Module 4

Skip to page content

Module Module 1      Module 2      Module 3     Module 4      Module 5      Module 6      Module 7      Module 8      Module 9

Module 4: Add, Edit, and Grade Assignments

Every course will have assignments. Whether weekly problem sets or response papers or substantial research papers or final projects, they are all created as an "assignment" in bCourses. This is how students will read the instructions and then submit the assignment, which will then allow you to comment, annotate, and grade.

All of the assignments you regularly administer in your in-person courses can be transferred to an online submission without much difference. However, you may find as the course goes on that you'll want to modify an assignment's instructions, due date, or availability. You may even want to add an assignment to gauge how well students are understanding and engaging with the course content or offer extra credit. 

Finally, grading will be an essential activity you conduct in the course and all assignments will need to be graded by a GSI or instructor. With SpeedGrader and Gradescope, you can provide the same detailed responses you would provide when receiving assignments on paper.  

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, you'll be able to:

  1. Use low-stakes assignments to monitor student comprehension
  2. Add an assignment to bCourses
  3. Maintain the academic integrity of high-stakes assignments with technical tools and traditional approaches
  4. Grade student assignments using SpeedGrader in bCourses
  5. Develop and grade assignments in Gradescope
  6. Use rubrics for consistent grading
  7. Apply best practices for administering assignments

All of these learning objectives will help you to achieve the overall course objectives: Design flexible exams and assignments and Grade student exams and assignments and provide feedback via bCourses and Gradescope.

How To Do It

Use low-stakes assignments to monitor student comprehension

Here we are using the term "low-stakes" to indicate assignments that are for a small portion of the grade, or even not graded at all, in order to give students an opportunity to test out ideas, confirm their understanding of the course content, and receive feedback before having to complete a major assignment or exam. You may also hear these types of assignments referred to as formative assignments or evaluations in that they are designed to help students learn, rather than evaluate what they have learned. 

The following article from the CTL website provides ideas for different types of low-stakes assignments you could include in your course. 

The course Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies in Canvas also provides ideas for low-stakes assignments such as the "minute paper." These strategies are applicable to courses in all disciplines. This is a self-enroll course from Canvas made available on bCourses. When you click on the link below, you'll be asked if you'd like to join the course. Select "Join" to enter.

Add an assignment to bCourses

Whether adding an assignment you've regularly used or creating a new one, you'll use the same function in bCourses to create and edit an assignment. In this section, we'll focus on the most essential functions, including some relevant assignment settings to create assignments in bCourses. 

Maintain the academic integrity of high-stakes assignments with technical tools and traditional approaches

When administering a high-stakes assignment that has a writing component, you can use Turnitin to check student assignments for originality. Turnitin is integrated with bCourses and can be enabled when you create an assignment in bCourses. 

Grade student assignments using SpeedGrader in bCourses

If you haven't already, watch the Gradebook and SpeedGrader overview videos for context on how to use Canvas' grading tools. 

Below are aspects of Gradebook and SpeedGrader specific to assignments. 

Develop and grade assignments in Gradescope

In Module 3, we looked at how Gradescope can be used to scale grading of exams. The same approach can be used to grade assignments.

Use rubrics for consistent grading

As with in-person courses, rubrics are a useful tool to help you consistently grade assignments and as a way to clearly and succinctly communicate your expectations for an assignment to students. The following articles from CTL and the GSI Teaching & Resource Center present guides and templates for creating and grading with rubrics. 

Once you've decided how to organize your rubric, you can share it with students simply by adding it as a PDF to your assignment for them to download and review or add it directly to the assignment instructions in bCourses. 

You can also create a rubric in bCourses and add it to your assignment. Students will see the rubric when viewing the assignment. When you grade the assignment in SpeedGrader, you will be able to use the rubric categories to automatically calculate the assignment grade and provide feedback. The following articles from the Canvas Guides highlight the relevant rubric articles.

Best Practices

Now that you know how to complete the activities covered in this module, read more about how best to use them in your course.