Canvas Assignments

The Assignments tool allows you to create and manage group or individual assignments within your course. Students may submit written assignments or presentations (e.g., Word Documents and PowerPoints), as well as URLs and multimedia files (e.g., videos, HTML pages, music files) to an assignment.  

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Assignment Ideas

There are a variety of ways to use the Assignments tool in your course for both low-stakes and high-stakes assessments, including the following:  

• Class Participation
• Low-stakes writing assignments (e.g., minute paper, muddiest point)
• Case Study Responses
• Journal Writing
• Reflection Responses
• Lab Reports 
• Creative work: Poetry, Stories, Documentaries, Videos or Art
• Peer Collaboration
  • Group Assignments Links to an external site.
  • Peer Review Links to an external site.
• Research Papers

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Features of the Assignments Tool

• The Assignments tool provides a variety of settings for you to choose from including the following:
  • Limit submission attempts or allow unlimited attempts
  • Individual or group assignments
  • Peer Review of assignments
  • Restrict upload file types 
• You may enable Turnitin, a plagiarism review tool, in an assignment in your course.
  • For more information on this feature:
    • Enabling Turnitin for an Assignment
    • Using Turnitin in the Speed Grader
    • Tools to Promote Academic Integrity

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Logistical Considerations

1. What would you like students to submit for the assignment?
   • Review the assignment settings to ensure you select settings that correspond with what you ask students to submit.
   • Include these details in the assignment directions. 
2. Will students complete a peer review? 
   • Review the available options for assigning peer reviews.
   • Provide clear directions for students regarding the peer review assignment.
3. Will this be a group assignment? 
   • Each group will submit one assignment. If you want students to submit individual work, you will need to create an individual assignment.

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Grading Considerations

• How will you grade assignments?
  
  • Will you use a rubric to assess their performance?
  • What grading criteria will you provide to students?
  • Will you use SpeedGrader?
    • Please note that if you would like to use SpeedGrader, you will need to require students to upload a file rather than submit text in the text box of the assignment.
• Will you use the same date for the Due date and the Until date or different dates?
  • Setting an "Until" date after the Due date allows students to submit assignments after they are due, but they are marked late.
• Do you want students to be able to access assignments as soon as the course opens?
  • Setting "Available from" dates allows you to control when students can access assignments.
• Would you like to receive notifications when students submit assignments? 
  • You can customize the notification settings in your course to receive or not receive a message when an assignment is submitted.
• Do you want weighted assignments?
  • You can use assignment groups to weight the final course score Links to an external site..

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Teaching Strategies

There are many assignment options that can be used successfully in online courses. To help you think through the options for your course, visit  UCF Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository to view best practices for creating assignments that support critical thinking and collaboration. Several resources from the repository on creating assignments are linked below:

• Using Standards-Based Rubrics to Facilitate Online Peer Assessment, Response, and Reflection (Dipzinski, 2019)
• Flip the Classroom with Student-Generated Online Lectures (Kane, 2020)
• Create a Case Method Group Activity to Engage Students in Critical Thinking (Major & Viswanathan, 2019)
• Scaffold Student Success in Online Learning through Metacognitive Prompting and Reflective Journaling (Hamilton, 2018)