Student Peer Tutor as class observer?

[LindaBrock]

Like many high schools, we have some students serving as "peer tutors" in academic classes. Our students all have Canvas student accounts and normally have single-sign-on via an Active Directory integration.

One teacher would like to have their student peer tutor able to function as a class observer in Canvas (or an observer of individual students they are tutoring). Is this possible? and if so, how?

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Hi @LindaBrock 

There are instructions for an instructor to pair a student with an observer at https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-link-a-student-to-an-observer-in-a-cour... .  I believe that the observer has to already be enrolled in the course with an observer role--I don't know if your school allows instructors to do that.

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Hi @LindaBrock 

There are instructions for an instructor to pair a student with an observer at https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-link-a-student-to-an-observer-in-a-cour... .  I believe that the observer has to already be enrolled in the course with an observer role--I don't know if your school allows instructors to do that.

[LindaBrock]

Thanks, but as noted, the person needing to be an "observer" is also a Student role; and they are enrolled in a Peer Tutor course, not in the subject course they're supporting. So once the tutor is found, there is no option to link them to another student.

I would guess that the pairing code method also won't work (for the same reason) but was hoping someone knew.

[KristinL · Accepted solution]

Hi @LindaBrock -

This sounds like a great way to get students involved!

Before exploring this further, I want to point out an important aspect of the Observer role -- when linked to a specific student, observers see the student's work. For Peer Tutors, it may work best for Observers to view the class but not see individual students' work and grades. 

An Administrator should be able to add any user to a course and declare the individual's role in the course. The peer tutor can be a student in their classes and an observer in others. It becomes more complicated if they're required to have multiple roles within the same course.

[LindaBrock]

Thanks, we'll give it a try!