Strategies for Using Canvas for a College Program

[Nick33]

Hi! So our college started a new program a few years ago so we're still trying to get a footing on what we're doing, specifically with tracking our students' work in the program.

We serve about 80 students in the program. At the end of each quarter, students are eligible to receive a gift card if they complete a certain number of requirements which is organized by categories: Social Events, Professional Development Workshops, Volunteer/Service Events, and Professor Office Hours. Students are not required to attend all or any events and this does not affect any part of their overall academic records (no credits, no GPA, etc.).

Currently, the way we've been running our Canvas page is that when we find events or workshops, we post an assignment to Canvas so that students can see it. If they attend, they must submit some sort of proof that they attended (answering questions, submitting a flyer, etc.). We then "grade" the assignments by giving them a score of 1/1 so that it becomes easier for us to track at the end of the quarter.

While this whole process works for us, it's looking like it's not too organized the students. On their dashboard, for example, students are seeing a list of assignments for our program on their To-Do List. This often gets mixed in with assignments for their actual classes. Their gradebook also contains a lot of "Missing" assignments which often confuses students that they need to attend all of the events on the assignments page.

I thought about no longer posting assignments for each event and either using the Calendar tool or using announcements, but students have mentioned that having individual assignments for events/workshops helps them to see what's coming up - it just gets confusing when they first land on their Canvas home page.

Does anyone here use Canvas for their College Program or just any Program in general where students aren't required to complete everything and are not receiving an actual grade? Would love to hear some tips/strategies/methods.

Thank you!

[chriscas]

Hi @Nick33,

The first thing that came to my mind around this is to use the "EX" (excused) grade code for students who don't attend whatever the event is that the assignment is associated with.  That should likely clean up their to-do list, but it would be more work on your side.

I think this issue really pops up because of using Canvas for something it wasn't specifically designed to do.  As you stated, things from these "extra" sites start mixing with student's academic work, and it can confuse them.  Learning Management Systems (LMS), like Canvas, are generally designed around that academic use case, and all of us try to bend and mold an LMS to do other things so that we don't have to have to spend money on other systems or have a simpler landscape for students.  Overall, this can have both positive and negative side-effects, but you'll have to figure out whether this particular one is net negative or positive for students and if its negative perhaps look at alternate systems or methods you could use.

Hope this helps a bit!

-Chris

[Nick33]

Hi @chriscas

Really appreciate your response. I did try the EX grade for students, but you are right, it takes a lot of work on my end to do that especially with so many students in the program.

Other than the assignments getting in the way of some students' work, there have not been any major complaints. Students actually appreciate using Canvas because they're already using it for their other classes. But I expect as the program grows, we will most likely have to tweak how we use Canvas a bit to fit the needs of the students or move away from Canvas completely (or combine Canvas with another program). Of course, our college is a bit reluctant to move away right now, so it may take some time.

Thank you!

[CynthiaEdwards1]

@Nick33 From your description, my first two thoughts were either Mastery Paths OR Portfolium. I would have to have a better look at the process flow to know which one exactly.  This link will take you to "What is MasteryPaths?"  

This will take to a video about Canvas e-portfolios. 

All the best has you explore these options!

With a joyful noise,

Cindy Edwards

[FernandoHayes]

You can organize events and workshops into separate modules for Social Events, Professional Development, Volunteer/Service, and Office Hours. This way, students can easily find and track specific types of events without cluttering their main dashboard. Organizing events and workshops in Canvas can indeed be tricky, especially when students aren't required to complete all assignments and no actual grades are involved. One strategy might be to use the Calendar tool to highlight upcoming events while keeping the individual assignments for detailed information. This way, students can see what’s coming up without their dashboard getting cluttered. For an interesting take on complex organizational systems, you might find this essay on the https://papersowl.com/examples/death-penalty/ death penalty quite insightful. It discusses various structural approaches, which could offer some parallels to managing your program.

[FSUKevinKennedy]

My one thought that might help tidy up those "missing" assignments would be to set an "available until" date if you're not doing so already (maybe 2-3 days after the event). I just worry that would make some students miss uploading their documentation.