settings, you will need to enable, “Allow host to save video order.” When you are in your meeting, arrange the students as you would like while in Gallery View and click save. If it is a recurring meeting, the video order will be saved for future meetings. More information.
  3. Turn on Focus Mode. This mode allows you to see all the student screens, but students only see the teacher’s video. You can even set it up for your meeting to being in Focus Mode.  More information OR check out this  5 minute explanatory video
  4. More polling and quizzing options. Zoom has expanded their polls to eight different question types and added the ability to add images. You can also set up the poll to be a quiz. More information.
  5. Add video to the Waiting Room. Maximize instructional time by adding a video to play while participants are in the Waiting Room. Unfortunately, this is a general setting to be applied to all your waiting room and not tied to a specific meeting. You can customize this when logged in to your web portal at www.zoom.us Video tutorial.
  6. Zoom Learning Center. Zoom now offers a free educational platform for all new and existing users, including on-demand courses, live trainings, and short videos designed to give you just what you need when you need it to know how to best use their service. Login at https://learning.zoom.us/ Zoom Learning Center

How to Cross-List your Semester 2 Courses

As we approach Semester 2, those of you who are teaching multiple sections of the same course might consider cross-listing in Canvas. Cross-listing allows you to move section enrollments from individual courses and combine them into one course. This feature is helpful for instructors who teach several sections of the same course and only want to manage course data in one location. Many teachers who have tried it have asserted they would never go back to the old way since cross-listing is such a big time saver. However, this action should only be done before a semester starts. Indeed, Canvas recommends it be done before a course is published. If it is done after a course is published and notably student work has been submitted, that student work will be lost. Please review the slideshow below carefully to help you decide if you want to do it. 

Please reach out to a Technology Integration Specialist if you need help deciding if this is right for you or if you want assistance setting it up.

Canvas Quizzes: Accommodations, Matching Partial Credit, & New Date for Classic Quizzes Sunset

Classic Quiz Sunset Timeline Extended

Canvas has announced that it is delaying the sunset timeline for Classic Quizzes until June 30, 2024. Our district may begin restricting the creation of new Classic Quizzes later this year, but existing Classic Quizzes will be available longer than originally anticipated.

New Quizzes Update (January 15): Partial Credit in Matching

In the past, many teachers have bemoaned that partial credit cannot be awarded on Matching questions. Starting January 15, New Quizzes will now have that option! See this post for more information.

Quiz Accommodations in Classic and New Quizzes

We recently received a question about how to accommodate students tests/quizzes in Canvas. There are a lot of moderation options in Canvas, but the specific question was around students that may begin their quiz during class and receive extra time during their Resource hour. Below you will find a resource on how to accomplish this as well information on how students can resume a Quiz, moderating New and Classic Quizzes, and how to reopen an attempt for students.

Please submit a ticket if you have additional questions about this.


You may also view this collection of resources here: https://wke.lt/w/s/5aK43b

 

App Smash: Canva, Flipgrid, and Canvas

Canva now has ready-to-go Flipgrid background templates. These templates are great for teachers and students to give book reviews, teach about main ideas, or building community.

Search “flipgrid” when you are in Canva and you can select a template that works for you. Customize it to your liking, download the image, and then add it as a background in a Flipgrid video (students and teachers can make stand-alone videos with Flipgrid Shorts).

If you are doing it for a student assignment, students can easily submit the video in Canvas as a website URL or by downloading the video and uploading it to Studio.

See the <4 minute video below on how this can be done.

Canva blog post: https://www.canva.com/learn/flipgrid-integration/

Student Tutorial for Uploading a Video to Studio to Submit: https://ior.ad/7V6x

Student Tutorial for Submitting a Website URL: https://ior.ad/7Tqv

If you want to learn more about how Canva and Canvas integrate see our previous blogpost or enroll in the asynchronous Canvas course.

 

November Canvas Updates

On November 20th Canvas enabled the following updates for course instructors:

  • New Quizzes
    • By clicking the 3 dots you can bypass the assignment details page and go directly to “Build” the quiz by adding questions.
      • This is helpful for when you have already set up the assignment details and just need to go in to adjust questions.

image showing option to build a quiz

    • Stimulus orientation. When you add a stimulus question (an image with questions associated with it), Canvas defaults to having the image to the right of the questions. You can now put it above the questions. This is especially helpful if you need to print the quiz for a student. https://tech.pccsk12.com/print-canvas-new-quizzes/

image showing where to change stimulus orientation

  • Text Entry Word Count
    • When working in SpeedGrader, instructors will be able to view the word count on a text entry submission.

image of word count display

If you have ideas for Canvas update and improvements, let them know by adding a post to Idea Conversations. https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/idb-p/ideas 

Canvas Assignment Submission Tutorials, and More!

In an effort to support students, teachers, and families we have created additional technology tutorials. We have put special emphasis on tutorials for various, Canvas submission types for students. We hope this will help all stakeholders as Canvas remains the best way to continue coursework when students need to be out for an extended time. Please keep in mind, the users on a the mobile app will have a different experience and should consult these guides: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Mobile-Users/gh-p/mobile

This resource is available for teachers on the Digital Teaching Hub. https://tech.pccsk12.com/canvas-lms/

It is also available for students and families on the Digital Learning Hub. https://sites.google.com/pccsk12.com/hlh/canvas

For your convenience it is embedded below.

 

P-CEP High School Grading Periods

summary of grading period information

As of November 19th, now that Quarter 1 grades have been turned in at the secondary level, Grading Periods will be in place in Canvas to reflect the closing of Q1 grades in MiStar. Students will have view-only access to first quarter course content and will be unable to submit work for assignments associated with the first quarter (Q1) since it is not the current grading period. While teachers can edit their previous term’s course content, they cannot make further adjustments in the feedback or grading of any non-current grading period submissions.

When grading periods are enabled, the due date of an assignment will determine the grading period within which the assignment will appear in the Gradebook. If no due date is set, the assignment defaults to the last (current) grading period available for the course. Therefore, if there is a quiz or assignment that a student must still complete from a past quarter, you might make a copy of that quiz/assignment, give it a due date in the current grading period, and assign it just to the few students that need it. In that case, grade passback to MiStar should be avoided and, should you want it reflected in MISTAR manually enter the grade for those students in the Q1 quiz or assignment instead (note, even if this is done, the student’s viewable-as-of November 12th report card, won’t reflect any change).

Importantly, while students will still find their definitive grades in MISTAR, this grade period demarcation will also result in a more accurate current grade average, as far as what Canvas reflects, since only the current marking period will be presented.

Please find quick overview directions and screenshots in this document.

*Please note elementary teachers — it is very conceivable that we will similarly update Canvas for courses that span grading periods too, in the coming weeks, to allow for term filtering.

Submit a ticket for more support.