Reading Time: < 1 minuteWe talk a lot about Canvas announcements because they’re such a convenient way to get information out to your entire class. Today, we’re looking at another aspect of announcements – how to handle a situation when you want students to easily be able to respond to what you send out and ask questions or add comments. Canvas makes this simple. When you’re creating an announcement, check the “Allow users to comment” box under the “Options” heading. Canvas will then remember that you checked the box and keep it checked in the future. If you uncheck that box to not allow users to comment, Canvas will likewise remember that and keep that setting as…
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How Can I Reopen a Quiz for a Student (New Quizzes Makes It Easy!)
Reading Time: < 1 minuteAs we’re progressing through the semester, you may have a student come to you and ask to be let back into a quiz. Canvas makes it simple to do this, especially in New Quizzes. As a reminder, it’s easy to tell which quizzes are New Quizzes – they have the solid rocket ship icon (not the one that’s just an outline). New Quizzes has a built-in “reopen quiz” feature. With the click of a button, Canvas will allow the student back into their existing attempt. Since this is the existing attempt, students will pick up where they left off. All the questions they’d already answered will still be…
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How to Add Announcements to Your Course’s Home Page in Canvas
Reading Time: 2 minutesCommunication with your students has never been more important than it is now. With all the changes to how courses are structured and items potentially changing frequently, you want to make sure your students have the most up-to-date information and that it’s easy to find that information. We’ve talked before about using Announcements in Canvas. They’re by far the simplest way to communicate with your class – you can easily send a message to all your students that they’ll also receive by email or push notification (depending on how they’ve defined their settings), and the announcement also lives inside Canvas. But we can take this one step further and make…
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Canvas Update Incoming: New Rich Content Editor
Reading Time: 4 minutesCanvas is introducing a new look to its Rich Content Editor, the text editor you use in places like pages, assignment descriptions, and announcements. This update keeps all the same functionality as before – it just has a different process to accomplish those tasks while adding some cool timesaving features. Let’s start out by mentioning the biggest difference – the links panel has been removed, and all those items are now folded into the toolbar at the top of the editor. There are two different menus above the text box – the Rich Content Editor Menu Bar is on top and contains the items in text-based menu drop-downs, and the Rich Content Editor Toolbar displays the items in a “ribbon” format with…
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How Do I Update the Formatting for my Course Objectives in my Syllabus?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn our last post, we talked about how to transfer your course to your spring section while keeping in mind the autosyllabus template. Most of the information in that post is still accurate – but the template formatting for the course objectives has changed. Instead of housing the objectives in the “Outcomes” page and directing students to view them there, the objectives are now included directly in the syllabus. If you didn’t bring over your syllabus from last semester, the syllabus in your spring section will have the correct objectives formatting! You’ll want to use that spring syllabus template as you work on your course. It’s easy to copy and paste the specifics from your fall…
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How do I Transfer my Course with the Canvas Syllabus Template?
Reading Time: 2 minutesWe’re getting closer to the time to prep for next semester’s courses. With the Canvas syllabus template, you may be wondering how it’ll work to bring your courses over and if you’ll need to recreate your syllabus in your new section. Thankfully, this is not the case! There’s a slightly different process to follow if your syllabus is already in the Canvas template or if you still have it in an earlier format. Let’s take a look at each of these. If your syllabus is already in the Canvas syllabus template You’re in really good shape! Since the template hasn’t been updated, you can copy your entire course over to…
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Servant Teaching: Listening and Learning
Reading Time: 2 minutesI was so grateful to have the opportunity to teach a face-to-face section of the ITM-2100 Database Management course this semester. When I was assigned to this class earlier this year, I thought that the pandemic would be gone by then. However, this was not the case. Thanks to Dr. John Delano, who designed the course to be hybrid and flexible so I could adjust the course for this semester quickly. But the challenge continued … This semester I had 24 students in the class. Students were from a variety of majors—accounting, economics, finance, IT management, etc. During the first couple of weeks, the class focused on the SQL query which is fundamental for data processing and management. I received many questions from the students and noticed two major problems: “Am I…
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Four Practical Steps for Servant Teaching
Reading Time: 3 minutesI don’t know about the rest of you, but this semester feels different. It’s either the weather or because it’s a leap year… Oh wait! It’s because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Right. The overcast on the skies of our lives. As part of my duties as an instructional designer at CTL, I teach a course during the academic year. This semester, I taught a face-to-face section of ENG-1400. Much like you, I began my semester with a bit of apprehension; I had a plan for face-to-face and hyflex. We would meet one day a week and then supplement the other day with online discussion, videos, and other activities. But after a…
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Servant Teaching with the Mind of Christ
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThose whom God has called to serve have an extraordinary calling – to be conformed to the image of Christ through the power of Christ’s Spirit. This calling is true of every person who confesses Jesus as Lord. Phil. 2:1-18 shows Christ as our example of humility and can be summed up in the phrase “seeking to serve.” While this phrase is simple, the concept is also nuanced – anyone acting on Christ’s model with Christ’s mind will encounter conflict both internal and external. These conflicts are humbling, and they require honest reflection which reveals the need for supernatural power to overcome the situation. But you may ask “What does that have to do with…
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How Can I Proctor an Exam for Students Unable to be in Class?
Reading Time: 3 minutesWith the pandemic and all the associated challenges, you may have students who are unable to take an exam in class. In those cases, you have options available to you – you could email the exam to students and have them complete it and upload it into Canvas, you could add your exam into Canvas using the quiz feature and have the students complete it there, or you could use another method that suits your needs. Whichever method you choose, you may want to proctor the exam. Proctoring the exam is not required – this is not a “thou shalt do this.” Using the method below to…