Canvas Gradebook Tips and Tricks

[@drwiese7]

Thanks for making this fabulous content available to all of the instructors who are using Canvas! The community is better because you do this work :)

[@HowToCanvas]

That is incredibly generous, and what a kind note! I really appreciate the Canvas community and all of the amazing educators and course developers. I know we all do what we do because we're passionate about affecting positive change in the world. Thanks so much!!

[@TopicsInRadiography]

Awesome job! This was extremely helpful and I appreciate the detail you went into on this.

[@HowToCanvas]

Glad it was helpful!

[@catherineabbott6249]

Thanks. You showed me a lot that I can use today... and going forward.

[@HowToCanvas]

Glad it was helpful!

[@byzarwilliams]

Thank you so very much! I can't wait to learn more!

[@HowToCanvas]

I'm glad I can be of help!

[@nicoles7126]

This is so helpful!! Thank you.

[@HowToCanvas]

Glad it was helpful!

[@junec216]

Thanks for this great video. I have learned a lot

[@HowToCanvas]

My pleasure

[@tcikanek8802]

I use groups in my Management class. I was today years old when I realized you can display the group names within the grade center.

[@HowToCanvas]

Being able to filter by group is also great - both in the inbox and in the gradebook.

[@furb1919]

Hi this was great. I am fairly new to Canvas and need some help. I imported a cartridge from the publisher of our book. It came with an assignment per chapter and everything is appearing in the grade book as a separate assignment. I have the publisher grade these assignments and I enter them into an average into the grade book in Canvas. Is there a way to condense the grades from those assignments into 1 column that is already averaged out? I need to students to be able to see their individual grade for each assignment but in the instructor grade book I’d like to be able to see just a singular column. I hope that makes sense. Thx in advance

[@RebeccaMcCullough-p9s]

My Gradebook does not have a "View" option listed at the top. I cannot arrange assignments or remove the unpublished assignments without it. HELP!?!?!

[@HowToCanvas]

Oh no! I would first to the IT vitals: Clear your cookies and cache (usually Ctrl + Shift + Del), restart your browser, maybe restart your computer. Then reach out to your Canvas admin or helpdesk.

[@SoCalRhetor]

You might consider a grade center hacks video. I used to have a script that I deployed through tampermonkey that put shortcuts on my screen (buttons), allowing me to jump from the grade center of one class to another. Lot's of other cool things that were out there too that I haven't been able to find again. Still, I have quite a few that improve the grading experience. Thank God for JavaScript

[@HowToCanvas]

Are you interested in being a guest on the channel? I’d love to invite you to share your techniques. Feel free to reach out on the howtocanvas.com website.

[@circlesthesun]

I've rolled classes over from last semester into the new semester. I see that students are taking quizzes from previous semesters and the grade is appearing on my current Canvas. By chance do you have a suggestion for this issue? I've searched online for a solution. I've had no luck.

[@kathyvanwagoner8133]

Why do I not have "view" "actions" "assignment groups" etc across the top of my gradebook?

[@Edd-zh6ql]

Thank you for this tutorial. How do I get to show the number of points in the grades? For instance, 5 points earned out of 10. How do I show "...out of 10?" Thanks so much.

[@HowToCanvas]

On the assignment page, you have some option for setting up the grading scheme. You can have the assignment be pass/fail, in which case you mark it as complete or incomplete, it can be a point value (which is the most common), or a letter grade or percentage, etc.

[@Edd-zh6ql]

Thanks a lot for your reply. I really appreciate it.

[@Wheelpan]

I have lots of assignments in grade book columns that are not part of the current class. I believe you said I can go into “assignments “ and delete them so they will not show up in the grade book. Is there a way to just “hide” the assignments instead of deleting them? Thank you.

[@HowToCanvas]

Good question. Do you want students to actually submit materials for this assignment? If an assignment is not graded [Edit assignment >> Display Grade as >> Not Graded] then it won't show up in the gradebook, but they also can't submit materials. You might try displaying grade as complete/incomplete, and then selecting the box "Do not count this assignment towards the final grade".

[@raniabasyouni5591]

Hi! Can I assign weights to modules instead of groups? I have a course with 22 chapters/modules, and each requires a different workload (percentage) from the students. What's the cleanest way to do this?

[@HowToCanvas]

What I would consider doing is organizing the assignments into groups by chapter/module. I've never done that before. My grouped assignments are typically (for example) written assignments, capstone deliverables, presentations, etc. Assignment that are similar in nature and rubric. But if you were to put your module assignments into groups then you could weigh the modules.

[@kiwimama208]

When you sync, is it passing over the missing tags from canvas to PS?

[@HowToCanvas]

My apologies, what is PS?

[@kiwimama208]

@@HowToCanvas it’s PowerSchool

[@scottiebruch1125]

I'm hoping that I can make this question make sense, so here it goes. If I create an assignment that will not get a grade (I choose Display Grade as Complete/Incomplete), and then I also have it set for the student to mark the assignment as done when they complete it because there is nothing to submit, what happens when the student marks it as done? I would like it to show up in my gradebook as a green checkmark that notes that the student completed the assignment. If it doesn't show up there, does it show up somewhere else? How do I know my students have completed those assignments that are simply marked as done and have a complete/incomplete grade?

[@HowToCanvas]

I’ll need to look into this. For masterypaths the students can mark something as done/read. But for an actual assignment I think the teacher would have to check complete. I’m not aware of an approach for students to mark work done and have the grade display in the gradebook.

[@williamjkoch]

If you drag grade items and reorder them in the grade book, then you break the ability to change the order from the Assignmetns page. I found it better to change the order using the Assignments page. (I discovered this the hard way.)

[@reetvirk81]

If I leave lowest grade possible to 0, it shows an error message saying "it must be a numeric value"

[@HowToCanvas]

If it’s a 0 you’ll just want it to an ungraded assignment

[@mariagonzalezmendez5980]

This is going to be long, but it is a note of gratitude. I was not able to receive training at the beginning of the term because I was a returning instructor and not programmed into the system. I was sent a set of training videos that provided 40 minutes of instructions on the kind of accoutrements my computer needed in order to operate Canvas (snore). I could not skip this section; the video would not progress. When I finally made it through the interminable 40 minutes, the window I had opened to practice and the window in the training video did not match. I am no techie. That did not work. For reasons that defy all understanding, no one would sit with me one on one to show me what to do and how to do it until one kind librarian did. I then understood that I did not have to open a training window but could "play" on the actual program without damaging every computer on Earth. By then I had 120 essays to grade a week. Next, skip to the end of the term. I forgot what the kind librarian showed me and my notes were inadequate because they were just notes meant to be reviewed soon after taking them. So, after my own interminable 40 minutes of introduction, thank you. This video makes sense, it's accessible, I can follow, and just thank you. Awesome.

[@HowToCanvas]

I'm sorry I couldn't respond sooner. I vacationed in Hawaii, got sick, caught up in work, then a long Thanksgiving holiday - all in rapid succession. I appreciate your note. My hope is to help both non-techies as well as confident Canvas users. Sometimes I feel like I'm just sending these tutorials into the void, but it's nice to know they're helpful to a few people. 💖

[@TruthinLove]

Very frustrating that Canvas does not allow assignments within a group to have different percentages. I know the workaround is to control weight by assigning different points to items within a group, but that is shoddy and annoying-especially for teachers who are not point oriented.

[@HowToCanvas]

The frustrating alternative is to have multiple groups for the original group of assignments. I might have a capstone portion of the class where there are 7 deliverables leading up to the capstone, then the capstone itself. Perhaps the deliverables are 1 group and a combined class weight of 30%, and then the final capstone would be in a separate group and worth 20%. So Capstone would be worth 50% of the class, but the deliverables and final are disparate. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯