There are several benefits of journaling in a class – so why doesn’t Canvas have a “journaling” feature yet?! On this page you can find written step-by-step instructions how to “hack” Canvas to create student journals using Groups and Discussions.

Step by Step Instructions

To create the journal:

Click on Discussions in the left-side navigation in your course.
Create a new Discussion using the + Discussion button
Title your Discussion (e.g. Self Reflective Journal)
Enter the instructions to complete the task/journal
Tick the 'This is a Group Discussion' in the discussion set-up
Select 'New Group Category'
Title your Group Set Name the same as the Discussion title
For 'Split students into', enter the same number as the number of students in the course, perhaps add a few spots in case you get late student "adds"
Select "Save" to save the Discussion.

Next, rename each group to be the name of the individual student

Select "People" on your course navigation
Select the Self Reflective Journal tab (or whatever name you gave your group set)
Select each group name to reveal the name of the student assigned to it,
Select the three dots on the right side of the group name and select Edit
Change the name of the group to be the name of the one student group member, and something that will make sense to the student since this is what they will see if they use "Groups" as the Global left-side navigation.
- Example: ENGL Journal Reflections - T. Nguyen
Repeat for all groups.

Creating Group Sets in Canvas (additional guide/information)

How do I manually create groups in a group set?

Grading/Providing Feedback On-Going Journals

Coming soon!