Messaging failing students

[lori_campbell]

Is there a way to select all students whose grade is below a certain percentage to send them an inbox message?

[kona · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, no, the most you could do is message students who scored a certain grade on a specific assignment. There is a feature idea for this though - https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/1240-message-students-who-for-grade-totals?sr=search&searchId=... 

[michael_medeiro · Accepted solution]

A workaround I use is to create an assignment that is worth zero points. If you are passing the class you will not have a score in this column but if you are failing you will have a zero. It doesn't change any grades and I can quickly send a message to my failing students.

[kona · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, no, the most you could do is message students who scored a certain grade on a specific assignment. There is a feature idea for this though - https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/1240-message-students-who-for-grade-totals?sr=search&searchId=... 

[paul_hutson]

Does this send the emails blindly (bcc), or can all who were emailed see who else is doing poorly?

[nwilson7]

@paul_hutson This is a bcc to the students, they will have no way of knowing who else received the message.

-Nick

[michael_medeiro · Accepted solution]

A workaround I use is to create an assignment that is worth zero points. If you are passing the class you will not have a score in this column but if you are failing you will have a zero. It doesn't change any grades and I can quickly send a message to my failing students.

[kmeeusen]

Nice work-round,  @michaelmedeiros ‌!

[robert_frederic]

This feature needs to be incorporated. 

This is one of those lacking, yet fundamental to our job, features in Canvas. The work around is certainly clever, and I appreciate it (thank you M.M), but why should have to do that? 

The ability to quickly and collectively, identify and notify under-performing students is not a superfluous 'feature'. 

It is a fundamental requirement.

[lhandler]

I would also like to see this feature added.  At the moment, I'm mostly concerned about students who are failing, but I can also see it being useful for students who are doing well, or within reach of passing or....

[nwilson7 · Accepted solution]

@lhandler (and everyone else) since this post was answered, Canvas has implemented a feature that addresses this.  If you click on "New Analytics" on the course homepage the first page is the course grade.  If you click the little envelope icon where you can type in names, it will bring up a window that allows you to message students from a determined score range.

-Nick

[lhandler]

THANK YOU!  I thought I had looked everywhere, googled everywhere... and couldn't find this.

Much appreciated.

[tmcelearney]

But what about nofitfying Parents if this is a high school class?!?! The analytics solution only messages the student

[nwilson7]

@tmcelearney This solution should work if the parents are observers in Canvas of their students.  Otherwise, you would need to use whatever your institution's process is for notifying parents (I know some schools set this up through their Student Information System assuming you have an email address for the parents).  

-Nick

[audra_agnelly]

Message students who only sends to the student account, Canvas has not implemented functionality for teachers to easily tag a student's linked observers on messages from the gradebook or direct from the Inbox. There is a post somewhere in the community with a custom script that the district Admin can add to their Canvas instance, but it is not supported by Canvas.

[KristinL]

The Product Team is aware of the request to include Observers in messages. Take a look at the 2022 Q2 Roadmap:  Product Roadmap - Instructure Community  I hope this helps some schools! I look forward to seeing more announcements, that's for sure. 🙂