Regular, detailed feedback is crucial for student success, and Canvas provides several tools to make it easier to get students the feedback they need. We have already introduced SpeedGrader, which allows you to quickly grade and provide comments on students' work. Two advanced tools that build on SpeedGrader are Rubrics and Peer Review. Both tools allow you to provide additional layers of feedback to your students, making them potentially powerful additions to your Canvas teaching toolbox. On this page, I'll show you how to use both of them.

How do I use Rubrics to provide feedback?

Key Concepts:

A rubric is a feedback tool that performs three important functions. First, it allows students to see details of how you will assess and grade their work, giving them a more concrete target to aim for when completing the assignment. Second, it gives you a grading framework so that your assessment of student work is more objective. Third, rubrics in Canvas allow you to quickly give a large amount of feedback (see an example rubric). Rubrics can be added to both assignments and discussions.
You can add a rubric to any assignment by selecting at the bottom left of the assignment. Use the kebab at the top right of a discussion to find the 'Add Rubric' option. Construct your rubric by adding criteria and ratings and adjusting point values as necessary. Before saving your rubric, ensure that you have selected the 'Use this rubric for assignment grading' checkbox. If you don't have this selected, your rubric will not automatically enter the grade into the grade book (see full guide).
When you grade an assignment with a rubric in SpeedGrader, you can select the appropriate cell for each criterion and enter additional feedback for each criterion. The grade will automatically calculate and be entered into the grade book once you complete the rubric for that student (see full guide).

How do I use the peer review tool?

Key Concepts:

Peer reviews allow students to receive additional feedback on their work, while also giving students the opportunity to critique an assignment, which helps them learn at a higher level. However, the peer review workflow is complex, so if you do wish to use peer reviews, be sure to read through the documentation linked below.
Peer review can be enabled when editing an online submission assignment or discussion. This tool allows you to configure a peer review workflow that allows students to provide feedback on their peers' work using a rubric. You have the option of manually assigning peer reviews or having Canvas randomly assign a specified number of reviews for students to complete (see full guide).
Peer review allows you to set two dates: the due date, which indicates when students must submit their assignment for review, and the 'Assign Reviews' date, which determines when Canvas will provide access to submissions for peers to review. Peers will see a notification in their to do list that will take them to the object to review, where they can leave feedback in the assigned rubric and general comments. Once the student leaves a general comment and completes the rubric, their peer review will be marked as complete (see guide on student workflow). Note that the instructor also needs to provide feedback on the submission before the original submitter can see their peers' feedback.
You can view the status of peer reviews within the assignment. Select 'Peer Reviews' on the right side of the screen. You can see which students still need to complete their reviews and adjust peer review assignments (see full guide). Note that while the due date gives students a reminder to submit their original assignment, it does not give you the ability to set a due date for the review itself. You may wish to create a No Submission assignment with a due date as a reminder to complete the review.

Using the content above as a reference, we recommend that you complete the following tasks in your sandbox course.

Add a rubric to an online submission assignment.
As the test student, submit a document to the assignment.
Grade the submission using the rubric.
As the test student, view the feedback you left (see student-facing instructions).

Next Steps

Unfortunately, peer review does not work with the test student, so if you wish to utilize it, feel free to connect with your instructor to check your work if you wish to set up a peer review in your course. Questions? Connect with us in the Q&A Discussion. Once you are comfortable with feedback options within Canvas, select 'Next' to move to the summative assessment for this module.