Canvas Assignments allow you to organize much of your students’ work in one place (Discussions and Quizzes are created elsewhere). Assignments can also engage students and enable you to assess their understanding through a range of activities.
Features
Using Canvas Assignments, you can
- Provide instructions to students in the rich content editor that appears when you create an assignment.
- Help your students keep track of course requirements and due dates.
- Draft assignments before publishing them and making them visible to students.
- Collect student submissions for grading and feedback using a variety of different submission types, including file uploads, URL’s, text boxes, and media recordings.
- Use the Speedgrader to more efficiently provide feedback.
Get Familiar with the Assignment Builder
When creating assignments in Canvas, you can choose between a number of settings that influence how you and your students will interact with the assignment. It’s possible to configure a few settings to simplify your workflow and align with certain pedagogical goals:
- Create an optional or ungraded assignment by using the Complete/Incomplete designation under “display grade as” and selecting “Do not count this assignment towards the final grade.”
- Put assignments in weighted groups so that Canvas can calculate student grades for you.
- Change assignment due dates for students requesting extensions or with accommodations. This will ensure that assignments submitted past the set due date are not marked as Late.
- Receive a single submission for a group project, by using the group assignment setting. Note: If you are using Groups for Canvas Assignments, only one person from each group will be able to submit the assignment. Students who try to turn in the assignment after a group member has already submitted it will not be able to do so.
For a more detailed overview of the available settings, see Canvas’s documentation on assignment details.
Assignments and Related Canvas Tools
If you’re making significant use of Canvas, you can integrate Assignments with other tools in the platform by:
- Adding assignments to modules on your Canvas site. This allows you to sort your assignments based on weeks or units in a course and provide assignment links adjacent to related readings and files, which can help minimize cognitive load for students.
- Selecting an external tools submission type to link an assignment with other supported technologies, like Perusall.
For information about additional features and settings, see Canvas’s Assignments documentation.