How-to
Create an Assignment
Assignments are displayed to students by category or in sequence on the home page, but they are built and managed in the Assignments area of your course site. To build a basic, points-based assignment in Canvas:
- navigate to the Assignments page
- click the + Assignment button
- name the assignment
- enter the assignment prompt
- determine the number of points you’d like to assign
- check the appropriate boxes in the Submission Type (for most assignments, “file uploads” is a good choice.)
- enter a due date
- click Save & Publish
Best Practices
As
Assignment Prompt Formulation
Assignments vary highly, even within the same online course. For example: essays, synchronous sessions and presentations are all built as assignments in Canvas. They can be assigned either to individuals or groups; they can be graded via points, percentages or rubrics; and they may take the form of essays, presentations, or videos.
One reliable consistency is that they are always submitted only to the instructor, which means that from the students’ point of view, you are the sole audience of their work.
At Adler, we recommend that an assignment prompt contain the following components:
- Exactly what the student is expected to do
- Bullets and numbered lists can be used for complicated assignments as needed
- Specific assignment criteria (length, writing style guidelines, formatting)
- (Optional) For group assignments, a good practice is to include a list of group roles and responsibilities
- (Optional) For peer review assignments, a good practice is to include expectations for feedback
More in-depth exploration of good activity creation can be found on the Activities page. Visit the Course Standards page to ensure your assignment prompts adhere to Adler’s standards.