Requiring fewer discussions than offering without using the drop rule?

[lhandler]

I would like to offer 12 discussions and have students complete 8.

I would like to do this without using the "drop" rule as I only want students to do 8 (ie., I don't want to drop lowest scores, I want fewer scores.)

Is this possible?

I was starting to set the discussions up in their respective modules as "not graded" and the create "dummy assignments" like "your first discussion," "your second discussion" where the rubric for the discussion would be and so the grade would show up in the gradebook.

I'm not sure this is the right approach.  Seems cumbersome and confusing for students and for me.

Any thoughts on a more elegant way to accomplish my goal?

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @lhandler,

I think there are multiple was you *could* do this, but I'll give the way I think is ultimately the best...

I would set up 12 graded discussions, all belonging to the same assignment group.  I would then configure that group to drop the 4 lowest.  These are the things it sounds like you may have already figured out...  Now to make it work properly, what you need to do is give every single student a grade for all 12 discussions.  If they didn't do a particular discussion, you'd give them a 0.  This way each student has 12 grades, and Canvas will drop the 4 lowest (which should be the 0s).  If a student does more than 8 discussions, they'd get the grade of the 8 highest.  If a student only did 7 of the discussions, they'd get a 0 for the missing 8th one.  Depending how your course is set up with dates and other assignments, the missing policy could help you give 0s for the discussions students didn't do automatically, and cut down the work you need to do.

Hope this helps!

-Chris