How to Use the Course Gradebook Notes Column

How to Use

the Course Gradebook

Notes Column

From within your Canvas Course Gradebook page, you can add a notes column for private information about your student(s) rather than using the Faculty Journal (which is accessible to the student and to all Teachers who might ever have that student in their classes).

The Gradebook Notes column allows for a private comment for each student viewable only within that course and only by the people who have access to the Gradebook (Teacher, Designer, TA).  This comment is not visible to the student.

To set up a Notes column, follow these instructions:

To add a note (up to 255 characters), click within the Notes column on the same row as the student and begin typing:

Canvas Tip of the Week: Dropping the Lowest Grade

How to drop the lowest Assignment grade in Canvas

Canvas allows instructors to set the assignments so that the students’ lowest grade is dropped for the quarter.  Instructors do this so that if students have to miss an assignment it will not drop their grade significantly.  This can be set at the beginning of the quarter and becomes a continual adjustment to the students’ grades or at the end of the quarter before the final grades are tallied up. 

For example, if one assignment is worth 5 points and another assignment is worth 10 points, Canvas will look to the assignment which will most hurt the student’s overall score (a combination of total points AND percentage).  The student gets 1 out of 5 on one quiz, and 5 out of 10 on the other.  The 1/5 is 25% and the 5/10 is 50% but the second quiz is worth double the points, so that one gets dropped from the student’s overall score.

To include “Drop the Lowest Grade” in your Assignments:

Navigate to your Course Assignments tab in the left-hand pane | navigate to the desired Module | Select the Module’s pencil icon (edit button) | Select Add grading rule | Select Drop the Lowest and type in the number of scores you wish to drop (1, 3, etc.) | select Update.

If you have any questions on this or anything related to Canvas, you can also send an email to eLearning@tacomacc.edu and that will create a ticket.