Canvas setup
Importing takes a few minutes once per course. After that, attaching outcomes to an assignment takes about thirty seconds.
Use the buttons above. Do not open it in Excel and re-save it, because Excel can change how the file is encoded and Canvas will reject it. Download it and leave it alone.
Course navigation, then Outcomes. Look for Import, either as a button or under the three dot menu depending on your Canvas version.
Canvas processes the file in the background and emails you when it finishes. The outcomes arrive grouped by strand, so Skills, History, Civics, Geography and Economics each become a folder.
Settings, then Feature Options, then enable Learning Mastery Gradebook. Without this you can attach outcomes but never see the data they produce. It is the whole payoff, so do not skip it.
Open any outcome. You should see four ratings worth 4, 3, 2 and 1 points, with mastery at 3 and the calculation method set to highest score. If Proficient is worth anything other than 3, stop and re-import, because every proficient student would otherwise show as below mastery.
Each outcome lists its ratings with a small index down the left side that counts 3, 2, 1, 0. That is just Canvas numbering the rows from zero. The points are the column on the right. As long as Proficient says 3 points, you are set.
Open the assignment, scroll past the description, and choose Add Rubric. Do this before you grade anyone. Once an outcome row has been used to assess a student, Canvas will not let you remove or swap it.
In the rubric editor choose Find Outcome and pick the standards this task actually assesses. Two is usually plenty. Each one arrives as a row with the four levels already built. You cannot edit the wording inside a rubric, which is why the wording lives on the outcome itself.
This removes the points total from the top of the rubric so nobody reads it as the grade. The outcome ratings still record either way, because they come from which level you click.
Leave Use this rubric for assignment grading unchecked, or Canvas will compute the score from rubric points and a 3 becomes 75 percent. Leave Don’t post to Learning Mastery Gradebook unchecked too. It is a double negative, and checking it turns off the tracking you just set up.
Click one level per outcome, save, then type the score in the grade box: 97 for a 4, 87 for a 3, 77 for a 2, 67 for a 1. Average them when a task carries two outcomes. The rubric records mastery, you record the grade, and the two never fight.
Our scale does not divide evenly. If Canvas scored a two row rubric out of 8 points, a student who met the standard on both would earn 6 of 8, which is 75 percent, a C. Meeting the standard should not be a C. Typing the score keeps meeting the standard at an 87, a B plus on the Edmonds scale.
Each outcome carries three lines you can copy straight off the grade pages.
These lines are deliberately task neutral, so the same outcome works for a monument project in September and a document based question in March. Name the specific task on your handout, not in the outcome.