How can I help support my child with Canvas?

  • The best places to keep track of work and student progress are the "Week at a Glance" and also Grades inside Canvas.

      • Each course your student is enrolled in should have an updated "Week at a Glance" as it's home page. This is the location where you should be able to get an overview of what is happening in the course. (Note: some of the links in this may not be functional for parents, but are active only for student accounts)

      • You can access student grades from inside each course as well as on the Dashboard view where you will see a button on the bottom right that says View Grades.

I need a pairing code to enroll. Where do I get one?

  • Your child can give you a pairing code from their account. When they are logged into Canvas they go to "Account" at the top left of the screen and then select "Settings". From that menu, along the right side of the screen should be a button to select called "Pair with Observer". The code generated can be used with the instructions found here to set up your account.

Where do I go to see my child's grades?

  • Teachers will be posting grades inside of their Canvas courses along with feedback on submissions. If you go to "View Grades" from the Dashboard or "Grades" from inside any course, you can view grades for individual courses as well as click on the name of the assignment for more details.


I am getting an "error not configured for this user" message when I try to open the links in Canvas notifications. Why?

  • Students are connected through their Indian Hill Google Accounts to Canvas. Some of the messages parents receive mimic exactly what the student receives. Without an @ihsd.us school email address, these materials are not accessible as they are intended for Indian Hill student users only.

In order for parents to access the information from these notifications, you need to be logged into your Canvas account first and then click the notification to be taken to the relevant item. See the demonstration in the video below.

Opening Notifications with Parent Canvas Accounts.webm

I am getting too many notifications. How do I turn them off?

  • Notifications can be personalized in each parent observer account. See below. Our suggestion is to set all notifications to "Send daily summary", "Send weekly summary", or "Do not send me anything" to manage the number of notifications received. See more information in the Canvas Guide.

What am I able to see with my parent observer account?


I have multiple children on Canvas. What is the best way to view their courses?

    • Using the Canvas website while observing multiple students can become overwhelming. There are three main options that may make this easier and more organized and depending on your preferences you can use one or all to help get a better view. (Directions for the first two options are included in this resource: http://bit.ly/multistudentobserver)

  1. Give the courses your children are in “Nicknames” that help you identify which courses belong to each child.

  2. Use color coding with each child given a color to represent all of their courses so it is easier to distinguish the courses. (These colors apply to the calendar so it is easy to see which child has which upcoming assignments and assessments.)

  3. View Canvas from the Canvas Parent App where it is easy to toggle views between students. The Canvas App gives a less detailed view of your student’s courses, but still allows you to see the calendar of upcoming assignments and announcements.