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Laura, Thanks for raising this point. I agree. There are over 10,000 educators who are actively trying to throw out traditional grading on the FB page Teachers Throwing Out Grades. Canvas needs to offer options for those of us who do not want to use grading in a punitive or point-based manner. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College, Newark Campus www.professorhurley.com ... View more

Matthew, Thanks for showing this. This change does not seem like a significant improvement to me. The feedback should be really obvious, so obvious that students cannot fail to see it. Otherwise, all of our work is wasted.  ... View more

Sherry, I could not agree more. I have been trying to get attention to this issue for over two years now, and in that time, no improvements have been made. I now use voice feedback because the Canvas feedback system is so poor. But now I realize that the voice feedback feature on Canvas is also full of bugs and is not reliable. So now I am recording voice feedback using Quicktime and uploading through Canvas. It's enormously frustrating that the Canvas feedback system, which could potentially benefit student learning so much, is such a fail.  ... View more

Hi Laura, I am not on Twitter, but I may have to be to gain access to all of the TTOG resources! I would love to know how you have students grade themselves … I think I am moving in that direction. I will check out your blog and will ping you when I’m on Twitter! Thanks for sharing my piece … I think it’s amazing the kind of community that is developing around this issue. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College, Newark Campus ... View more

Thanks, Laura. Your message was inspiring. I am connected to TTOG through Facebook, and these teachers gave me the confidence to go gradeless (except for a final grade, which I’m required to give). It’s been working so well, and I’ve been presenting around the country about it. I’ll link you to an article that I wrote about my move towards feedback, no rubric/points/grade. I will be writing more about this in upcoming months and in fact am taking a sabbatical in the spring in order to write a book on this topic. Please keep in touch! Why I Threw Away My Rubrics P.S. I agree that it’s strange that so little innovation is taking place in colleges, when we have more freedom to experiment! However, I am finding that there is interest out there in these ideas. We just need to make the argument and present student feedback. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College, Newark Campus ... View more

Laura, I totally support what you are doing. Let me know how I can help. Many faculty all over the country are moving towards non-point-based assessment, and some of us are moving towards a no-grades classroom. Canvas does not seem to have this as part of their vision. I have been trying for years to get Canvas to improve the students’ visibility of instructor feedback, but it has gone nowhere. This means I am back to paper and pen to make my comments. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College, Newark Campus ... View more

Wondering if you could give us an update about where Canvas is with making Crocodoc files and instructor feedback more visible for students? ... View more

Steve, Thanks for making this point. It’s true that faculty are feeling impatient about this issue, but it’s only because we see the negative impact it has on our students. I have ceased using Crocodoc for my feedback because I can’t bear to think that all of the hours I spend giving feedback are wasted because students have trouble viewing my comments. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College, Newark Campus ... View more

I am also ceasing my use of Crocodoc until the Student View is improved. I’m not sure why this is taking so long? I know developers who said they could make this fix in an afternoon. It seems to me that Canvas is burdened with hugely bureaucratic systems that prevent actual improvements from being made. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College, Newark Campus ... View more

Hi Daniel, Thanks for your comments, and I loved your video. It shows so clearly why the student view is inadequate. I have completely given up on using Crocodoc for comments for this very reason. I actually went back to paper comments because at least I knew my students could see them.  I have been working actively since 2015 to try to get Canvas to improve this feature. I argued to my college that we needed to switch to Canvas, but now I am regretting it. I am shocked by how unresponsive Canvas has been on this issue, when it is one that impacts students most of all.  ... View more

I agree, Dustin! I was working with a student the other day, and the Speedgrader feedback was impossible to see on his student version, even on a normal-sized laptop. We kept having to scroll over to the side to see the marginal comment, which made it impossible to see the text that the comment was referring to. Eventually I just gave up and pulled up the student’s essay using my version, which is very easy to see. Canvas, when will you make this simple change of making the student view of Crocodoc feedback as easy to see as the instructor’s view? Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College – Newark Campus ... View more

Alex, I totally agree! Many schools are moving towards narrative or standards-based grading, but Canvas is not supporting this. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College – Newark Campus ... View more

Renee, I am just checking in with you about the status of this idea. There are many of us who are waiting for improvements on how students can view their essay feedback, and we're not hearing anything reassuring from Canvas. It's incredibly frustrating for teachers to make detailed comments and never know if our students can find them. Canvas's lack of responsiveness on this issue is worrisome. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College Fremont, CA ... View more

Denise, Canvas makes changes based on the number of votes an idea receives, so the only way to make change is to spread the word and get a lot votes for an idea. Canvas doesn’t seem to make changes simply based on the fact that something is a good idea, which is frustrating. One would hope that they would want to improve the system to help us and to help students. The only way I’ve found to help students find the feedback is to show it to them by showing an example on the screen, using the test student. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College – Newark Campus ... View more

Thanks, Denise. I have been trying for a year or so to get Canvas to make the feedback placement more student friendly, but for whatever reason there has been no movement on this issue. Spread the word! Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College – Newark Campus ... View more

Renee, Thank you for the update. As I'm sure you can see, this is a huge area of concern for those of us who would like to use Canvas to grade our students' written work. I (and many others) have gone back to grading the "old school" way because we can't ensure that students are able to see our feedback. Speedgrader offers a lot of potential, but it is completely unworkable in its current form. Please continue to keep us updated. ... View more

Thanks, Kathleen. I have similar problems and thus cannot get any use out of the Canvas gradebook. Please spread the word about this idea. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College - Newark Campus ... View more

Great idea, Rob. The issue I have with some of the workarounds Canvas suggested is the students still see points. They immediately focus on the points, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid with my grading system. Jennifer Hurley Associate Professor of English Ohlone College - Newark Campus ... View more