Differentiation: Hiding Different Versions of the Assignment

[piccoloso]

Hi,

I am using Sections to assign different versions of the same assignment for the purposes of IEPs. How do you make it so students cannot see both versions in their module. I have only assigned the students in each section to the corresponding assignment, but both version shows up in everyone's feed.

[MsTia]

Not an ANSWER, but thoughts from another instructor who also differentiates with sections.

1. Until a few days ago, I thought the titles of assignments for Section A were not visible to participants in Section B, when both sections had access to the same module. An Observer set me straight. I had not restricted her to just her student's section, though, when I issued her course invitation. FWIW.
   
   
2. I'm confident that students cannot turn in an assignment dedicated to a section they're not in. In five years of using FFT, that's never happened in my courses. So, that should be foolproof.
   
   The only exception that occurs to me would be if the instructor had inadvertently ALSO assigned the item to the general course. That little warning we skip over each time we save an edited version of a quiz or assignment, I guess, could cause a sleepy person to go back and assign the item to everyone. Oh, and when I've been selecting sections or students, my mouse wheel has sometimes gotten over-enthused and chosen "Everyone Else." If only briefly.
   
   
3. I will be testing tonight to see if a student in Section A can get as far as reading the instructions for a Section B assignment. If so, I'll post here. Betcha they can't, though.
   
   
4. My assignment- and quiz-naming convention for differentiated items usually adds an "Honors" or "AP" or "On-Level" at the end of the title, to match the section. Helps ME keep things straight, if nothing else. But it may be that has been more helpful to STUDENTS than I knew.

[MsTia]

"Only the section(s) specified in the assignment details can view the assignment." That's what it says HERE:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-assign-an-assignment-to-a-course-sectio...

. . . but it sounds like that's not true for you.

This may not answer your question, but here are some thoughts from another instructor who also differentiates with sections.

• I'm pretty confident students cannot turn in an assignment dedicated to a section they're not in. In five years of using FFT, that's never happened in my courses. (And if it could've, it would've!)
  
  
• I did have a case a few days ago in which an Observer could see an assignment title for a student that was not hers. However, I had NOT restricted her to just her student's section when I issued her course invitation.

A few possibilities occurred to me when I read your post. If obvious, forgive me.

• Students from Section A would be able to see assignments for Section B if the instructor had inadvertently ALSO assigned the item to the general course. That little warning we skip over each time we save an edited version of a quiz or assignment, I guess, could cause a sleepy person to go back and assign the item to everyone. Not saying YOU were sleepy! But I've been.
  
  
• When I've been selecting sections or students for an assignment, my mouse wheel has sometimes gotten over-enthused and chosen "Everyone Else." If only briefly. Again, just a thought.

A final idea that may also be obvious, but here goes: my assignment- and quiz-naming convention for differentiated items usually adds an "Honors" or "AP" or "On-Level" at the end of the title, to match the section. Helps ME keep things straight, if nothing else. If students were able to see the titles of assignments assigned to other sections, this would help them, too.

Just for fun . . . I am testing to see if students in Section A can see titles of assignments for Section B, and if so, what happens when they click. Will update if relevant.

[James]

@piccoloso 

What you're describing is not the expected behavior.

The first thing I would do is check the assignments themselves to make sure the differentiated assignments is done properly. When you save an assignment that uses differentiated assignments, Canvas kindly prompts with a Warning that you didn't assign the item to all sections and asking if you would like to go back or continue. The only way to not get that message to show up is to go back and assign it to everyone. The correct response is to click continue and that will bypass it for now, but it will pop up the next time you save it.

The second thing I would do is double check the enrollments in the sections to make sure that students are not enrolled in multiple sections. You can do this easily as the instructor from the People page or by going to the course Settings and choosing Sections. Double check that the number of users that you think should be in the section are actually in the section. If you see a lot of users in the IEP section when you expected just a few, then there may be a misconfiguration. You can see the actual users by clicking on the name of the section.