Part II | Student Feedback About Improving their Canvas Course Experience

At the end of the Fall 2020 semester, students from two sections of the Human and Public Services STRT courses participated in a survey about “Things that would improve Canvas at LCCC”. A previous blog post covered Part I of their survey replies. The following is a continuation of their responses, which includes some suggested methods to address that feedback.

1. “Grades on first page/ Having the grades on the main page/ Have all grades in "one place"
   Instructors can make Grades visible in the Course Navigation menu and remind students about this location. Also, consider providing a link to Grades from the Course Home page.
2. “Side bar not being in alphabetical order” Faculty can arrange the sequence of tools to appear alphabetically or in any order for their Course Navigation - by going to Settings and proceed to the Navigation tab.
3. “Having separate due dates for first discussion post and replies”
   Currently there is no automatic way to do this, however when creating the Discussion assignment, faculty can list due dates for first post and second reply post. Example: 1st Post due September 22 (10 points) and 2nd Post reply to classmate due September 25 (10 points). Another option is to create a Canvas Page that follows the Discussion assignment, and provides a due date for the second post by checking “Add to student to-do” at the bottom of that page.
4. “Posting all the deadlines at the beginning of semester” Instructors should provide a tentative schedule of all assignments and due dates in the course syllabus, or refer students to the Canvas Syllabus page which generates a Course Summary of all assignments and dates.
5. “Having all zoom links in the same place for each class” Faculty can enable a link to Zoom in the course Navigation menu from Settings. Another option is to create a link for Zoom sessions on the Course Home page or within the Course Overview module. It is also helpful to send weekly reminders to students about Zoom sessions and links in Announcements or Inbox messages

Having this student feedback provides some useful insights into their concerns and can be very helpful to improve their Canvas course experience.