Prepare to submit final grades for fall semester
The end of the semester is coming up quickly! We have a couple of resources available for you to use when submitting your final grades:
Do it Yourself
Use the self-help guide, Canvas: Prepare and Submit Grades to Faculty Center/PeopleSoft, as a checklist. The guide will walk you through how to prepare your final course grades in Canvas and send them to Faculty Center/PeopleSoft.
Get Hands-on Support
Join Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) consultants on December 14 from 11 a.m. until noon for a hands-on, active work session to build and modify your gradebook to be ready to submit final grades. After a brief demonstration, questions and discussion topics of interest from participants will determine the focus of the session. Enroll in Canvas Gradebook: Prepare to submit final grades to reserve your spot.
Canvas Updates
New Emoji Picker in Canvas
Your computer allows you to insert an emoji in nearly every context. Canvas added a feature to make emojis even easier to access. Enable the Emojis in Submission Comments feature option in your course to add an Emoji Picker to the Submission Comments text box.
Proctorio’s Disable Extensions Tile setting change
Beginning January 2024, the Proctorio's Disable Extensions tile will be on by default in Proctorio Settings for all quizzes. This tool option prompts test takers to disable extensions in the same way they're directed to close tabs and disconnect monitors. The feature targets extensions like iTranscript, which deliver answers to students within a quiz. This lock down option currently needs to be turned on for each quiz, but in January it will be set to ON by default for all quizzes that use Proctorio.
Canvas New Quizzes gaining momentum
Canvas continues to enhance New Quizzes. In 2024, you'll learn more about New Quizzes and how you can smoothly transition to this modern quiz engine. In the November 18 release, there are more columns when viewing Item Banks, options to duplicate Item Banks, and support for Anonymous Grading.
Zoom Updates
Two new Zoom features now available
- Zoom Whiteboards is a new tool that allows for collaboration by groups and classes within and outside of meetings. Whiteboards provide a plethora of features to enhance group work, including infinite canvases, organizational templates, custom templates, accessible across devices, and more.
- Zoom Notes is an in- and out-of-meeting note-taking tool with basic word processor functions. The lightweight yet powerful tool is built into your standard meeting experience, accessed via the desktop client, the web browser, or in meetings. As a bonus, recurring meetings will have the option for persistent notes.
Generative AI in Education
On October 18, Teaching Support offered an interactive webinar, “Explore Generative AI Tools.” This session explored a number of generative AI tools that can assist you and your students with writing, course development, presentations, and research. Check out some of the resources from this session to see how you can use AI to enhance your teaching:
- The Explore Generative AI slide deck contains information, links, resources and names of the 14 tools mentioned or demonstrated in the session.
- Review the Participation Notes: Explore Generative AI Tools.
Register for the upcoming Explore Generative AI Tools interactive session on January 4, 2023.
Review how to moderate New and Classic Quizzes in Canvas
With final exams and other final assessments coming quickly, it is a good time to review how to moderate a student’s quiz in Canvas Quizzes. Quiz moderation is a feature in Classic and New Quizzes that allows an instructor to give students extra time on timed quizzes, extra attempts on quizzes with limited attempts, and access to locked quizzes when extenuating situations arise.
Things to note about moderating features in Classic Quizzes:
- For Classic Quizzes, you can moderate each quiz for multiple students at the same time, but you have to create the moderation for every quiz.
Things to note about moderating features in New Quizzes:
- New Quizzes has a way to apply ongoing accommodations for a student across all quiz attempts. The course-wide, student-specific accommodations only apply to New Quizzes. Classic Quizzes are not influenced by this setting.
Spotlight
Create High-Quality Videos for Your Courses
Multiple studies (Allen and Smith, 2012; Kay, 2012; Lai, 2021; Lloyd and Robertson, 2012; Rackaway, 2012; Hsin and Cigas, 2013; Stockwell et al., 2015) have shown that video can be a very successful learning tool in education. University of Minnesota faculty and instructional staff can tap into this powerful medium by working with Academic Video Production, a University-funded service available for academic course production at no cost to colleges or departments.
Our video producers are specifically trained to help you create engaging and dynamic educational videos for multiple use cases:
- Lectures.
- Interviews.
- On-location demonstrations.
The Academic Video Production team guides instructors through the process of creating exceptional video content. If you have an idea of how video instruction could enhance your students’ learning, reach out to [email protected] for a consultation. The Video Production team will walk you through the steps to take your idea and make it into a high-quality, fully-accessible video to be used over and over in your teaching.
Here is what other faculty have said from their experience working with Academic Video Production:
- I loved how the ATSS team edited seamlessly between me using PowerPoint, Matlab, and Gopher Glass. My students unanimously enjoyed the videos and found them a tremendous help in my classes ... .The ATSS staff… were fabulous during the shoot and the editing, and the final result was among the most successful and satisfying teaching experiences that I have had in my twenty years at Minnesota.
~ Professor Victor Barocas, BioMedical Engineering - I’ve been working with ATSS for four years. They’ve been great to work with! Easy to work with! ~ Professor Ed Usset, Commodity Marketing
The video below shows the type of content the Academic Video Production team can produce for your course. Email them today at [email protected] to schedule a consultation and begin making your video idea a reality for your students.