by Eric Royer, Program Director, Reinert Center
Canvas recently rolled out a new feature called Discussion Checkpoints. This functionality allows instructors to assign different due dates and point values for students’ initial discussion posts and their peer responses, and also set the number of required replies they need to make in a discussion. Canvas then populates these multiple due dates, point values, and required replies to students in their Calendars, their To-Do list (if you have a dedicated front page that serves as a homepage), and when viewing the discussion through the module list view.
Discussions Checkpoints addresses the challenge many of us have experienced when trying to use “staggered,” or multiple due dates, to prevent last minute posts and promote deeper interaction in our course discussions. What’s nice is that this feature streamlines some of the “ad hoc” fixes and workarounds many of us have adopted to this point. In prior online courses, I’d communicate these multiple due dates in announcements and in discussion prompts, but it felt challenging getting students participating on the right days because they needed to track additional due dates on their own, and there always ended up being only “one” official due date for the discussion. It’s hard to blame students for being confused when they need to post.
When creating a new discussion, or editing an existing one, you’ll now see an option for “Checkpoints” in the discussion settings. Checking this new box opens new fields for setting checkpoints up. These checkpoints are then built into your discussion and how students interact with them in Canvas. As you begin (or continue) exploring the tool, this Checkpoints FAQ might be a useful reference.
There are a couple of things I’m adjusting to (and wanting my students to adjust to) when using Discussions Checkpoints. First, setting up checkpoints creates separate gradebook entries for the initial and peer responses, which changes how you’ll grade and provide feedback and how discussions appear to students in the Canvas Gradebook and elsewhere in your course. This will also increase the number of items students see in their To-Do lists and Calendars. Second, given that this feature is still relatively new, this might be the first time your students encounter a discussion structured in this way. Explaining how the discussion is organized and what the different due dates and point values mean can reduce potential confusion.
If you’re currently using the new Discussions Checkpoints feature, leave a comment below and tell us your experience with it. For any questions or help thinking about how this new Canvas feature might work in your course discussions, reach out to the Reinert Center by email at cttl@slu.edu or by scheduling a confidential, non-evaluative consultation.
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