Using Learning Analytics in your Classroom

Sending Smart Messages 

HOW CAN IT HELP?

One helpful feature built into the Canvas New Analytics and Canvas Gradebook is the ability to quickly message students who meet a certain criterion, like not turning in an assignment, receiving a low score, etc.  As students' chances of staying engaged and succeeding are significantly improved if they get involved early in the semester, you can use these messages to remind them what to do and follow up with them if they show inactivity.
You can also use this tool to send a congratulatory message to all students or an individual student based on specific course grades or participation criteria.

HOW DO I USE IT? 

1. Click the New Analytics link in Course Navigation or in the Course Home Page.

2. Click the "Students" tab, where you'll see the participation count for a student within the course. The counts accumulate all types of ways that the students participate in the class: discussions, announcements, quizzes, etc.

3. Filter analytics for a specific section or student in the Filter field. Then click the Message icon. 

4. The Message Students Who window will let you message students based on the criteria: Score Range, Missing, and Late criteria options—also, any filters included in the analytics page display as intended recipients.

5. In the Subject field, enter a subject for your message.

6. In the Message field, enter the description of your message.

7. Click the Send button.

Visit the Message Students Who tutorial for more information.

Messaging Students Based on Grade Criteria

HOW CAN IT HELP?

In New Analytics, instructors can message students based on specific grade criteria. In the Course Grades tab, click the Message icon (Envelope button) located next to the graph filter. You can contact students who fall within a specific Score Range or contact students with Missing or Late work in the course.

HOW DO I USE IT? 

To email all students who have a low score on a specific homework:

1. Click the New Analytics link in Course Navigation or in the Course Home Page.

2. Click the Course Grade tab, where you'll see a chart graph showing the submission status and grade for all the assignments in the course. 

3. To filter by assignment, type the Assignment name in the Filter field or click on the assignment data point in the graph.

4. Click the Message icon(Envelope button) from the Assignment chart graph, 

5. The Message Students Who window will appear.  You can contact students who fall within a specific Score Range or contact students with Missing or Late work in the course. To email all students who have a low score on a specific homework:

a. Select the Score Range option.
b. Enter the score range percentage.
c. Student names will appear in the BCC line of messages. You'll be able to tailor this list to specific students.

6. In the Subject field, enter a subject for your message.

7. In the Message field, enter the description of your message.

8. Click the Send button.

Detecting Course Trends

HOW CAN IT HELP?

The “Course Grade” and “Weekly Online Activity” tabs provide data views to help you identify course trends and track course progress.

• A quick glance at the Course Grade chart can help you identify the assignments where the class atypically excelled or struggled and help you confirm—or refute—suspicions you developed about performance trends while grading assignments. A close look at a successful assignment may lead to insights into what works well in a course; a close look at a less successful assignment may reveal a need to incorporate scaffolding assignments and additional support. 

• The Weekly Online Activity chart displays average page views and course participation actions during each week of the course and can help you identify whether engagement with your Canvas course is waning, holding steady, or growing. Beneath the chart is a table of course resources which shows how many students have viewed each item, how many overall views it’s received, and how many times a student has participated. If an important resource in your course isn’t garnering as many views as you’d like it to, ask yourself, “Why?” and consider ways to either guide your students to that resource or phase it out and incorporate its key content into the resources your students are reliably viewing (Clum, 2021)

• Some other things that can be learned and done with New Analytics include learning which students viewed pages, which course pages and resources have the most and least views, and which students previewed assignments or content. Also, in a large enrollment course, New Analytics can help instructors give students feedback based on a grade range.
  
  

HOW DO I USE IT?

• Course Grade 

1. Click the New Analytics link in Course Navigation or in the Course Home Page.

2. Click the Course Grade tab.

3. Each assignment in your course will be represented by a dot on this chart. The dot’s position on the y-axis represents the average grade for that assignment. 

4. Identify the assignments where the class atypically excelled or struggled and help you confirm—or refute—suspicions you developed about performance trends while grading assignments.

• Weekly Online Activity

1. Click the New Analytics link in Course Navigation or in the Course Home Page.

2. Click the Course Grade tab.

3. Look at the assignments with the most views and participation and check for commonalities to gain insight into what captures your students’ attention. You can click on any data point in the Weekly Online Activity chart to open a panel that shows activity data filtered for that specific week. The data in this panel can give you an idea of whether students are keeping up with your course's pace or are still working through older resources. 

Reviewing Assignment statistics

HOW CAN IT HELP?
Assignment statistics are available in Canvas; they can help instructors identify and monitor student learning gaps. 

HOW DO I USE IT?
New Analytics provides assignment Information as an interactive chart graph. For additional statistics, the Assignment Information section within the Individual Gradebook view allows you to manage settings and view information for an entire assignment.

New Analytics:

1. Click the New Analytics link in the Course Navigation menu or in the Course Home Page.

2. Click the Course Grade tab, where you'll see a chart graph showing the submission status and grade for all the assignments in the course. To filter by assignment, type the Assignment name in the Filter field or click on the assignment data point in the graph.

3. The Assignment chart graph will appear.

Gradebook Individual View:

1. Open the Grades menu, then click the Individual Gradebook link.

2. In the Content Selection section, select an assignment from the drop-down menu.  The assignment details (the number of points possible, average score, high score, and low score) will appear.

References:
December 6, 2022 | Making Impactful Use of Canvas Analytics in Your Course

July 7, 2017 | Canvas course analytics and messaging can help with retention

March 22, 2023 by CAS Online & Academic Tech Services | Message Students Who...

Interacting with Course Content, Instructors, and Each Other in Canvas