Activities vs. Graded Assignments
Canvas provides three primary tools you can use to either evaluate student work or provide students with an opportunity to practice what they are learning: (1) Assignments, (2) Discussions, and (3) Quizzes.
Non-Graded Activities vs. Graded Assignments
An activity is defined as any assignment, discussion, or quiz that is not graded. When an assignment is not graded (activity), all of the features of the tool work in the same way to engage students, such as a class discussion, a practice quiz, or a reading assignment, however it is not in the gradebook. You will still see these activities listed on their respective index pages.
When you indicate that an assignment will be graded, Canvas provides settings for you to build the gradebook based on how you want the gradebook to process the assignment. Canvas uses the settings in each tool (assignments, discussions, and quizzes) to automatically format the gradebook; the way your gradebook functions is directly related to these settings.
The important takeaways here are that you create your Gradebook - not in the Gradebook - but rather in the Assignment settings, and you can use the same assignment tools - Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes - to create activities - things you want to students to do to reinforce learning without assigning a grade.
Assignment vs. Activity
Quick Check
TRUE or FALSE: Any graded assignment in Canvas can be turned into an ungraded activity.
