Starfish: Use Canvas Grade and the Zoom In Feature

Article Intended For:

Faculty and staff users of Starfish

Introduction:

The Zoom In feature allows instructors to identify students whose Canvas grades fall in a selected range, select all students, and provide the same feedback simultaneously. This feature is designed to help instructors of high-enrollment courses provide feedback about student progress in a course to students and their academic support networks.

The Zoom In feature can be used at any time of the semester, not just during progress reporting periods. The earlier a concern is alerted, the better. If similar concerns are registered by multiple instructors, this could signal larger problems about a student’s academic performance or even, in extreme cases, that a student is missing or in crisis.

If you want to use this feature to streamline your progress reporting:

• Use the Canvas Gradebook
• Categorize Grades into Good, OK, and Poor in Starfish
• Use those categories to find students and send feedback

Step-By-Step Instructions:

Step 1: Set up your Canvas Gradebook.

As long as your Canvas Gradebook is properly configured, Starfish receives a nightly update of each student's "Current Grade" from your Canvas Gradebook. If you have not yet configured you Canvas Gradebook or have not set a grading scheme compatible with Penn State grades:

1. Set a Penn State compatible grading scheme (required for Canvas scores to be read by Starfish). 
2. Wait overnight for the grades to be captured in the Starfish import. Important:
   • A snapshot of Canvas Current Grade is taken each night at midnight Eastern Time and is visible in Starfish by 5:00 a.m. ET.
   • Once imported to Starfish, the Canvas grade is only visible to the course instructor(s) and TA(s).

Step 2: Set score thresholds in Starfish.

For each course section, set grade thresholds to categorize "Good", "OK", and "Poor" grades.

1. Login to Starfish at starfish.psu.edu
   
2. Click on the triple-bar navigation icon in the upper left to open the navigation menu.
3. Go to the Students section.
   
4. Click the Zoom In tab.
5. Choose the desired course section from the "Filter Students By:" dropdown menu on the far right.
   
   Note: The "Missed" category is not used in this current integration.
   
   
6. Click the Setup Section button.
   
7. If there are Canvas grades for this course, you will see a line for Current Grade from Canvas. On this line:
   • Check the box for Display.
   • Check the box for Active.
   • Enter score thresholds. Values must be in whole numbers. 
     
8.  Click the Submit button.

You may change these settings at any point you wish, and they will not carry over to subsequent semesters.

Step 3: Use the categories to share feedback with students and their support networks.

1. Begin on the Zoom In tab.
2. Choose the desired course section from the "Filter Students By:" dropdown menu on the far right.
3. Select a category (Good, OK, or Poor) and click Go.
   • Note: This filters your course section's roster to show only students whose current Canvas grade falls into the selected category, as defined by your setup in the previous step.
4. Choose Select All on each page of students.
   • Note: Starfish currently limits roster display to 75 students per page. For large courses, you need to select all students on each page. A request to change this has been made to Starfish.
5. Choose the Flag button to raise a warning, the Kudos button to provide neutral or positive feedback, or the To-Do button to recommend specific actions that could help the student(s) improve.
   1. Note: To find a list of standard tracking items that are able to be raised for each progress survey, please see the list of progress survey message templates on the Starfish Info website.
6. Select the Flag, Kudos, or To-Do you wish to raise from the dropdown menu.
7. Select the course context for the Flag, Kudos, or To-Do from the dropdown menu.
8. If you wish to add a comment, enter it in the Comment box. The same comment will be sent to all selected students.
9. Click the Save button.

Step 4: Stop email reminders about progress surveys (optional).

If you are using this method during one of the progress survey periods, you already provided feedback to students and their Success Networks and there is no need to do so again. You can stop progress survey reminder emails using the following steps:

1. Click the link to an outstanding progress survey from your Starfish homepage.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the survey and click the Submit button.

Links:

• Log in to Starfish: starfish.psu.edu
• Faculty Senate Policy on Progress Reporting (47-70)
• Starfish: Progress Survey FAQ
• Starfish: Share Information with Students' Academic Support Networks
• Starfish: Messages Sent to Students and Support Networks
• Starfish: Manually Raise Flags or Kudos (for instructors, advisers, and other Starfish roles)
• Starfish: Complete a Progress Survey (for instructors and TAs only)
• Get Help with Starfish