Help with Discussions!

[DerekGreenfield]

I am new to teaching with Canvas and have been using Discussions.  The issue is... the students weren't receiving info about tasks in their ToDo section, so I went ahead and added the next Discussion through Assignments.  Now, I have students participating on my original Discussion ... and then in my ToDo tab, I see other posts to be graded that are aren't in the original Discussion.  Basically, it's like there are two separate Discussions, but the latest one seems to have posts just go to me.  Help!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi @DerekGreenfield ...

When you say that you "added the next Discussion through Assignments", I'm not entirely sure what you mean.  By chance, was this your process?

1. Click on the "Assignments" course navigation link on the left side of your course.
2. On the "Assignments" page, within an assignment group, click on the "+" icon which brings up a "Create Assignment" window.  (NOTE: This would be different than clicking on the larger "+ Assignment" button at the top right corner of the "Assignments" page.)
3. From the "Type" drop-down list, select "Discussion".
4. Fill in the other details for your discussion topic, and then click the "Save" button (or click the "More Options" button to fill in the discussion prompt for your students).

This process would create a graded discussion topic within your course.  But, there are other ways to create discussion topics.  One common way is to create your topics (graded or ungraded) via your "Discussions" link found in the left-hand course navigation.  This is where you might find a duplicate of your topics.  Only discussion topics that you've designated as graded would appear on your "Assignments" page.  But, both graded and ungraded discussion topics will appear on your "Discussions" page because that is where all discussion topics live.

I'd recommend looking at your "Discussions" page, checking to see if you have the same topic listed twice, and also see if some students are replying to one vs. the other.  Also look at the settings you have configured for the topics to see if you can spot the differences (graded vs. ungraded, any other settings that might be turned on/off).

I'm not sure if this will be of any help or not...as I'm unable to see exactly what your discussion setup looks like within your school's Canvas environment.  But, I hope this will help in some way.  Sing out if you have any questions...thanks!