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Assignment Design Tips

General Assignment Design Guidelines: View following resource from the University of Waterloo's Centre for Teaching Excellence for more general assignment design tips. 

Weighted Grades/Grading Rules Options: Some grading rules that you wish to apply to assignments must be done from the assignment index page. See the following guides. 

Publish Assignments: Make sure all assignments that you wish for students to complete are published. 

Write Clear Directions for Assignments: In the assignment description write clear and concise instructions on how to complete the assignment. Use the following guide for details on how  to add links to course content. 

Online Teaching: If you are teaching an online course, it is important to include an introductory assignment to help students understand how to submit assignments. See following guide for suggestions on how to create a getting started module for students to complete. 

Submission Types: There are several ways to setup an assignment. This will determine how you grade the assignment. 

Differentiated Assignments: Canvas has the ability to set multiple due dates based on sections or individual students or to assign different assignments to individual students as well as setting Mastery Paths. Please review following guide for details on the differences between the due date and availability dates in Canvas Assignments. 

There are three main ways instructors can configure assignments to allow for differentiated instruction. Below is a brief overview of what each option does and how instructors can use differentiated assignments in a course. 

  • Differentiate by Due Date- This option allows the instructor to set differentiate due dates for individual students, section or groups and can be helpful when students miss work and need to makeup work. Students will only see the due date and availability period assign to them. For instructors assignments with multiple due dates will the text multiple dates where the due date displays on the assignment index page.  Note: This option  will  not  work with TurnItIn assignments Links to an external site. setup as external tool.
  • Differentiate by Student (or section or group)- This option allows the instructor to assign an assignment to an individual student, section or group. This is particularly useful when an instructor wishes to assign different projects for students. Students will only see the assignments they are assigned and only the assignments that have been assigned to the student will be included in the total calculation for the student. Instructors will see all assignments in the gradebook; however for assignments that have been differentiated by student, instructors will only be able to enter grades for assigned students.  DO NOT use this option with assignment that already has student submissions! Use the Differentiate by due date so all student grades stay in the gradebook.
  • Differentiate by mastery paths- When the mastery paths is turned on in a course the option to assign to the mastery paths becomes available. For more information on mastery paths see the following  guide.

Using Mastery Paths in Assignments: This is course level feature option that can be enabled in the course settings. Once enabled, instructors can create a mastery path in the assignment settings.  This option requires careful planning and is best used with modules. See the following guides for details. 

Setting Up Extra Credit Assignments: You can create extra credit assignments. Review the following guides for details on creating extra credit assignments. 

New Quiz Tool: Creating extra credit quizzes is much easier and similar to creating extra credit assignments with the assignment tool in Canvas. See New Quiz Tool Overview Links to an external site. for details.  Note: The new quiz tool is course level feature option that must be enabled in the course settings.  If you enable the new quiz tool in your course, the quizzes can be created from the assignment index page and will have the assignment icon associated with them. After the February 15, 2020 update (Links to an external site.), if you enable the new quiz tool, all quizzes will created from the quiz index page and will have the rocket icon associated with them. See the following guide for details.