Parental observation in canvas complicated with three children!

[trberta]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

  Idea will be open for vote Wed. September 2, 2015 - Wed. December 2, 2015  Learn more about voting...

We have three children at the same high school.  We have registered as Canvas observers, and added all three children to our watch list. With 8 class periods, that's 24 potential classes to watch, and they appear to be listed ALPHABETICALLY, without an obvious way to filter by student, or clearly identify which student is taking which class.

Our three children have very different learning styles and levels of achievement, which demand three very different levels of observation.  Our temporary workaround will be very "clunky" (an old technical term meaning not user-friendly).  We are going to have to set up three separate parental accounts, using three separate parent email addresses, and observe one student in each account.

I am excited about using your system and at first blush it seems to have a number of advantages over MyBigCampus that we used last year.  However, if we can't look at one student at a time, or somehow sort things differently, it could be a frustrating year.  Can you help us?

  Comments from Instructure

May 2016 Update:

Please find more info at Canvas Studio: Canvas Parent

[cgiraud]

Yes, the improved Observer experience would allow us to include student advisors in the Observer process which would be incredibly helpful at report writing time! Each advisor has 10-12 students so we really need to be able to separate them.

[cgiraud]

Agreed. After just switching from another LMS, Canvas' lack of vision for the parent experience is a big negative for those of us in the K-12 space. Please fix, Canvas!

[akwegat]

Would love to see this idea developed!!!!!  Filter by student and also have the choice for "all".

[Renee_Carney]

Here is a great resource for anyone that wants to know more about the current features of the Parent Observation tool! 

[mal340]

I am really shocked that this has only got the number of votes that it has got.  I think most people, like myself have just given up voting on things like this as they feel the vote doesn't really get heard or listened to.  Having put in many product development requests before, I tended to just give up.  Maybe others are doing the same, and if this is the case, then that is a shame.  Instructure need to realise that a Parent Portal App. will not be enough.  There is a desperate need for a parent interface that includes:

• Live reports.
• Live analytics (separate but linked to their reports).
• Ability to easily access all their children's content EASILLY.
• Ability to participate in parent/class/teacher and possibly student forums.
• Ability to communicate with instructor easily.

This is what most, if not all LMS's can do.  Canvas has been on the ground long enough now to have developed this, and the question has to be asked, why has it not been done, and how can we be so blind not to see it as something that is important to all in the K-12 space.

[bgates]

Thank you for your feedback on how we can improve the parent experience. We are currently working on a solution that could potentially solve for the vast majority of your needs listed in this thread. Would any of you be interest in participating in a solution review?

In a solution review we will show you a mock up of our solution and ask you to navigate through it and provide feedback on how well it meets your needs. Below is what we have targeted in terms of our current solution:

Targeted Benefit - High School Parents

As a parent, I want a convenient way to be made aware of opportunities for encouragement, assignment status, grades and progress towards goals so I can help ensure my student(s) is actually learning, being appreciated and recognized for their efforts.

Critical Problems

• What sucks is that there isn’t an easy way to view grades, missing items or what is submitted/status
• What sucks is that there isn’t an easy way to focus on courses/subjects that my student(s) is struggling with.
• What sucks is that it is very difficult to know what to plan for and have enough time to execute it
• What sucks it that there isn’t an easy way to know what/when to encourage/reward my student

For those who are interested please email me bgates@instructure.com to we can set up a time this Friday morning to review.

[cgiraud]

Hi, Brian,

I would be interested in participating in review of the possible solutions. I am a bit concerned about your summary of "what sucks" because they seem focused on promoting the helicopter parent--a behavior we are trying to wean in our upper school. So I hope the design will be mindful of the need for parents to view what's happening w/in courses and what's due, but please don't add functionality that some of us might be scrambling to conceal such as MORE access to a teacher's grading process and engagement with the student as an emerging adult.

We accept the following premises:

--A parent would be curious about course content so discussions at home might invite specific reflection.

--A parent would like to be able to know what's due in a child's classes to support that student in planning to get his own work done.

Here's our list of "what sucks."

--Multiple kids are jammed into a single list of courses.

--Calendar is jammed with an overflow of courses that cannot be displayed--no way to delineate kids' calendars.

Thanks for working to improve our current "suckiness."

Camela

[clong]

Thanks for the opportunity to be part of the solutions review process Brian. I'll email you and look forward to seeing what's in store.

[fiefamily]

Brian,

Regarding the issue:

Targeted Benefit - High School Parents

As a parent, I want a convenient way to be made aware of opportunities for encouragement, assignment status, grades and progress towards goals so I can help ensure my student(s) is actually learning, being appreciated and recognized for their efforts

Yes, I'd be happy to participate in a walk-through of the solution mock-up.

As a sidenote...along the lines of Camela's comments...I see a solution set for this issue being targeted less at the high school level, and more at the k-8 level (of Instructure's k-12 target market).  I also struggle to think of Canvas as the tool for effectively delivering solutions targeted at the "...so I can help ensure my student(s) is actually learning, being appreciated and recognized for their efforts..." part of the issue statement.  The tool's as good as it's used, and I wonder about the usage practicality of a feature set for this (i.e. If teachers consider adopting it in their daily use, will they be required to enter more data and more often for the related feature(s) to be used (- to be used by whom, how, and how often - use cases?). 

It would be great for Instructure to begin rolling out reporting and query tools (based on how Canvas is at least currently used) for k-12 parents/observers to do simple analysis of their student's performance within and across courses and students (basic analytics).  Some of the 'Critical Problems/Suck List' you mentioned could be addressed by enabling some database query/report tools.

-----------------------------------------------

Regarding the issue:

Parental observation in canvas complicated with three children!

This seems different from the above solution request (Encouragement Opportunities (for lack of a better label)).  The Complicated with Three Children issue is specifically a need for "Observer-Views-by-Student" (i.e. enable observer views to filter for all and by student (and for later development, by [other] group(s))) the Courses, Assignments, Grades, and Calendar web forms.  The hope would be that Instructure could code an interim release that meets this need.

Beyond that, Daren nicely summarizes the broader requirement (for a more comprehensive near-term release?):

"There is a desperate need for a parent interface that includes:

• Live reports.
• Live analytics (separate but linked to their reports).
• Ability to easily access all their children's content EASILLY.
• Ability to participate in parent/class/teacher and possibly student forums.
• Ability to communicate with instructor easily."

I'd be happy to participate in a walk-through of the solution mock-up (and do user acceptance testing) for this issue as well.

Thanks for the attention on these!

-Cindy

[kbarmstrong1125]

I can' thank you enough for submitting this!  coming from My Big Campus which was not the easiest to use this has been far more difficult (hard to believe) at least for parents of multiple children.  I have 3 on here and all of their courses are mixed up - not separated by child (what would seem to me common sense).  Would love to see this change take affect (list courses by child not alpha).