Embed quiz question(s) within page

(15)

I give credit to K. Howatt in 2018 for asking this.  I, too, would like students to read material and passages on a Canvas page, then answer a question at the bottom for comprehension-checks with an embedded Canvas quiz.  Including the link to the quiz on the page seems to take the student out of the page and into the quiz; the flow is disturbed, and it seems like the student has to navigate her way back to where she had left off.

I'm not looking for a stimulus question--I'm thinking along the style of SoftChalk, if that helps.

17 Comments
terisaurus
Community Member

Hi Anne,

I totally agree with this. It would be great if quizzes.next had fewer clicks to get into the quiz, or better yet, as you suggested, if we could get some low-stakes, post-video, multiple choice questions right in the page! I also think it would be important for us to tag these questions with outcomes and see the student data in the Canvas Data API.. as we're trying to measure efficacy of the content - even if the questions are not part of the final grade.

#quizzes_new#quizze.next#add outcomes#data-api-endpoint#data and tools

venitk
Community Champion

This would be awesome to do nativity within Canvas. H5P has struggled with reliability of the free version lately, and I can do it in Storyline, but that comes with a price tag and a host of design issues since it looks terrible on mobile. 

These quick comprehension questions are excellent for improving recall and moving information into long-term storage (See Small Teaching by Lang). Giving instructors a way to do this--even if it's ungraded--without having to add an item to the modules and increase cognitive load there would improve student learning.  

terisaurus
Community Member

Hi  @venitk ‌

Agreed. Reading about the two options you've tried now. If you have a second, could you share if either of those (Storyline or H5P) supported the use of the Canvas outcomes? It seems like at least with H5P, the data are going into the grade book, which is great?

If you're interested, our team has tried "check it" which is part of Cidilabs Design Tools for Canvas .. https://cidilabs.com/ .. they seem to like it, but it doesn't seem to support the Canvas gradebook or Outcomes.

venitk
Community Champion

we haven't done anything with Canvas Outcomes, so I can't speak to that. We have in the past tried to have Storyline SCORM elements report quiz results to the gradebook, and that's buggy, so we gave up. And I'm still pretty green with H5P. 

manzoors
Community Novice

Hi,

I have embedded a quiz (MCQ) in the digital workbook Page in Canvas. I tried loading the picture but in vain. You can see the image on Muhammad Saqib Manzoor posted on LinkedIn 

I hope this would help!

joshua_hogue1
Community Explorer

Hi all, I created a similar idea and was instructed to move my idea over here since it is essentially the same. Here is my idea post:

"On a Canvas page or assignment, it is currently impossible to add interactive elements inline with the text.

 

The basic concept of this idea is to have on a single page or assignment some content, then an interactive question (such as multiple choice, matching, essay, etc), then more content, then another interactive question, etc. 

  • This would allow for a Learn, Practice, Learn, Practice model on a single page or assignment.
    • This model supports best practices such as: scaffolding, frequent and instant feedback, activating schema, pre-task, reflection, mastery learning, moving up Blooms Taxonomy, etc. 
  • For an assignment page each of these questions could count towards a grade for that assignment.
  • Essay questions would save students written submissions.

 

This instructional model is possible with some 3rd party software, such as H5P or Design Tools. Often these tools have integration or functionality weaknesses.

  • For example, Canvas allows you to use an external tool as the submission type for an assignment, but this puts that tool at the bottom of the page making it difficult to follow a Learn, Practice, Learn, Practice model.

 

To make this idea possible Canvas would need to make it possible to add a quiz question (any type) into a page or assignment.

  • One way this could work is while editing, provide a button to "Add an Inline Question" that would insert the question directly into the content editor wherever your cursor is. The question would then be editable directly in the content editor." (end of quotation)

One user asked if Next Quizzes stimulus would be sufficient and this was my response:

"Hi Chris!

 

Thanks for offering this alternative. I actually had never tried using the stimulus content before. I just spent some time creating a quiz with several stimulus sections with questions attached. Here is my feedback:

  • I like the ability to connect questions to stimulus content.
    • I also appreciate the various features in New Quizzes such as easy alignment to outcomes, easy use of item banks, and the new question types and question creation interface.
  • The side-by-side view is clunky.
    • The content can only use half of the screen real estate.
    • The attached questions would make more sense, in terms of flow, to be under the content. I had to scroll back up to see the question.
    • There are a number of scrolling bars that are hard to navigate, especially if you have a short stimulus for a series of questions.
  • You can't create a stimulus without an attached question. 
    • When I tried previewing my assignment it didn't show the stimuli without questions attached.
  • I would like to be able to use design tools in the stimulus content editor.

 

The way New Quizzes functions currently, I would not use it to create content in this way. It is not a good user experience.

 

Inline questions would be a much better experience. Perhaps the easiest option would be to modify the New Quizzes to be in a single line instead of side-by-side. I would seriously consider using this tool if it were designed that way.

 

Thank you for your time in considering my opinions!" (end of quotation)

Thanks all!

dunlapd
Community Novice

I've been longing for the ability to embed quiz and discussions inline in Canvas pages, OR (alternatively) embed pages and quizzes in another object that allows you to sequence material with real-time check and response etc. without leaving the page (I guess these amount to the same functionality).  

In fact, this is the reason I tried and still consider Top Hat.  Canvas Modules get close, but it's disjointed.   

I don't follow the Next / New Quizzes comments, and 3rd Party solutions sounds like a mess.  

Would love to keep posted, but sounds like a long way off, if ever.

dunlapd
Community Novice

edit ... oh ... i discovered "new quizzes" 

Very interesting, this does indeed seem like embedded in-line content, but not really scalable - and i agree with everything Joshua said above.  

When I created a test, it took some time to load / render, so I worry about scale and using it extensively with larger chunks.  

In-line questions in pages seems like a no-brainer, and with new quizzes (with modifications Joshua recommends), creates some very exciting structures for interactive online text.  

I'm begging for this.

rwollner
Community Explorer

@manzoors Unfortunately, that link isn't working for me, but I'm very interested to hear more about how you did that! I'm new to Canvas and don't know what MCQ is.

Thanks!

 

MrPidgeon
Community Member

The only work around this that I can think of is embedding a google form right into the assignment.

ag4232
Community Member

Yes! I discovered TopHat last semester and found that students really loved and got a lot from the Learn-Practice-Learn-Practice sequence on a single page, as Joshua describes. I am hoping to be able to do something similar with H5P this semester in Canvas, if I can learn it quickly enough, so I'd appreciate hearing more, both positive and negative, about how and how well H5P works for this. 

Rachel_P
Community Explorer

I really appreciated finding this thread, because I thought I was losing my mind. I assumed that Canvas would surely allow a person to add interactive elements like short answer questions, multiple choice questions, or matching exercises throughout the flow a lesson (Moodle does, after all). Since I found out it doesn't I'm really discouraged about whether I can build the learning experience I want to build. 

(I don't want to use an "assignment" because a learner has to click the "start assignment" button just to see the activity, and that's a point where we could lose engagement. Also, the word "assignment" makes it sound like a big deal, and I want these activities to feel casual, no-stakes, and like a seamless part of a lesson. Like another commenter here, I'm considering embedding a form for each activity using an iframe, but I'll have hundreds of forms by the time I'm done, and that will be very clunky to manage.) 

I don't really want to spend more money on a plugin like H5P, since I feel like this is a feature that ought to be included in Canvas's price tag. And it looks like TopHat has a price tag for _learners_. Does anyone know of a free plugin, workaround, hack, or alternative? Thank you all! 

Denham
Community Participant

This would be hugely valuable, especially if you could show immediate feedback once the question was complete.

RaeJobst-GU
Community Participant

This would be a really nice feature for good, formative learning.

RachelWebb
Community Member

Our campus just switched to Canvas at the beginning of the year. I am setting up my fall term online course and am very disappointed that I cannot embed quiz questions in a page in line with content. I want to have a Learn-Practice-Learn-Practice sequence without charging students anything on a 3rd party app. A Google form for every section is a workload nightmare. Please add this feature 😢

CarolaUSC
Community Participant

We too would like to have this capability to intersperse our learning content with formative self-test quiz questions. Using an iframe converter tool is too messy.

Please add this feature to improve the student experience.

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Instructure
Instructure
Status changed to: Archived
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As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.