Assignments - Why use Canvas assignments?

Assignments in Canvas are one of the many ways you can assess if your students have met the learning outcomes of your course. Being clear with your expectations and providing time and space for your students to demonstrate what they have learned are several components of effective teaching.  You can give students choices on how to submit assignments; online, in person (no submission), a media upload, to name a few.

Want to make this more interactive?  Create groups Links to an external site., make this a group assignment,  Links to an external site.or do Peer Reviews Links to an external site..  

Want to make Canvas calculate your students grade? You can attach a rubric and/or use comments Links to an external site.to give your students immediate feedback.  Rubrics can automatically sum up the students points, percentages, a letter grade, a GPA and will ultimately populate them in your Gradebook.  See Rubrics Module for more.

Would you like to set up your Gradebook Links to an external site. to calculate the final grade with different weights to your assignments groups? (For example: Assignments = 20%, Quizzes = 20%, Mid-term = 30% or Final = 30%)  You can do this by creating assignment groups.  First create assignment groups. Links to an external site. Then assign weights to that group. Links to an external site. See Gradebook module for more.

Want to drop the lowest score, keep the highest score, or never drop an assignment in an assignment group?  You can create rules for an assignment group Links to an external site.. 

As you can see, assignments provide lots of flexibility to design and capture your students' learning. For each major assignment, add rubrics to articulate how well your students are performing with each criteria.  We will look at rubrics in detail at a later module. 

In your syllabus, make sure you have a clear structure of your course grading. This includes clear expectations with due dates, a late work policy, a value of each assignment and test assessments, and grading scale.