CTL Newsletter - October 2025

For CU students, the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) serves as a central hub for accessing course syllabi and other materials; keeping track of upcoming assignments; receiving feedback on their work; communicating with instructors and peers; and understanding how they’re doing in their courses. To help ensure that students have the grade information they need, the Grade for Student Success Faculty Guide to Student-centered Grading in Canvas was developed through a partnership between a faculty working group, the CTL, and OIT. The guide was designed to respond to gradebook-related challenges reported by CU instructors and students. Specifically, it aims to make grading more efficient and customizable for instructors, while incorporating grading-related practices shown to support student success.

The Grade for Student Success guide presents 16 straightforward recommendations to enhance transparency around grading practices, policies, and student grades and feedback in Canvas. Each practice is paired with a video, written tutorial, or other resources to assist instructors with implementation. Research has shown that transparency in assessment reduces student anxiety, increases their motivation, reduces their likelihood of engaging in academic dishonesty, empowers them to plan ahead and seek out support as needed, and promotes better learning outcomes for all students (reviewed by Artze-Vega et al., 2023, in The Norton Guide to Equity-Minded Teaching). Here at CU, two major pilots of the Grade for Student Success practices were carried out in the 2024-25 academic year, involving 190 instructors and nearly 12,000 students across 76 courses (319 sections). These pilots showed high instructor adoption rates and positive instructor and student experiences with the practices, with one instructor noting that the practices “provide a more uniform gradebook experience for students” and a student reporting that the enhanced transparency “allowed me to understand what I need to do to be successful.”  

This fall, the CTL and OIT are continuing to work together to encourage CU educators to adopt the Grade for Student Success practices. This includes providing support with implementation via department trainings. This fall, we also launched a new series of Grade for Student Success Tips of the Week in the Canvas Dashboard. We hope you find these resources helpful!

Lastly, remember that we’re here to help! For questions regarding incorporating the Grade for Student practices into course design, instructional practices, and student learning assessment, the CTL offers free department trainings and consultations to all CU educators. For questions regarding the more technical aspects of implementing the Grade for Student Success practices in your Canvas courses, OIT’s Academic Technology Consultants provide free consultations.