1. Practical and Painless Outcomes Reporting Through Canvas
Jennifer Smith
Office of Faculty Development and Teaching Excellence

2. Canvas Outcomes Can do: Can’t do:
Help track student achievement of Learning Outcomes in Canvas
Magic

3. Step 1: Plan KISS (Keep It Simple. . .) What are the course goals?
Provide multiple opportunities to show mastery.
Should a student be able to pass the course without achieving the outcome measures?
Plot out your course assessments.

4. Discussions
Presentation
Paper
Midterm
Final
Project
Total Points
Mastery Points
Content 60 30 80 10
290
203
Critical Thinking 40
100
360
252
Com-munication 50 90 20
250
175
Other (par-ticipation)
200
1000
630
Outcome %
75%
90%
100%
70%

5. Step 2: Calculation Method
Default = Decaying Average
Averages all assessment items and weights the most recent item at a higher percentage.
The last item the student completes will be weighted at 65% with the earlier items being weighted at 35%.
n Number of Times
The number of times that mastery must be met or exceeded along with the total number of opportunities for outcome mastery.

6. Step 2: Calculation Method
Most Recent Score
The score for the most recent assessment item.
Highest Score
Highest score from amongst all of the assessment opportunities

7. “Straight” Average?
The Decaying Average can be adjusted to calculate the “straight average” or mean.
“Evens out” the outcome evaluation over multiple assignments.
Doesn’t overly penalize students who may have done poorly on one assessment.
Determine the weight of one item and enter that value into the Last Item textbox:
100% ÷ total number of items = weight of last item

8. With 5 opportunities to achieve Mastery, the formula would look like this:
100% ÷ 5 = 20%
Therefore, 20 is the percentage entered in the “Last Item” box.

9. Warning!
Once you have aligned the outcome with an assessment and used it for grading, you won’t be able to make changes to the outcome.
You’ll have to create a new outcome to make changes.

10. Step 3: Alignment Use for Grading? Don’t Use for Grading?
Makes grading a bit quicker
Requires the same point value each time
Determine level of graded items that = mastery
Supports a detailed rubric
May be confusing to students

12. Tip!
Explain to students what these outcomes mean, particularly if you won’t be using them for scoring.

13. Align Outcome to a Question Bank
Select the desired question bank (Quizzes > Settings).
Choose Align Outcomes from right menu.
“Set mastery for any score at or above_________%”
Determine the percentage test bank questions that a student must get correct to achieve mastery.

15. Step 4: Learning Mastery Gradebook
Turn on Student Learning Mastery Gradebook?
Explain what it is.
View by clicking the Learning Mastery button in the Gradebook

17. Step 5: Reports Student Score Possible Points Column 1 Column 2
Student name
Student ID
Column 1
Humanities >
Content result
Column 2
Content mastery points
Braxton, Romero
1.2 2
Byrd, Jakob
1.8

18. Step 5: Reports Remove student identifiers such as names and UFIDs.
Include:
Course Criterion Levels and their associated points
Level/points required for Mastery
Calculation method used

19. Step 5: Reports
Determine the percentage of students who achieved Mastery for each outcome
You can do this by using the COUNTIF function in Excel to determine the number of students who achieved Mastery.
Next divide the number of students who achieved mastery by the total number of students.
Multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.
Check with your college/department for reporting requirements!

20. FAQ
Can’t my college/department just pull the data out of Canvas? Can’t Canvas just do the calculations needed for reporting? What if my assessments aren’t in Canvas? Can I align an outcome with a single test question?

21. Step-by-step Quick Guide: assessment. aa. ufl
Step-by-step Quick Guide: assessment.aa.ufl.edu/instructional-resources