[New Quizzes] Student Highlight & Annotation Tools for Quizzes

Standardized testing looms large in the minds of all 3-8 grade teachers, in NJ where I work especially,  but also across the country. One of the skills students need to be able to succeed on the PARCC or SBA is to organize their thinking while reading across texts in an online testing environment, in order to write coherent essays and answer multiple choice questions citing text evidence in their answers. We teach them to do that by highlighting portions of the text as they are reading or going back to re-read, so they can use those pieces of evidence in writing their constructed responses. This is what they will be expected to do when they take PARCC or SBA.

 

We want our teachers to use Canvas to create engaging, meaningful, creative and collaborative learning experiences for students. The unfortunate reality of PARCC and SBA results being tied to teacher evaluations means our teachers also want tools they can use to specifically and directly help students practice for high-stakes testing. Annotation tools would go a long way in that regard. Please consider developing a way for students to highlight text in quizzes.

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80 Comments
Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

The voting will reopen Wednesday, March 1!

You can find more information in https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas/feature-ideas/blog/2017/02/17/flipping-the-switch-on...

ameadows
Community Novice

I've looked through all the "Open for Voting" ideas in the Canvas studio, and I wasn't able to locate this topic. Would you be able to direct me further as to where I can find it? Thanks! Andrea

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

You have located it,  @mathewsa ‌--it's right here! 😉 Stay tuned, as it will be opened for voting later today.

sbeck1
Community Champion

While this has been tagged and commented on for K12, I see a lot of benefit in this for the HE area also. This could be part of the useful tips and tricks our success coaches can offer to at-risk students that are struggling, and typically struggle with test taking skills.#HigherEd

james_sanzin
Community Champion

Great idea msommer‌. We really need these types of tools in Canvas. I could get more of my instructors to buy in to Canvas if it came closer to what students will face in their state assessments.

mchild76
Community Contributor

Just a thought - In the meantime have you looked at Diigo? With the Chrome plug-in in my browser I can highlight and add comments directly on the page (including while taking a Canvas quiz) as I read and work.

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sperillo
Community Novice

Can we add strikethrough to the option for quizzes? highlighting text would be helpful but I feel strikethrough would be a tool that helps students eliminate a choice on their own.  Also in CA our SBAC standardized state testing has the option on their ELA and Math tests.

lsimpkins
Community Novice

Another annotating tool used in ISTEP and/or ECA in Indiana allows for eliminating choices in multiple choice questions.  

mjoaquin
Community Participant

Are you using a paid version? Or free? I was looking at the accounts and it says 100 lifetime webpage/pdf annotations. I assume the inside Canvas annotation counts as a webpage. I just wondered, if you are using the free, where you are in your 100 lifetime pages. 

john_williamson
Community Contributor

msommer‌ great idea my students were asking about this just last week.   @denise_bumgarne