Center for Teaching and Learning Blog

Canvas provides multiple ways to add equations to pages. In this blog post, you will learn a method that will create accessible equations in Canvas, which means that these equations will be automatically accessible by a Screen Reader and no additional effort is required. 

Now you can add LaTex code directly into the Rich Content editor. For those who do not know, LaTeX code is a powerful markup language for mathematical typesetting. If you are familiar with LaTex or you just need to create simple equations, please follow the instructions in Displaying equations in Canvas to create accessible equations in Canvas; if you do not know LaTex, please check out Tools to create equations in Latex format and then follow the instructions in Displaying equations in Canvas to create accessible equations in Canvas. 

Displaying Equations in Canvas

So now how to display equations in Canvas? First, please login your canvas course and located a Canvas page you want the equations to display, and then follow these steps: 

1. Click Edit button and Locate a Text Field where you would like to put an equation.
2. Type the appropriate Delimiter to signal that the equation should be rendered in LaTeX.
   • \( and \) should be used for equations that are meant to be displayed inline with text.
   • $$ should be used for equations that are meant to be displayed in separate blocks.
3. Type the Equation between the delimiters.
   • Ex: \(x^2+3x+4=7\) for inline text or $$ x^3+2x+4=9$$ for block text
4. Click Save for whatever text field you are working in.
5. Check that the Equation is being displayed correctly. It should look similar to the screenshot below.

You can create more complicated equations, like the one displayed below using $$\frac{\sigma_y}{\partial{y}}+\frac{\tau_{xy}}{\partial{x}}+Y_b=0$$.

Tools to Create Equations in LaTex format

If you do not know LaTeX code, don’t worry. You can write equations in MS Word or EquatIO and covert equations easily as LaTex.  

Please check the Write an equation or formula in MS Word page for how to convert an equation to the Linear (LaTex) formats. 

For EquatIO, after you finish creating the equation, you can click the LaTex editor (see screenshot below) to find the LaTex format. 

If you have any questions or need any assistance in creating accessible equations in Canvas, please contact elearning@mtu.edu.  

As online courses become increasingly popular, it’s important to ensure that they are designed with quality in mind. That’s where Quality Matters (QM) comes in. QM is a tool and process used to assess the quality of a course. It’s helpful to consider these types of recommendations when designing and developing courses.

What is Quality Matters?

Quality Matters began with a small group of colleagues in the MarylandOnline, Inc. (MOL) consortium trying to solve a common problem among institutions: how do we measure and guarantee the quality of a course? The developers of a set of instructional guidance felt the same and even named it, “Quality Matters”. QM is a nonprofit organization comprised of dedicated staff from all over the United States who work together virtually to support everyone’s quality assurance goals.

How does Quality Matters work?

QM is built on a rubric of course design standards and a replicable peer-review process that can:

• Train and empower faculty to evaluate courses against these standards
• Provide guidance for improving the quality of courses
• Certify the quality of online and blended college courses across institutions

The seventh edition QM Rubric is a set of 8 general standards and 44 specific standards used to evaluate the design of online and blended courses. The Rubric is complete with annotations that explain the application of the standards and the relationship among them. A scoring system and set of online tools facilitate the evaluation by a team of reviewers. The eight general standards are:

• Course overview and introduction
• Learning objectives
• Assessment and measurement
• Instructional materials
• Learning activities and learner interaction
• Course technology
• Learner support
• Accessibility and usability

Why should you use Quality Matters?

QM provides a framework for designing, reviewing, and revising online courses to ensure that they meet research-supported standards of quality. By using QM, you can:

• Ensure that your course meets the needs of your students
• Provide flexible scheduling options
• Offer courses everywhere because geography would no longer be a constraint for enrollment
• Ensure course quality for your students, regardless of where the course originated
• Create quality online courses that are equivalent to traditional face-to-face courses
• Improve student learning outcomes

Conclusion

Quality Matters is an essential tool for online faculty who want to ensure that their courses are designed with quality in mind. By using QM, you can create quality online courses that meet research-based standards of quality and improve student learning outcomes. If you are interested in learning more about QM, visit QM website or contact online@mtu.edu to schedule a meeting with us at CTL.

To strengthen students’ written work, instructors will spend a great deal of time providing detailed feedback in the hopes that students will apply the suggestions to their next written assignment. Unfortunately, many instructors feel that their efforts to provide feedback is being overlooked or not appreciated by the students.

What if an instructor could reduce the burden of providing all the detailed feedback YET increase students engagement in the review process? Maybe even strengthen their writing skills and assessment skills in the process…

Peer Review Assignments

Think about the possibility of having students review each others work and provide each other feedback. If you read through the body of literature, you will find many supporting arguments which state that peer review in the feedback process provides many benefits to students learning.

Benefits of Peer Review

• Ability to become more aware of alternative perspectives on a topic.
• Lifelong learning skills in how to effectively assess another person’s work.
• Building self-assessment of their work by benchmarking themselves against their peers.
• Critical thinking and diplomacy skills.

Canvas Peer Review Assignments

A Canvas Peer Review Assignment allows students to provide feedback on another student’s assignment submission. Setting up an assignment for peer review is fairly simple within Canvas. One of the options when setting up a new assignment is to designate it as a Peer Review assignment. You can select to manually or automatically assign the peer reviews. There is an option to set up the peer reviews to be anonymous or you can include a rubric for the reviewer to complete as the peer review. Peer reviews can not be used with External Tool Assignments.

Students will see a list of peer reviews assigned to them within the assignment. Based on how the assignment submission is designated, the student could annotate the document, add a comment in the comment field or complete the included rubric. A student reviewing another student’s assignment would need to leave at least one comment in order for the review to be considered complete.

Students will see their peers’ reviews in the right sidebar of the Canvas course under Recent Feedback. A student can simply click on the assignment title to access the feedback.