Put everything with a deadline into the to-do list

[Beth_Young]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

  Idea will be open for vote May 5th, 2015 - August 5th, 2015  Learn more about voting...

No matter how many ways I try to direct them otherwise, students start with the "to do" list and don't look at anything else, not the Calendar, not the Syllabus, not the Assignments page. Then they miss deadlines because some types of assignments never appear on the to-do list. Please put everything that has a deadline into the to-do list: reading assignment, practice quiz, homework to be submitted offline, etc.

I tried adding reminders to the things that do show up in the to-do list--for example, in quiz instructions, I said something like, "Remember to read X, do practice quiz Y, do textbook activity Z before you take this quiz." Some students were angry because there were "hidden" assignments inside quizzes. Well, the assignments were not hidden from anyplace . . . EXCEPT from the "to do" list. At the beginning of this semester, I spent a great deal of time personally contacting students who were failing to do assignments, and every single one of them told me "It wasn't on the to-do list so I didn't know I was supposed to do it."

An incomplete list causes more problems than it solves.

  Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-10-29)

[corderg]

Please try to fix this issue. It is very confusing to teachers and students.

Gail

[curtain]

We also find that people rely on the To-Do list since it is presented up front and is easy to understand.  They all assume ANYTHING they need to do should/would be there.   We think it should include anything you assign students 'To-Do' regardless of it is source

[rgo877]

It drives me crazy that the only assignments on the 'to do' list are those with grades/points attached.  Not only does it confuse students, it sends exactly the wrong message to "strategic learners" (most of our students) -- it says that the only assignments that matter are the ones that are graded.  Please include *all* assignments in the to-do list.  If no points are assigned, the student should be able to remove it from the "to do" list or the "overdue assignment" list by clicking a "done" button or checkbox.

[Beth_Young]

Here are related discussions from the old feature requests board.

https://help.instructure.com/entries/56028210-Remove-the-To-Do-list-option-

https://help.instructure.com/entries/62815870-Show-all-upcoming-assignments-in-To-Do-list

https://help.instructure.com/entries/21474039-All-Activities-with-a-Due-Date-in-To-Do-List

https://help.instructure.com/entries/26127705-PLEASE-allow-modifications-to-what-shows-in-the-stream...

https://help.instructure.com/entries/21464714-Rename-To-Do-in-Global-Navigation-to-To-Do-in-Canvas-

There were definitely more than 30 votes for fixing (or removing) the to-do list.

[snugent]

I am adding my comment from the old community.

This makes no sense. If there is an option to put a due date on practice quiz or ungraded survey, then it should show up in the to-do list and the calendar. A lot of LLC instructors hide the quiz list page, so these items wouldn't show up in a course unless the instructor has manually created a link to the practice quiz or survey. This is a problem.

I would also add to this that it has been my experience with supporting students that they heavily rely on the To Do list and calendar. If something isn't in the to do list or calendar there is good chance they will not see it.

[cms_hickss]

This is an excellent idea. And I will admit it, I thought this was how it already worked. That anything that a student needed to complete (because it had a due date) would show up in the "to do" list.

[DRBROOKS]

Yes, it is just as intrinsic an idea of a paper agenda or To-Do list. It is more likely to be completed if all items are placed in the to-do list. Even better, when they can be checked off as completed once they have been.

I thought that was how it worked originally anyways, apparently not.

[jeffrey_weimer]

I am a bit amazed when students are insulted to "discover", they have to have read something about a topic before they sit down to take a quiz on it. IOW, I am amazed that we have to resort to the level of putting everything on a time-sequenced To-Do list for them. I should have better things to do to teach effectively than to have to micro-manage their choices for them.

Be that as it may, as a work around, have you tried to give dummy points for your non-graded items, assign them deadlines, and dump them in to assignment categories that have 0% weight in the overall course grades. Something like this ...

Reading (0%)

- Read Chapter 1 (1 point, due 5/5/15)

- Read Chapter 2 (1 point, due 6/5/15)

Pre-Quiz Prep (0%)

- Pre-Quiz 1 (1 point, due 5/8/15)

- Pre-Quiz 2 (1 point, due 6/8/15)

Quizzes (25%)

- Quiz 1 (10 points, due 5/10/15)

- Quiz 2 (10 points, due 6/10/15)

...

--

JJW

[Beth_Young]

Haven't tried that--thanks for the suggestion!

I don't know if this idea would work well for me, because I use points-based grading (which means no grading scheme), but the current to-do list confusion isn't working well either so I will definitely think more about it.

[jeffrey_weimer]

I believe that you could still use points-based grading, with your primary assignment category weighing 100% of the overall grade and a slew of dummy categories that each carry 0% weight overall.

Hope you find something that works.