Latest revision: 2022-01-25

Canvas has a good function which allows you as a teacher to test how your course works for the students. You can find it in many places in the course by clicking on Student view up to the right.

What happens is that Canvas creates almost an entirely new student and you can click around and try most of the functions as that student. You can control that everything works the way it is supposed to, submit assignments and do quizzes.

When you are done, click on Leave student view at the bottom right and then you have returned to being a teacher again.

If you go in to Grades you fill find a student which name is Test student. When you have tried submitting assignments or doing quizzes as a student, your results will be saved there. You can also try how the grading works by grading what you have submitted as the test student. To delete the test submissions you have done, go to Student view and click on Reset student.

Limitations in "Student view"

When acting in the Student view, you will become an anonymous student, which is why some functions will be limited. Those are for instance that:

You cannot become a member in a group for group work.
You cannot take part in peer review.
You cannot send personal messages.
You cannot see or test assignments and quizzes that are limited to certain students.

You can however participate in discussions, but that might not be very appropriate.