Assessments - add more than just quizzes

In many of the texts I use in my discipline, we have study guides or workbooks that the students complete. Currently, the only way I can create an assignment to grade these submissions is to set up a quiz.  Even though I instruct the students that this is not truly a quiz, but a graded assignment, the mere mention of a quiz, throws them into text anxiety.  This is not helpful.  Please consider other types of graded assessments besides quizzes.  Perhaps the ability to add just another type of assessment would be beneficial?
60 Comments
Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

You are correct.  I have seen teachers do pretty amazing things with the Quiz tool in order to create interactive assignments that are not quizzes or exams.

Would creating this graded activity as a 'graded survey' rather than a 'graded quiz' be an option?  Then it is a survey of their learning and displays slightly different for the student?

kmeeusen
Community Champion

 @cellittij ​

Check out this awesome video made by another community member: Designing Interactive Canvas Lessons - YouTube

Canvas quizzes are incredibly flexible.

Beth_Young
Community Contributor

I know what you're talking about. My assignments in the quizzes tool often say, "This is a graded homework assignment, not a quiz," for this very reason. I'm going to go check out the video that Kelley linked to now. Smiley Happy

cwendt
Community Champion

Same here, Beth. I sometimes have "quizzes" that are actually practices. In the TITLE of the quiz, I put something to indicate that it's a practice, then allow up to 99 attempts (although the most I've seen is maybe ten).

biray
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

 @cellittij ​

To clarify, is your feature request to change the references to word 'quiz'? In other words, instead of calling it QUIZ or 'quiz tool' - changing the term to 'Assessment' or a broader term that better represents the various ways teachers are leveraging quizzes? Or to add another activity tool in addition to quizzes?

And it's okay if you don't know the answer to this question -- we're not asking you to be prescriptive, rather we want to better understand the pathways that lead to design choices. What makes most sense to a designer or teacher.

This idea will be open for vote during the next voting cycle. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to keep discussing and posting here to help evolve these thoughts.

Smiley Happy

biray
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

This idea is now open for voting. Smiley Happy

jlg65
Community Participant

I find the term 'quiz' limiting.

LisaCasto
Community Novice

I would like to suggest that instead of Quizzes, the feature is called Assessments. That is a broader term that would allow teachers flexibility to define for their classroom and perhaps different assessments!

jason_nickal
Community Novice

It becomes a bit confusing for the students when everything on Canvas appears as a quiz. It may just be a question and answer, video review, or a worksheet type activity. On the other hand it may be an Exam! It would be nice to have the flexibility to distinguish between the types of assessments.

LisaCasto
Community Novice

Sent from my iPhone

julie_ryan
Community Member

It may seem petty, but terminology absolutely matters. At my institution faculty make a distinction between exams and quizzes and dislike that all assessments are lumped together under the "Quizzes" heading. In their minds this causes students to take exams less seriously because they are referenced as quizzes by the system.

terry_hill
Community Novice

Yes, please support this by considering other types of graded assessments besides quizzes.  Perhaps the ability to add just another type of assessment would be beneficial like common assessments, informal assessments, semester exam, unit quizzes, unit tests.

mpromislo
Community Explorer

I totally agree with Lisa that the tab should be called Assessments instead of Quizzes. This is much broader and more reflective of how many people teach.

sshumway
Community Novice

I have daily quizzes and weekly timed tests.  I try to have the word "test" in the title, but some students are still confused after half a year.  I also have practice quizzes where two people can work together.  I like the idea of having several types of assessment categories. 

megan_williams
Community Explorer

An additional confusion is that when you use Quizzes in the broadest assessment-sense, if you use exclusively "Essay" type questions, Canvas adds a grade of zero to the student's overall average, until the instructor grades them.  This causes all kinds of confusion and is frankly unnecessary.  Quizzes that include essay questions shouldn't be averaged in until the instructor grades them.

mricci
Community Participant

I'm in favor of a broader term like "Assessments".

bogardde
Community Participant

It looks like this feature idea did meet the 100 vote threshold. Is there another reason it was archived?

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

accident!

LisaCasto
Community Novice

Whew!  Great relief from Allen ISD!

jsparks
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

There is a lot of internal discussion on naming and what to call quizzes:  tests, exams, assessment, quiz tool, etc., etc. I admit I am not a fan of the broader term of assessment as there are many more implications of this term.  On the other hand, quiz can be considered a type of test/exam.  This naming convention is something we will think about and consider as we look at the Modern Quizzing Engine. Perhaps we will add a simple field to add a prefix to any quiz...

For example, using the quiz tool, you create a form-based assignment, or you create a mid-term, or some other sort of assessment activity. We could create a text field to allow you to add a prefix to the activity (text or dropdown).

Quiz Title: (text field)  Field Observation
Activity type: (text field) Checklist

Student sees:  Checklist: Field Observation

I prefer a field to a dropdown because of the numerous classifications of these activities one may use; the text field is a far more simple solution. We will think about this for longer term development.

More to come!

Jason