Educational Technology: Tech Tips Tuesdays Archive

Tech Tips Tuesdays: Confetti and Final Grades Tips

Good morning,

Can you believe it? Fall 2023 is nearly over!

As students are so close to the finish line, I’ve turned on the confetti in Canvas to celebrate their success. Every time they submit work on time, they’ll see an animation of confetti on their screen. I hope it brings a bit of cheer in this stressful time!

Woohoo!

Today, I’m offering a smorgasbord of tips designed to get you over the finish line as well. To start, let’s explore the Grades page again.

On the Grades page, you can change the way you view grades by clicking on Apply Filters…

…as well as clicking the gear icon at the top-right to view the Gradebook Settings, then the “View Options” tab.

You can also reach out to students meeting certain criteria by clicking on the three dots by an assignment’s name, then selecting “Message Students Who.” At this time in the semester, for example, you may want to reach out to students with missing work:

This is done as an Inbox message, which will also send a message to students’ Canvas apps and their CC e-mail, so long as they haven’t changed the default notification settings.

If you are offering bonus points as points added to the final grade, you can enable the Final Grade Override column from Gradebook Settings, which will allow you to type in a new final grade for students:

Now is the time to confirm other grade settings as well. Some things to check include the following:

• Have you removed Roll Call Attendance from your grade calculations if you’re not using it? It can skew grades, especially if you are using points-based grading.
• Do you have the correct grading scheme in place? If not, here is how to change that.
• If you are using percentage-based grading, are your Groups set up correctly, with all the assignments in the right place?
• Are your bonus assignments affecting final grades? Bonus assignments often use the option to not be calculated into the final grade—make sure that option is checked on the assignment’s details page if that’s how you’ve set things up.
• Are any of your grades just off? If you’re seeing really high final grades (like 190%—an A++++!), it might be that you have a 10-point assignment scoring out of 100%. Look at your columns and see if anything’s amiss.

These are usually the problem areas with Canvas at this point in the semester, so hopefully these tips help. If there’s anything else that crops up for you, don’t hesitate to reach out!