Instructor feedback is essential in providing regular and substantive interaction that supports student learning. Regular and timely feedback on assignments is crucial, with communication between faculty and students occurring no less frequently than in a comparable on-campus course. Substantive feedback is personalized and offers students opportunities to gauge and support their learning.

Your syllabus should let students know how often you will respond to student work, and in what manner you will respond to student work (i.e., via Pronto, Inbox, in Discussion, or via the Speed Grader).

Speed Grader

Within Speed Grader, instructors have access to three options for feedback:

Assignment comments: Use this tool to provide general feedback to help students identify strengths and challenges within the assignment as well as next steps. This tool may also be used to provide the following:

- An invitation to meet in real-time to discuss the assignment feedback in detail
- Recommending appropriate support services and contact information
- Providing feedback via a short media comment (audio or video)
- Encouraging follow-up dialogue by posing questions

Annotated comments: This option is helpful to provide comments related to specific elements within a student’s assignment submission. This option can be used to accomplish the following:

- Highlight specific successes, such as a student’s integration of source material within their essay
- Identify a common error that exists within the submission along with information regarding how to correct the error

Rubric comments: Assignment rubrics are applied to assignments as a best practice. They communicate to students the criteria and expectations for the assignment; they also help to streamline the grading process. Rubric comments can be used to:

- Identify successes within the assignment. In addition to awarding points, enter a personalized comment identifying the students’ good work.
- Identify challenges within the assignment. Here, in addition to identifying the error, provide links to helpful resources.

The GradeBook

The Canvas Grade Book is a powerful communication tool and a great way to send messages to students. Please review the video that follows to learn more.