Using Canvas to Navigate Student Absences
By Christine Hood, OTL Instructional Designer
DU’s new fall quarter requirement that“critical course materials”be hosted onCanvasbrings with it an exciting opportunity to decrease stress for both you and your students. As students increasingly choose to access their course work via various mobile devices, the move to Canvas not only helps facilitate increased access to materials for all students, but also is particularly helpful in combatting the effects of unplanned absences.
While students may seek permission for planned absences from your course for major life events or religious holidays as normal, the ongoing global pandemic raises the likelihood of longer-term, mandatory absences due to illness or exposure to the COVID-19 virus.
Although DU has manypoliciesoutlining classroom behavior and excused absences for COVID, how you navigate student absences pertaining to your course content is unique to you and your students, your expertise, and your pedagogical approach.In some extenuating circumstances such asthose impactingimmunocompromised students,somemay qualify forformalstudent accommodations from the.
Here are some options for getting absent students caught up with course content.
Record your class and give absent (or ideally, all) students accessthrough thethen upload them toKaltura
You could record the whole class, or just the lecture portion; it’sup to you! You could even give all students access, because it is helpful whethertheywere absent or not.
Instructors noted that even students who attended every course (synchronously or in-person) are still accessing the recorded lecture materialsWhile CU found that access to recorded content does not affect attendance, there is some research, including from 2019, that suggests otherwise. However, even such research acknowledges the benefits of recorded lectures, including the ability for students to engage with recordings for clarification,additionalnote-taking, and even assessment preparation. What’s more, with the ability to add closed-captions or create a transcript, recording lectures also makes the content more inclusive.
Arecorded lecture video also creates opportunities for differentiated instruction. It can be difficult for students to stay completely focused for the entire lecture, so being able to re-watch the content whenstudentscan allocate more focus isespeciallybeneficial.
Recordings further benefit students who are not native English speakers(Mckie, 2019). They can engage with the material with captions, pause when something did not translate, or even slow the speed down!A great Universal Design for Learning (UDL) tip is to enablelive Zoom closed captioning for your students;you can read more about thisprocess onour. For Zoom sessions uploaded to Kaltura,is user friendlyand easy. This provides accessibility to students regardless of modality.
To record the class,you could use the webcam on your computer, or the classroom computer. To get you started, you can fill out theClassroom Meet & Greetform to have Digital Media Services come help with your tech. If you need to borrow a camera,Digital Media Servicescan lend you one.
At the 91, we protect the intellectual property of all our faculty,including recorded videos.To this end, students may not reproduceor distribute anyof the recordedcontent.Students who violate this policy will bereported toThe Office of Student Rights & Responsibilitiesand may be subject to both legaldisciplinaryaction.The OTL has afull syllabus statementon intellectual property.However, students with approved recording accommodations from Disability Services Program may record classroom lectures as long as they have a signedAudio Recording Memorandum of Understanding.
Using and as Alternative Forms of Engagement with Course Material
Becausethe new DU Canvas requirement states that “critical course materials” need to be on Canvas, creating an online assignment submission for an absent assignment should be easy! An absent assignment would be prepared in advance in Canvas and given to students individually to help hold them accountable for content during their absence. Ideally, an absent assignment contains questions that are vague enough to be re-used throughout the quarter as your students are out, not just for a specific week. OnCanvas, there would“absent” assignments for each week;that way, whoever is absentthat week can upload their response to the prompt. You might have a three-question,one-page write-up on the content using the following questions or something like them.
- What stood out to you the most about this reading?
- What are you still potentially confused by or would like to explore more?
- As the instructor, if you were in my shoes, what discussion questions would you ask the class?
This is a great opportunity to give students multi-modal opportunitiesfor engagement, action, and expression,as part ofUniversalDesignfor Learning. When creating this assignment, it could involve a one page write-up or alternatives such as an audio recording, a video,or even anarts-basedresponsesuch as aDigital Storytelling Project! If you decide toencourage student agency in choosing the modality, this does not diminishthe rigor and can still measurethe same learning outcomes with multiple forms of engagement.
Like an absent assignment, this is an alternative option for keeping students accountable to content missed during an absence. An absent discussion would likely include similar questions to the example above but in a more public format. As the instructor, you would need to create a weekly absent discussion post. The big difference between the previous suggestion and this one is the possibility of otherabsent students engaging with each other.feature, whichmeans just the absent students canbe added to the discussion toengage withfellowabsent students, if there are more than one.As the instructor, you will also engage with the discussion boards by responding to the students and continuing the discussion.A good UDL tip for this option is to allow different forms of engagement;this can include video, audio, imagery, etc.Educational technology likeandPerusallalso allows forother interactive ways of engagement.
Plan for Exams
To accommodate absences, instructors can offer their exam on Canvas, even if they havetheir students take it in-person at the prescheduled time.Transitioning the exam to theonline Canvas formatcan take many different forms.
Exams on Canvas can modify the availability date or even the deadline for a particular studentthrough.Canvashasthe option of the following exam question styles,such asmultiple-choice, fill in the blank, true-false,fill-in-multiple-blanks, multiple answers, drop-down, matching, numerical, formulas, or even afile upload.Canvas canalsoto help safeguard against sharing answers.
If the exam is an essayor a project turned in by a PDF or Docx, then the instructor can have the student submit via Canvas and they can give feedback through SpeedGrader.
An additional exam type might be apresentation;if that is the case, then a professor can create alinkon Canvasand have that person either present synchronously, or record their portion, depending on their absence.
If you are hesitant to transition the exam online, consider exploringorRespondus Monitor to help limit potentialacademicdishonesty situations.RespondusMonitor does have some important drawbacks and limitations, though, soplease make sure you review the OTL’s blog on theinclusive use of proctoring technology.
If you need help setting up any of these alternative options for participation and accountability, please reach out to the OTL either by or contacting us at otl@du.edu. We are here to support you over the entire lifecycle of your course!