Group Canvas Quizzes

[JamesSmith4]

Is there any chance that a functionality for group quizzes might be added to Canvas? I am not a programmer, but it seems that it would be as easy as adding the already existent category of group assignments as a quiz option. I have work arounds to compensate for this lack of functionality, but they are cumbersome. I believe other people have suggested this as well. 

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

That's an interesting suggestion, @JamesSmith4. Can you reply to your message with the workarounds you have created? I am interested to know how you manage the problem of figuring out which student answered which question (if that matters) and also how group members figure out who's going to answer each question (first come, first served?). My own workaround would be to use a Collaboration or a Content Page where each group gets its own document/page to edit.

Answers to those questions (and others I'm sure you've worked out) would be excellent inclusions in a proposal to improve Canvas by adding this option. The process to do so is explained on the Community page How do Ideas and Themes work in the Instructure Community? 

[JamesSmith4]

In my case, we are trying to go paperless in an environmental science lab. We have students collect data and analyze it using excel and other programs. They answer general questions and data analysis associated questions in Canvas quizzes under our new design. This works well, the excel data sheets, documents, and other websites can be embedded in the quiz so that there is no need to view multiple elements for the lab and workflow is good. We need bench space in the lab, so it is not a computer lab and there are enough computers for students to pair up to do the lab (some labs are larger groups for setting up experiments and collecting data). In all it works well. The other benefit to using Canvas quizzes as a structure for the assignments is that they can easily be iterated to improve them and can be easily shared amoung members of the department.

However, the solution for giving feedback is pretty inelegant. One student from the group or pair submits the lab with all participating group member names on it. I grade it, download the annotated Canvas quiz, and upload it along with the grade for the other group members. This works, but has other people have suggested, is cumbersome and what appears to be a fairly simple addition of a group assignment functionality option to quizzes.

Hope that helps!

Dr Smith

[baldwinsh]

I and my colleagues have set up regular quizzes that students have to answer as a group. This doesn't work especially well because everyone has to start the quiz at the same time and will _hopefully_ all answer the questions in the same way. Another alternative has been to use a TBL feature offered by a 3rd party. In this case, the students answer the questions individually and then meet with their group and answer them as a group. The downside is that I don't always want students to answer the questions individually before answering them with a group and I am only limited to multiple choice questions using that tool. I would like a little bit more variety.

I design courses for online students. There are times where a humanities or English course might have a video clip that students need to watch and then answer a specific question about it. Or I might have a math course where students are supposed to work through math problems together and talk out their reasoning to their group members. Finally, what if I wanted to do an Escape Room activity? I would need everyone in my group to be on board with the questions or it wouldn't work well. For Escape Rooms, I have used Google, but wouldn't this be an awesome addition to a quiz? Where, depending on how you answer depends on what questions open up to you? But that is a different topic. It just came up while I was writing this reply.