Wow. It has been a minute since I actually looked at @CanvasLMS from the student view and it is IMPOSSIBLE for students to actually find all the feedback they have gotten from me.

As a faculty member, I LOVE the Speed Grader - giant window that encourages me to add comments directly to the uploaded document! No more batch downloads on my computer! Multi-color highlights. Also I can see and add too comments my TAs are making!

But when my students click on an assignment they have gotten back, they don't see ANY of this! If they click on the Assignments tab, they can see the score and a click to see the rubric. No link here to see the feedback recorded in Speed Grader.

If they click on Gradebook, they get a row with the name of the assignment, the grade and then a couple of tiny icons. One of those icons opens the rubric for them. But again, no link to the the feedback from SpeedGrader or even a note to indicate "hey there are more comments!"

Now if a diligent student in Gradebook clicks on the name of the assignment or in Assignments click on "submission details" they get taken to a window with a comically tiny link to "View Feedback."

Why not have the feedback just pop here in this ENORMOUS EMPTY SPACE?

So if you DO click on that very very tiny link to view feedback, you are greeted with a tiny window within a window with that feedback present.

One of my students (rightly) noted that this second window if virtually impossible to navigate and read on a mobile screen.

As a faculty member, I am HORRIFIED at how difficult it is for students to find the feedback they have been getting.

Clearly, I take time out of class tomorrow to go over how to navigate and find the feedback now, but this which seems to defeat the point of using an LMS.

I am also horrified to realize that all the hours that I and my TAs spent giving detailed feedback to our students was in large part wasted, because the students weren't able to locate and use that feedback.

Contingent faculty and grad students can't afford to waste that time.

I am a new faculty member here and I am now bracing for a flood of negative reviews in my first semester that says I didn't give students any feedback or that I was a harsh grader and didn't help them to improve. Luckily, I have understanding admin support and time to fix this.

But if I were a Visiting Assistant Professor or an adjunct in a less supportive department, low scores on faculty evaluations based on "low feedback" would be enough to prevent my contract from being renewed.

I've talked to multiple students this week who are all (rightly) frustrated that they looked for feedback, didn't find it, revised their drafts without guidance, and didn't get a great grade on the final version.

Now that they know where to look, they're kicking themselves.

Writing is hard. Learning to write well is frustrating enough. Teaching students to write well is time intensive and feedback intensive.

Canvas sells itself as a platform that is supposed to make that process easier. Instead, it added another layer of complexity.

And now I feel torn, because on the one hand, the Speed Grader really is hugely efficient for me (and my TAs) to give a lot of feedback quickly and efficiently on drafts.

But if feedback goes out into the LMS where no one can find, read and revise based on it, why bother?

Efficiency for me that leads to frustration or overly complex LMS navigation for my students doesn't make any sense.

If @CanvasLMS rolls out a "make commenting easier" feature for faculty, there should be an identical "make reading feedback" feature rolled out to students too.

This thread brought to you by a very tired teacher who spent hours & hours grading & providing feedback all weekend only to be greeted Monday morning with an inbox full of "Can I please get some feedback so I can improve" emails.

The students WANT this info; they can't FIND it.