Resources for Large Enrollment Courses in Webcourses@UCF

Introduction

This guide will help you to pair pedagogical strategies with features integrated within Webcourses@UCF to support and streamline grading in large enrollment courses.

Using SpeedGrader gives you the tools to navigate efficiently through student progress.

Filter SpeedGrader by Student Group or Section

If you have multiple graders accessing student submissions in Canvas via SpeedGrader, you can set a whole course setting that SpeedGrader is always filtered to a group of students. If this feature is enabled, one can only use SpeedGrader filtered to their selected group. This is helpful when you cannot use SpeedGrader to see all students at once. Learn more about launching SpeedGrader filtered.

Tip: There may be times you wish to see all student in Speedgrader: You can enable and disable this filtering feature as you need, which would allow you to circumvent this restriction when necessary.

Save and Reuse SpeedGrader Comments

Canvas allows you to save comments (that appear in the overall assignment comment box) and easily reuse them. These comments are saved per person so TAs and instructors will need to create and save their own comments. If you are giving feedback to a lot of students in Canvas, this can save time. Learn more about the comment library feature.

Tip: This feature does not yet work with annotation comments, nor can the comments be anonymous.

Grade Quiz by Question

You can set SpeedGrader for Quizzes to grade question-by-question, rather than grading all a single student’s quiz before moving to the next student. You can enable this option in SpeedGrader. It will change your view a little bit (such as how “Fudge Points” appear).

 

Once this option is enabled, grading a quiz question and then moving to another student’s submission will automatically scroll to that same question on the next student’s quiz. This will also show a number bar above the quiz to more easily navigate between questions. You might use this to divide up grading a Canvas quiz by question rather than by student or section. Learn more about grading one quiz question at a time.

Analyze Your Quizzes

Canvas Quizzes allow you to view (and export) item and student analysis reports. The item analysis report will evaluate the difficulty, reliability, and discrimination of your quiz questions. The student analysis is a raw export of each student and their responses so you might create your own reports.

Important note: If your course has more than 1000 enrolled students, you will need to download the Student Analysis or the Item Analysis and view the analytics in the spreadsheets.

Customizing Assignment Settings

Use Moderated Grading

Moderated grading allows a lead instructor to provide designated graders with an opportunity to grade while still requiring a final confirmation (moderation) before grades are finalized. It also allows for multiple graders to grade each assignment before the lead then consolidates those grades into the final score.

Tip: Moderated grading might work best in conjunction with rubrics, but rubrics are not required.

You can enable this feature under course settings, on the feature options tab.

• How do I add a moderated assignment to be graded by multiple reviewers?
• How do I review moderated assignments in SpeedGrader as a moderator?

Use Rubrics

Using a rubric to grade your assignments may allow faster and more consistent grading across a large enrollment course. The general process is to create a rubric, attach it to an assignment, and then grader(s) use the rubric in SpeedGrader to guide comments and feedback. If using rubrics, be sure to enable the check-box to use the rubric for assignment grading once you have attached it to an assignment if you want the rubric’s numeric score to be used for the assignment score.

• How do I add a rubric in a course?
• How do I add a rubric to an assignment?
• How do I use a rubric to grade submissions in SpeedGrader?

Customizing the Gradebook

The Canvas Gradebook gives you additional tools for applying grade policies and filtering student data. This helps with loading times of the gradebook in large enrollment courses.

Set Viewing Defaults

Loading the Canvas gradebook can take a lot of time when you have a large course. The gradebook can also become unwieldy to navigate once you have a lot of rows and columns. You can make this easier through some general view settings.

Hide extraneous columns. Click the gear in the top right corner of the grades page and switch to the View Options tab. Here, you can toggle the check boxes to show or hide certain columns, such as not showing unpublished assignments or the notes column or hiding assignment group sub-totals.

• Sort the gradebook columns. You can have Canvas sort your columns automatically. “Default Order” will sort your columns according to the same order you have assignments displayed on the assignments page, but you might also ask it to sort alphabetically or by due date. (Sometimes you need to change to a different sort order and then back for Canvas to realize it needs to re-sort.)
• Show extra student information. When you have a large enrollment course, you have a greater chance of multiple students with the same, or similar, names. You can ask Canvas to show additional information (like PeopleSoft ID) to help you untangle these. Click on the “…” that appears in the column header for Student Name when you point at it. Here you can select Secondary Info -> SIS ID to display the PeopleSoft ID next to each student. You can also explore some other options here according to your preferences.
• Sort your assignment columns. You can sort your assignment columns by criteria like grade or late status. Click the “…” in the column header and select sort by to see the options.

Filter by Student or Assignment

You can quickly filter the gradebook to a single student or a single assignment by typing in the appropriate search box above the table. If you are, for example, currently entering grades for Lab Report #3, click in the assignment search box and select that assignment. All other columns will be hidden (except [sub]totals, if not hidden) except the one you selected. The same is true for filtering to a single student. Click the “X” next to a filter criterion to remove it.

Zoom In on One Student

If you want to focus on one student, click on their name from the gradebook, or type their name in the Search Students box above the table and click the grades button that appears in the sidecar that opens on the right. You will get a page that is only this student’s grades, shown in an easier-to-read format. This is particularly handy if you are meeting with a student, or trying to find out why someone’s grade is not calculating correctly. (Notice also you can use Arrange By to sort this page.) This page is similar to what students see when they check their grades, so it’s very useful to check it occasionally. Learn more about the student grades page.

Use Gradebook Filters

You can create and save filters to show only certain sets of students or assignments at a time. This is especially helpful if you plan to split grading with TAs. You each can filter by Section, Assignments or Student groups to see only the students you are responsible for grading. This helps the gradebook load faster in a large enrollment course. Click the Apply Filters button above the gradebook and then Create and Manage Filters to create a new filter.

Click to create a filter preset. Give it a name and select criteria. Then click Save Filter Preset.

In the future, when you click Apply Filters, any presets you have created will appear in the list for you to apply easily. To remove an applied filter, click the “X” next to the filter name that will appear in the same row as the Apply Filters button. Learn more about enhanced gradebook filters.

 Filter Student Groups:

• The Student Groups filter allowed you to view only a single desired group in the gradebook.
• The Secondary Info menu allowed you to display students’ groups right under each student’s name.

Using these simple improvements with other features given instructors new capabilities:

• When a group assignment is configured to “Assign Grades to Each Student Individually,” viewing only a single group in New Gradebook simplifies the task of adjusting a specific student’s grade relative to the overall group.
• Viewing individual assignments by members of a selected group becomes possible. Setting a default grade for an individual assignment by that group is also possible.

The Student Groups filter also makes new actions possible when used with other types of New Gradebook filters.

• When used with column filters – such as by Assignment Group – it’s now possible to adjust specific grades while viewing similar assignments the group is doing.
• Combining two types of student filters – for example, “Student Groups” and “Sections” – is also possible. Doing this helps graders or coaches work with an assigned subset of students, with much less searching and scrolling.

Set Default Grades

Canvas will treat any grade of “-” (the default grade) the same as “exempt”. It is important that you fill in the 0 for missing assignments for missing work to count against a student’s grades. Finding and filling these in can take a lot of time manually in a large course. Fortunately, there’s a tool available to do it in bulk. Click on the “…” that appear when hovering over the assignment column. Select Set Default Grade. Type the grade to give for missing submissions (usually 0) and click the button. Learn more about setting a default grade.

Important note: Do not turn on the overwrite check box! If you do that, all grades will be what you entered here, no matter the previous grade. (You can use Gradebook History, below, to find out the previous scores and undo this.) 

Use Late or Missing Submission Policies

You can set late submission or missing submission policies for your course. Click the gear    in the top right of the gradebook and use the Late Policies tab.

Late submission policy will penalize a student’s grade automatically depending on how long after the due date it was submitted. (Grading is completed as if it were not late; Canvas applies the penalty itself.). This only works for assignments that have a due date set, and were submitted after the due date (that is, had an “until” availability that was beyond the due date). Unfortunately, you cannot set different late penalties to different assignments, though you can manually specify how late a submission was in the Grade Detail Tray or by using SpeedGrader (e.g., remove any penalties for an ad hoc accommodation by setting it to 0). Learn more about late submission policies.

Important note: Caution is advised for both the “late” and “missing” policy settings, since they can apply retroactively and will require effort to undo. It is usually recommended to set these policies only before a course begins.

Check Gradebook History

When you have a large course, the chances of accidental grade changes are more likely. You can always view a history of your course’s grades — who graded which assignment, submitted by who, and at what time, along with what the grade was before and after. Using the gradebook history, you can easily find if a student’s grade did indeed get changed at some point and restore the previous grade. The gradebook history feature also keeps grades even in unusual circumstances, such as if a student drops your course, or an assignment is deleted accidentally. Learn more about gradebook history.

Communicate Efficiently

Even in large classes, strategies are available to individualize support to student needs.

Message Students Who

Canvas has a few places where you can send targeted messages tailored to students who meet specific criteria; the gradebook is the main one. For example, you could send reminders to students who have not yet submitted (without bothering those who already have), or those who scored above or below a particular score to encourage them to other opportunities. Using this feature will send each student their own Canvas message, without them seeing who else was sent one. Click on the “…” that appears in the column header for the assignment when you point at it. Select “Message Students Who” and explore your options. Learn more about messaging students from the gradebook.

Tip: You can also send targeted messages like this from the groups page (for students who have not yet signed up for a group) and with certain filters in the New Analytics area.

Offer Individual Opportunities

• Set communication expectations so students know when you will be available to answer any individual questions.
• Consider adopting a “three-before-me” communication policy to help manage question volume.
• Use the Scheduler feature within Webcourses@UCF to offer sign-up sheets for virtual office hours.
• Consider offering targeted office hours to differentiate help and address student needs.

Build Community

Planning social opportunities can also help to build community in large enrollment courses.

Facilitate Group Discussion:

• Break students into small groups to encourage community and to help build social presence in the online course.
• Encourage unique titles to help organize discussion posts around content.
• Leave comments and feedback to show students you are present and to help build instructor presence.
• Use discussion rubrics to guide students to craft quality comments and responses.

Hold Virtual Breakout Rooms:

• Consider the “think-pair-share” strategy to facilitate virtual breakout rooms.

Additional Resources:

• via the Center for Distributed Learning
• via the Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository