Posting grades on the new version of Canvas grade book

With continuous updates from Canvas on the grade book we saw a lot of confusion among the instructors and graders. This blog will talk about the recent Canvas update on the grade posting and how you can make the most of the new functionality. The change was implemented to provide more control on posting grades as now it can be posted with respect to sections and features. 

We used to have a mute feature in the previous versions of Canvas grade book where instructors used to mute the assignment, to temporarily hold any grading notifications or comments getting to the students. Instructors sometimes use this feature to hold the grades as long as they are done grading for every student in the class and then release the grades together for an assignment.

This image below shows the working in earlier version of Canvas

Previous version mute feature

On the new version of Canvas grade book, the steps to mute (now called hide/post) an assignment are as follows

  1. Go to the Course on Canvas
  2. Open grade book.
  3. Choose the Assignment you want to start grading
  4. Click on the three dots against the assignment name on the right
  5. Select Grade Posting Policy
  6. A new window appears with two options ‘Automatically’ and ‘Manually’
  7. Select Automatically if you want the students to get notified about the grades as you enter grade for the assignment for individual students.                                                                            OR
  8. Select Manually to temporarily hold any grading notifications or comments getting to the students and post it all at once when you want.
  9. After you made your choice click on ‘Save’.

Grade Posting Policy

10. You can make grade updates for students after that.

11. If you selected Manually as your option, when you are ready to post the grades please click on the three dots against the assignment and click on the Post Grades Option.

Post Grades

Post Grades Manually Working

11. A new window appears with three options- ‘Hidden’, ‘Everyone’, ‘Graded’

12. Hidden is selected by default. You have to select ‘everyone’, if you want everyone to know and see the assignment is graded or select ‘Graded’ just to post the grades to the students with graded submissions.

13. Click on Post.

You can set the entire grade book to post grades manually/automatically instead of doing that individually for every assignment. The steps for that are as follows

  1. Click on the Settings icon in the top right corner of the grade book
  2. Go to Grade posting Policy Tab and set it to Manually/ Automatically
  3. Click on Update.

Grade book setting for grade posting policy

Below are the clips

Automatically Posting grades

Automatically post grades

Manually Posting Grades

Manually Post Grades settings for entire gradebook

Canvas now also has a setting where instructor can hide already posted grades this may happen when grader has already displayed grades but suddenly decides they should be hidden to students temporarily.

Hide Grades

We can also hide grades from speed grader instead of gradebook

In SpeedGrader, the Mute icon has been replaced by the Visibility icon, and the behavior mimics the previous functionality in hiding grades to students.

In the Visibility menu, select the Hide Grades option [1]. Hiding grades displays the same three options available when hiding grades in the New Gradebook [2]. Select the preferred hidden option and click the Hide option [3].

Hiding grades via speed grader

Post Grades after you are done grading.

Posting grades via speed grader

 

Note: These settings will not have any effect on grades that are already posted.

To get more information on the new grade posting feature of Canvas grade book please follow the below link.

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-17587-new-gradebook-and-speedgrader-muting-behavior-changes

 

References- https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-17587-new-gradebook-and-speedgrader-muting-behavior-changes

Lesson Design Using the ‘BOPPPS’ Model – Part 1: Bridge-In

Hello SJSU Community!

It’s Dr. Rayna Friendly again, here today to tell you about a model of lesson design that I learned and taught during my graduate/post graduate degree, which I use regularly to enhance my university teaching! In fact, this is the model taught to myself, and many others throughout more than 100 academic institutions worldwide during an intensive 3-day training event called the Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) (Day, 2004). The formation and use of the ISW has been documented, yest more research needs to be done. To date, the ISW has been found to be an effective way to transform instructor’s teaching in the classroom such that ISW participants were found to reduce their teacher-focused thinking in comparison to controls, as well as increase the number of active learning strategies used in their classrooms (e.g., Dawson et al., 2014; Macpherson, 2011). I hope to run the ISW at SJSU some day soon, but meanwhile let me tell you more about the BOPPPS model of lesson design!

‘BOPPPS’ is actually an acronym, which stands for the 6 basic components that are important to consider including when you are designing a lesson or workshop:

  • Bridge into the lesson
  • Outcomes for the lesson (as in Intended Learning Outcomes)
  • Pre-assessment of learners’ existing knowledge of those outcomes
  • Participatory Activities (as in Active Learning Strategies)
  • Post-assessment of learners’ knowledge of the outcomes
  • Summary of the lesson content

Note that these components can be used across the lesson once, or even multiple times if your lesson is divided-up into a few modules. Throughout my blog posts, I plan to describe the components of this model in more detail. For today, let’s delve deeper into the first component: The Bridge!

The Bridge-In component of the BOPPPS model reminds the instructor to include a segway into the content they plan to cover. Rather than jump right in, this encourages us to remember what it is like to be a novice, learning the material for the first time. (I don’t know about you, but I always found it so frustrating when my professors would forget to connect their lecture content to previously-discussed content or to real life in some way. I remember thinking “Why is he/she telling us this? Why is it important or relevant?“). Thus, including a bridge can help learners understand how the upcoming lesson content connects to their lives and/or to previous course content, in meaningful ways!

Some Bridge Ideas:

    • Start off with a DEMO that relates the lesson content to a real-life example
      • (e.g., I use the idea of proving the theory “Santa Clause true/real” vs “Santa Clause is false” when bridging into the topic of falsification in the Scientific Method)
    • Start off by telling learners an ANECDOTE or STORY about a past experience that relate back to the lesson content
    • Start off by SUMMARIZING where you left off last class before going into today’s lesson content
    • Start off by asking learners QUESTIONS or asking them to REFLECT on their personal experiences that relate to the course content

Look out for my following blog posts to learn more about the rest of the components of the BOPPPS Model!

 

(Note that these BOPPPS posts might be interspersed with content updates from the Teaching Community of Practice (TCoP), which I facilitate.) What is the TCoP, you ask?

  • The Teaching Community of Practice (TCoP) is a group for part- and full-time SJSU faculty (of all levels, across all departments), who are interested in enhancing their respective teaching practices. The TCoP will meet regularly, according to members’ schedules, to exchange strategies, tips and resources that have led to successful (and sometimes, less-than-successful) teaching experiences. Please fill out this form if you are interested in joining this community and you will be added to the groups’ mailing list. For inquires about the TCoP, please contact me at rayna.friendly@sjsu.edu.

 

 

REFERENCES:

Day, R., & the ISW International Advisory Committee. (2004). Instructional Skills Workshop: From grassroots initiative to international perspectives. Paper presented at the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Retrieved from http://iswnetwork.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Hand5_ICED.pdf

Dawson, D., Borin, P., Meadows, K., Britnell, J., Olsen, K. & McIntryre, G. (2014). The Impact of the Instructional Skills Workshop on Faculty Approaches to Teaching. Toronto ON: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

Macpherson, A. (2011). The Instructional Skills Workshop as a transformative learning process. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC.

Welcome Spartans

 

Welcome to the new semester, Spartans. We love to see the campus moving and buzzing again. Get ready to kick start the new semester with confidence. We know starting a new semester with new people and environment can sometimes be a little overwhelming. You are being given instructions about so many new things, applications, rules etc. and you may feel a little perplexed.

We understand.

As you take your first classes for this semester, your instructors may talk about different instructional software they will be using throughout the semester to accentuate learning and provisioning a platform for sharing class materials, discussions, teamwork and submissions.

The eCampus team is here for assistance with all the instructional software SJSU offers, like Canvas, Respondus Lockdown Browser, Turn it in, iClicker, Zoom, Qualtrics etc. We can help you if you want to know about these applications and understand how they work. We can help you if you face any issues while working on these platforms.

We also provide Adobe Creative Cloud for free to all the currently enrolled students of SJSU. You can seek assistance for getting an adobe creative on your device and use all the adobe applications.

F19 Welcome back! Setting up your course & TCoP invitation

Hello!

My name is Dr. Rayna Friendly and I am happy to have been invited as a Faculty-in-Residence blogger for eCampus this Fall 2019 term! Although my training and teaching is in the field of Developmental Psychology, I have also worked extensively on providing professional and teaching development opportunities for faculty and graduate students. Thus, my posts will mainly consist of tips and resources that I have found most helpful when developing my own teaching practice.

Today’s post will consist of: (1) a guide, which faculty (especially new faculty) can use to help set up and prepare their courses at the beginning of the term here at SJSU, and (2), an invitation to join the SJSU Teaching Community of Practice (TCoP) mailing list!

  1. My Guide for Preparing Courses for the Beginning of Term:

    The following are some of the  steps I follow when preparing my courses:

    First, I suggest visiting SJSU’s Center for Faculty Development (CFD)’s Seven Steps for Preparing Accessible/Inclusive Teaching to insure you are accommodating students to the best of your abilities. The link follows:
     

    1. Preparing my syllabus

      • I consult the SJSU Academic Calendar to check for campus closure/holiday dates and use this information when updating my schedule of topics for the term on my syllabus.
      • Then, I spend a lot of time considering and adjusting assessment (assignments, quizzes, tests, exams, etc.) descriptions and due dates…This planning takes me a long time but saves time during the semester since I’ve done a bunch of planning in advance)
      • I then check that the rest of my syllabus is updated (contact & office information, textbook & activity description, information about the Peer Educator I am working with in the new term, etc.)
      • Make sure university polices are updated on your syllabus, by checking (and using!) the wording carefully chosen by the CFD on their Accessible Syllabus Teaching Template: http://www.sjsu.edu/cfd/teaching-learning/accessibility
      • Here is an EXAMPLE of one of my syllabi from Spring 2019 (note: policies and such require updating, so please check wording using the CFD template above before re-using any of this on your own syllabi)

    2. Setting up My Canvas Course Shells

      • I first prefer to combine the 2 sections I teach of the same course into the same course shell (you do NOT need to do this, I just find it makes posting content for both sections easier, and you can still message each section individually if needed).
        • Here is an online guide: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10885-4214719646
        • I prefer my course shell to say “sections 1 & 2” (rather than just section 1), so I just emailed eCampus to ask them set up one of my course section’s with that name/detail added. Then I followed online instructions, like those above, to cross-list both sections to that course shell.
      • I aim to launch my Canvas courses with at least the following published:
        • A welcome message to my students (some instructors post a welcome video as well!)
        • The syllabus (I prefer to put my syllabus on a Google Document in Google Drive, and then embed the link on Canvas under “syllabus”. This way, when I make edits to the syllabus on Drive, they show up instantly on Canvas for students to view)
        • Information for students on how to set up their iClicker (which I use for my classes), as well as lists of any campus resources I feel could be useful to them (I create a module specifically labelled “Tips & Resources” for these. Many of these resources can be downloaded from Canvas Commons

    3. Then, I set up my courses on iClicker, since I use these in my classes.

    • I personally don’t use these for points – I just use it them participation, but many instructors use these for grades. Contact eCampus for help with setting this up!

    4. Last, I start creating/updating my slides for the term.

    • I aim to get at least 1-2 weeks ahead (more if it is my first term teaching or I am making large-scale changes to the course)

     

  2. Invitation to join SJSU’s Teaching Community of Practice (TCoP)

  • The Teaching Community of Practice (TCoP) is a group for part- and full-time SJSU faculty (of all levels, across all departments), who are interested in enhancing their respective teaching practices. The TCoP will meet regularly, according to members’ schedules, to exchange strategies, tips and resources that have led to successful (and sometimes, less-than-successful) teaching experiences. Please fill out this form if you are interested in joining this community and you will be added to the groups’ mailing list. For inquires about the TCoP, please contact me at rayna.friendly@sjsu.edu.

 

  • Why join the TCoP?

    • Attendance is flexible (in-person and online) and sessions are often recorded using Zoom, so you can watch them later if unable to attend!
    • There is a body of research that examines the efficacy of such Professional Teaching Communities (i.e. Communities of Practice) for both faculty and student outcomes (e.g., Vangrieken, Meredith, Packer, & Kyndt, 2017; Vescio, Ross & Adams, 2008), which suggest benefits for pedagogical advancements.

REFERENCES:

Vescio, V., Ross, D., & Adams, A. (2008). A review of research on the impact of professional learning communities on teaching practice and student learning. Teaching and teacher education, 24(1), 80-91.

Vangrieken, K., Meredith, C., Packer, T., & Kyndt, E. (2017). Teacher communities as a context for professional development: A systematic review. Teaching and teacher education, 61, 47-59.

 

Immersive Learning Research Network Conference 2019

The fifth annual Immersive Learning Research Network conference was held this month in London, England. This conference brings together an international group of developers, educators, and research professionals from a range of  disciplines who collaborate to develop the scientific, technical, and applied potential of immersive learning. In particular, conference participants share their research in an ongoing effort to continually examine the elements that create effective immersive learning experiences. 

I had heard about the conference from one of the organizers, Jonathan Richter, who had presented a keynote at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference in April. I had presented at that in-world conference. Jon had let me know that there was still room for poster presentations at iLRN19, so I had the honor to represent San Jose State University at an international community event.

Bethany at iLRN 2019

My poster synthesized research on the affordances of virtual worlds, and my experiences as both participant and in-world builder for the last year and a half. All of the conference events were great, but I was particularly inspired by Jim Purbrick’s presentation Lessons Learned in Virtual Worlds. As a former developer for Second Life, (and current engineering manager of Oculus VR in the UK), Jim articulated the increasing importance of understanding the social aspect of collaborating in open virtual worlds. Of course, I think the best way to do that is join the educators and librarians who have been holding events and conferences in virtual worlds like Second Life and OpenSim for the last 10 years. So if you have any such interest, do let me know!

If you’re interested in the research, the conference proceedings (linked here) contain 18 final papers selected from 60 submissions. These papers fall into seven different categories; STEM, disciplinary applications, special education, history, pedagogical strategies, immersion and presence. I’ve also linked here to a PDF version of my poster. (From the QR code on my poster you can access additional information and videos about virtual worlds I have posted on Canvas.)

I hope San Jose State will have an even bigger presence at the conference next year, when it will be held in June at Cal Poly San Louis Obispo!