As faculty continue to explore and experiment with Canvas, we’ve listed five features that you can use right now that may assist with content delivery and classroom structure.

Gradebook History can be accessed from the Gradebook menu. This will show you a register of every change in your gradebook, including before and after changes to grades, and who made the change. This data is preserved here even if you delete an assignment, or a student is removed from your course. Filter the list with the menus above the chart. To return to your gradebook, just select Grades again from the course navigation menu.

You can preview what the students are seeing by using the directions on the Use Student View to Preview Your Course page.

The Student View functionality in Canvas is an immensely useful tool to utilize as practice while you learn to use Canvas, and it remains useful for your day-to-day course management. The tool lets you preview and interact with your course as a student would.

There are two notable limitations to Student View: 1. You cannot enroll the Test Student into a course group or section, and 2. It does not allow for testing with external tools like Zoom and Panopto (those tools are validated outside of Canvas, so they still see the Test Student as the teacher’s main account).

Information on Student View can be found here on the Use Student View to Preview Your Course page.

Canvas enables users to upload, embed, or record audio or video wherever the Rich Content Editor appears. Instructors can use this feature to include multimedia in quiz question stems, and students can also respond with audio or video in their answers when answering Essay questions.

Information on adding multimedia to different types of Canvas content can be found on the Include Videos in Your Canvas Course page.

Unlike Blackboard, Canvas allows instructors to give feedback on each individual choice for a multiple choice or multiple answer question, as well as general feedback on the question as a whole. Distractors in multiple choice questions are often good ways to catch common student misconceptions, and using different feedback for each incorrect answer can allow instructors to remediate each misconception more precisely. Feedback is only seen by students after they submit the entire quiz, and the timing can be further customized in the quiz’s settings.

Information on giving quiz feedback can be found on the Canvas support site’s “How do I create a Multiple Choice quiz question?” page.

The Dashboard is your personal landing page in Canvas. It is made to help you see the most recent activity in your most important courses quickly and easily. However, all of your courses will likely not be displayed on your Dashboard. To view a full list of your courses, click the “Courses” tab, then click “All Courses” at the bottom. A list of all of your courses appear with orange stars to the left of the Course Name. Click on the stars to un/favorite. Filled in stars will appear on your Dashboard while empty stars will not. Your courses will always be available in this All Courses list as long as you are enrolled in them and the course is not deleted.

Information on All Courses and Dashboard setup can be found on the Log In and Find Your Courses page.