Bulls - Canvas

My name is Joi Bulls. I am assistant professor in Human Development Family Studies. I am using Canvas for HDF477, which is a professional development course for seniors. Some of the other things that I like is that you're able to link any assignment or quiz to anything-- or the pages-- to anything in a quiz, in an assignment, anywhere. So I really love that feature. So you're able to really make those connections. And that part of it I really had to rethink of. I can make things connected in many different ways. The modules, all of that, is seamless in that way. I think there's an ease to it that I'm enjoying. One of the most favorite things that I love about Canvas is the Student View. That was always, I guess, a hinder in Blackboard of being able to see what actually students see and being able to submit what students see. Because I know in Blackboard they have a non-edit view, but it still didn't give what really students see. And this way, I'm able to submit as a student. I'm able to grade as an instructor for that test student and then even show what it looks like. So I actually see what they see as a student when I'm providing reviews. I do use in-line grading. So that was very helpful. There are some things where I feel I'm pigeonholed to do, which has been a disappointment. I can think of three areas. One is with the rubrics. I like to assign several rubrics to one particular assignment. And Canvas is only forcing me to use one. And that was one workaround I could not find. Usually, I can find a workaround, but that one I was not able to. So I did have to restructure my grade book. And because my students-- what they do is, they have, for an example, four parts to an assignment. And they're only required to do three. And so in the grade book, obviously it shows them all. so then that forces-- because students will get confused. Like, am I supposed to submit this, or I'm not? So that's why I like the idea of the multiple rubrics for one particular piece or one particular assignment. The other part are the grade books. I'm not able-- let me see. For the grade book, for assignments, you put them in group assignments. So I have something for portfolios, for an example. I have something for homework. Well, in the grade book, at the end of what students see, they see all the percentages that come with homework or portfolio. But because I grade on satisfactory or unsatisfactory, they have these columns that mean nothing to the students. And they're confused about that. I feel like somewhat this loss of control over the menu and not being able to change what modules mean-- I think my students, especially as seniors, they were really getting confused on the difference between assignments and syllabus. And quite honestly, I don't think I'm using that to its fullest potential of what it really means. It's very confusing. I don't have a lot of assignments that's due on this one particular day. It's a range of dates. So that made it very difficult. So I just had to tell my students, go to modules. That's going to be the most important part of it. So I had to kind of guide them in that way. So being able to hide columns. I just, I feel like if I don't want my students to see a column in grade book, even though the assignment is for them, I just-- sometimes I'm not ready for them to see the column in the grade book. So I feel like a lack of control in the grade, especially in the grade book section. What helped me was to see samples and examples of others, even outside of our university. But just googling that and seeing that and seeing what you can do, then that just opened my mind to so many different things that I could do which was very nice. I think this is where it's kind of going more of, again, that linking, of the ease of being able to change one page and knowing that all of your links will change with it and not having to go through multiple pages. So that has-- that has been helpful. Another piece that I liked about Canvas was the quizzes. I haven't used the test because of this particular course, but I've used the quizzes. I like how I'm able to go and see what students have done-- if they've completed it, how long it's taken, if they're in the process of it. I'm able to re-do their time if I want to. So I love, yeah, so I love that flexibility. So it's like, some things they have so much flexibility on, and then some things are, to me, just very narrow. My students are seniors. And they are used to a certain way, because they've been here four, five, some six years now. And it has been, I think, the biggest challenge for them to kind of understand it. And I will have to say, I think if these were freshman, I don't even think they would think anything of it. But my seniors have griped a little bit here and there. And in particular, the assignments and the syllabus section, they were completely confused about that part and what modules means. I mean, I had to really tell them, you need to go to modules to know what's going on in this class. And so I have my modules broken up by weeks. So every week for each day they know what's going on. And they just didn't know what modules meant. And that still didn't click with them for a while. The most important thing, and I kind of said this before, is not to limit your mind on what you remember-- what Blackboard did. I think that's going to be the biggest thing. I feel like I'm not even taking the full potential of what I can do with Canvas, obviously, because it's my first semester. But I feel like there's so much more that I could do with it. And I think for such a long time we know, as instructors, we know that we've been limited in what we can do. And so we need to get out of that mindset. I think that using Canvas and completely re-think about some of the things we wanted to do in the past but weren't able to. Because we may be with this particular system.