Pin Discussion Posts from Instructor

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(5)

I was wondering if this feature exists within Canvas already, but if not it would be extremely helpful to be able to pin certain Discussion posts as the instructor to the top of the message board. - Right now I have to sort it by likes and like my own post.

I will often give my students a prompt or examples in the Discussion itself rather than just in the instructions so that they can reply directly to the post and keep the conversations organized. 

(Additionally, it would be extremely helpful to be able to then import these pinned posts when I import a course/discussion for another class or a new semester.)

10 Comments
Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Status changed to: Open
 
RobDitto
Community Champion

@jg-cal, out of curiosity, have you tried the "Pinned Discussions" reordering feature illustrated in the Instructor Guide?

 

jg-cal
Community Member

Thanks for that link @RobDitto, but my question is a little different. I'm not looking to pin the entire discussion. 

I'm more talking about, for instance, I'll make a Discussion and ask students to identify things about the topic I present in the prompt/video. Maybe there is a better way of doing this, but I ask the general question and give context in the main Discussion post, and then I reply to that post myself with specific questions to create more precise threads as a way to keep the conversation organized by idea and allow options for students to think about different areas of interest.

For my classes, this tends to alleviate the broad general comments that try to comment vaguely on everything and stops people from being paralyzed by not knowing what to look for.

But the main goal here is to make sure my posts to guide the discussion are at the top so that if people don't follow directions and reply to the main post (instead of those sub-posts) it doesn't push my threads down the board.

Steven_S
Community Champion

In addition to setting up differentiated threads, this feature would let instructors set up example posts and tips separately from the instructions - and importantly keep those posts at the top where students will notice them easily.

Another feature that would compliment this, would be the option to have these instructor posts visible to student before they add their initial post - even when students are unable to see each others posts before they add their initial response: Visibility-of-instructor-replies-to-discussions

edwardn1
Community Participant

I was just going to post the same suggestion when I saw it had already been suggested.  This is something that other LMS's have.  I don't use it a lot but I think it can be very useful, as others have already noted.  With the new Discussions already in Beta - this would be a very useful feature to add.

doldham1
Community Participant

Another use for this feature (and what brought me here looking for how to do it):

I often use Discussions for peer review when for various reasons the built-in peer review system doesn't meet my needs. Students post their papers and then post feedback for their assigned partners.

I want to be able to assign peer review partners but keep that list separate from the actual instructions, so that when I import the instructions into a new term, I'm not bringing the old list of students. However, sometimes students have already posted their papers before I get around to posting the list of partners. When that happens, my post is down the screen a ways, buried among the student posts. I'd like it to live at the top so it's always the first thing students see.

TonyaCannon
Community Novice

It would definitely be beneficial to be able to highlight a discussion post within a discussion board with an option to "PIN" the discussion

Would also love to see a subject line in the respective discussion boards

garverk
Community Member

Yes, I agree that this feature would be helpful. I want to be able to pin a specific discussion post within the discussion. This would allow me to give additional prompting questions, or feature a specific post from a student.

DLOC
Community Member
Problem statement:

In Discussions, an instructor is looking for the ability to pin their answer to Discussion so that all students are able to view it. Currently, the instructor is replying individually to students or has revised the original Discussions posted to include a suggested answer. Students are then notified that it has been posted.

Proposed solution:

In Discussions, provide instructors the ability to pin their answers to Discussion so that all students are able to view it.

User role(s):

instructor,student

ProductPanda
Instructure
Instructure
Status changed to: Archived
Comments from Instructure

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