There are a few places Canvas poses challenges to some of the practices we utilize in our class, some of these revolving around the use of quizzes and how to best implement test retakes and test corrections. We have some suggestions on making this easier for you to manage.
Quiz Banks for Retakes
To make quiz retakes a little easier, consider creating a quiz bank (or item bank for New Quizzes). By creating the bank of questions, as students enter the retake, they should be presented with a new mix of questions. They might get a couple that are the same, so having a few questions for each bank it ideal.
How this works; for each standard or skill you are assessing create a quiz bank (or item bank). Have a few versions of a question within that quiz bank and as you create the quiz you will direct the question to pull 1 from the bank. As the student takes the quiz, it will auto-assign one of the questions to the student (this works best for auto-graded question types).
If the student needs to retake the quiz, which you can allow multiple times from the quiz set up or allow them individually through quiz moderation, they should then receive a new series of questions. As it is random, some questions might be the same, but they should also receive some new versions as well creating a new overall version of the quiz.
Creating these smaller, more specific quiz banks for individual tests might feel time consuming at first, but could ultimately make the retake process a little easier. The questions can then be moved or copied to other quiz banks later for cumulative end of unit tests.
Learn more about creating classic quizzes quiz banks.
Learn more about creating new quizzes item banks.
Learn more about moderating a quiz for more attempts.
Managing Test Corrections with Canvas Quizzes
Test corrections is another practice many teachers employ in lieu of retakes. There is not a direct method of allowing this in Canvas, but after chatting with some teacher in the district, we have some workarounds that might work.
First, you will need to allow students to see the quiz responses, which is an option in the quiz settings. When building a classic quiz, it is below the assignment options and in new quizzes it within Build and Settings.
When applying these, you will not want to include the correct answer, as students will correct their responses based on what they missed. This will only indicate what they chose and that it was incorrect. You can also choose to show item feedback, which is great for longer responses where you may have provided feedback on how to improve.
You will want to determine how you will collect the quiz corrections. Here are some ideas.
- Have students complete them on paper. They will view the quiz on Canvas and correct the response on a piece of paper they hand into you. You can then adjust the score in your Canvas gradebook directly in the grade column (consider making a comment with the original score noted) or you can do this through speedgrader and use fudge points.
- Create a new online assignment for those who need to complete test corrections (assign to specific students) or assign to everyone if that is easier. You would make this assignment not count towards the final grade or make it zero points. The difference here is that students can then upload a document of their test corrections (this is great for longer answers they might need to type). Once again, you can use fudge points in speedgrader or type directly into the gradebook the grade change.
- The slightly more clunky option is to allow for a retake or duplicate the quiz and rename it as test corrections. Add a new question where they upload their justifications for their new quiz responses. You could make this quiz worth the same as the original, or not count it, depending on whether you want to use Excuse as an option or write over the previous score.
How students review quiz feedback
Students will access their quiz feedback in grades. They will click the title of the quiz, which will open it in a review window. If you have chosen for them to see incorrect responses, those will be visible and if you have selected to show item feedback, they can also read your comments.
Students can use this feedback to make their test corrections and submit in one of the three ways shared.
If you have other Canvas tips, please make sure to share them with your Tech TOSA as we are always looking for new ways to support all our Canvas users. For more on using Canvas, check out our past posts.
