Assessments - add more than just quizzes

[cellittij]

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?

[bogardde]

I think the idea of allowing the user to create the title is fantastic. This would provide the same flexibility as we had when were were creating these types of tools on paper.

[kona]

Yet, what would you call the navigational link on the left? Quizzes?

[bogardde]

I wonder what other LMS's call it?

[kmeeusen]

Kona:

I like what Jason described, but like you I want to know what the main content area in which these tools reside will be called?

Quite frankly, educational jargon drives me up a wall and back down the other side:smileylaugh: And the fact that it changes with almost every graduating class from any school of education or with every new learning theory published by someone who hasn't taught since grad school,  makes it even more frustrating!

Enough of my soapbox!

I actually voted this feature down. I do not display the Quizzes navigation link in my course menu, I logically title my assessments in my Modules, I clearly explain my assessment policy to my students and explain their alignment to my stated learning objectives. My students aren't confused and neither am I.

klm

[kmeeusen]

"Assessments" seems to be the hands-down favorite.

[kona]

 @kmeeusen , I also hide the Quizzes link in my left hand navigation and include my quizzes directly in my Modules (with whatever naming scheme I want!).

[kona]

I hate to name names, but our previous LMS used the term "Assessments" rather than quizzes and it seemed to work ok.

[kmeeusen]

They all seem to work OK!

A rose is a rose, is a rose; and all that jazz.

The jargon doesn't matter. What matters is how well we make sure our students understand.

By the way, Happy New Year Kona!

[kona]

Happy New Year to you too Kelley! And I absolutely agree, as long as you're clear with what you call things and how things are named in your course, students will be fine!

[bogardde]

I think this ongoing discussion is a good example of the increasing dichotomy of needs and wants of the higher ed and K12 communities with regard to Canvas LMS.

For better or for worse, "Assessment" is now used most often as a blanket term for all types of evaluations of K12 student mastery. This change has been spreading for the past several years and is now found in most curricular materials. There are some good reasons why, but that's a topic for a different forum.

"Quiz" now refers to one certain type of assessment: quick and generally low-stakes.

Try to explain to a typical 9-year-old (and his typical parents!) that sometimes a Canvas Quiz may not really be a Quiz at all the way he knows Quizzes to be...but sometimes it is. Huh? Right. Not hard for a 20-year-old to grasp, but for a kid just barely into the concrete operations stage, it's really complicated.

At some point, I think Canvas is going to need to diverge into two different products: Grammar School versus High School & Above?

[kona]

bogardde​, just to be clear are you for or against naming the left hand navigational link "Assessments" versus Quizzes (or something else). From your discussion above I'm not sure how K12 and Higher Ed are different. I'm in Higher Ed and when I give my students a "quiz" I normally think of it as something relatively low stakes versus when I give a test or exam (or even major project - which is technically an assessment of their learning). I personally don't like that Canvas uses the blanket term "quiz" for something that has the potential to cover so many different things (some of my faculty even use it as a non-timed worksheet!). In addition, I think you possibly give too much credit to the 20 year old. Yes, in theory they should get that something can have one name but be something else, but many, many, many of them (and many who are even older than 20) still get confused and have problems with this concept.

[bogardde]

Haha, I guess I assumed one could take a typical 20-year-old through that kind of reasoning process. My bad. 😉

Yes, I think the term Assessments, while still not perfect, would be a better descriptive label than Quizzes. I spent some time with a few thesauruses (thesauri?) before throwing in the towel and deciding that "Assessments" is as good a blanket label as you can get.

[kona]

Some 20 year-olds are perfectly capable of understanding this, I'm just saying that I work with a LOT of students (I oversee the student help desk at my Institution and I teach as an adjunct) and I've seen quite a bit of confusion around "why is my test/exam listed under quizzes" and "how is this a worksheet if it's listed as a quiz?" Some of our faculty even have difficulty wrapping their brain around the labeling of so many different things as "quizzes."

Overall I'm glad we're on the same page about quizzes not being an appropriate term and the possibility of Assessments (maybe) being a better catchall term.

[Stef_retired]

 @kona ​ mentioned this earlier in the thread, I believe. My courses variously offer low-stakes matching quizzes, higher-stakes chapter review quizzes, and exams, and I don't like having them all lumped under "Quizzes," so for now, I take the approach of hiding the Quizzes tab (and FWIW, the Assignments tab as well) altogether from the left navigation. That gives me the leeway to name the assessments however I choose and drop them into Modules (or as page links, if the overarching course design dictates). It sidesteps a lot of confusion.

[bogardde]

Stefanie - I have my teachers do the same thing - hide the Quizzes tab in their courses - but unfortunately, the word Quiz/Quizzes still comes up in several places, such as the breadcrumb trail, and in the score the student sees at the end.

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[Stef_retired]

bogardde, yep, it sidesteps a lot of confusion--not all of the confusion.

[kmeeusen]

Deborah:

I agree that quizzes is not an ideal global term to be the bucket for all the varied assessments that may occur in a course, and while the trend in education oversight is to use "assessment" as a measure of teaching effectiveness (rather than student learning as some might think) in both K12 and Higher Ed, it still strikes me as a better bucket term.

I employ a variety of assessment tools in Canvas that are not "quizzes" including discussions and assignments.  Like Stephanie, I hide the course navigation link for Quizzes, but also hide the links for Assignments and Discussions.  My students access all content through the modules, and I logically name that content - Spelling Quiz, Chapter Exam etc.

However, what I also do in my Syllabus is clearly show the alignment of my assessment tools to the course learning objectives so that my students can clearly see what a specific tool is meant to be measuring.

Like Kona, I am both the LMS Admin and an adjunct faculty member. One of my other roles is faculty professional development, and I teach this online pedagogical approach to our faculty. In fact, this approach (and more) is integrated into our required Canvas training for online faculty.

I do not tend to worry about educational jargon, but rather with how whatever jargon is used is explained to users.

klm

[LisaCasto]

Folks,

I love all of this! I had several thoughts about this last night, then several meetings today, and now my good thoughts are already out there!  Love when that happens! Just to add--

Thank you for sharing that the issue is with all ages.  I would only add the aspect of volume of confusion. This feature was very popular with Allen teachers, as we have 9,000 secondary students in Canvas for all courses. Teaching and communicating with 9,000 ninth through twelfth graders is always fun! We do everything we can for consistency across courses to help our kids, and we have with Quizzes. We hid it on the navigation, but it does still appear in breadcrumbs, scores, etc.  We work from modules. We teach Canvas usage so we have the "Quiz" conversation. It's affirming that we're all using the same strategies!

From an instructional end, I am somewhat uncomfortable using the word Quiz. I too spent time in the dictionary and thesaurus, double-checking my thoughts.  I am a former English teacher, so I can debate words for a long time. In my mind, while nothing is ever perfect, assessments is a better choice.  

[tross]

This is definitely an issue with my teachers.  We have students K-12 in Canvas and I have seen Quizzes used for everything from Exit Tickets to Final Exams.  The connotation of the word Quiz is that thing that is not quite a test.  The issue comes up with teachers and students.  I looked at the discussion of why people don't want the menu items to be configurable and for the most part I am ok with that but this particular one really needs to change.  It comes up in every training we do.  I agree that Assessment is really generic but I would much rather have a generic word than this specific one that is really incorrect.

[jsparks]

Hello Friends,

We are considering a way to classify testing-engine specific assigned content with a qualifier like Assignment, Assessment, Check-up, Exam, Final, Mid-term, Quiz, etc. This is an idea under consideration.  Does a dropdown that adds a descriptor to the title meet your needs?

Jason