In this newsletter, you will find:
Updates: What's coming up this month?
Community Corner: Join Us!
Reminders: Coming up this semester
- Transition to New Quizzes this year
- New Kaltura Player coming in December
- Poll Everywhere 2.0 coming in Spring
Teaching and Learning Programming
New Canvas Features:
New features and options in Canvas to help you create your best digital classroom.
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Enhanced Rubrics- Now includes student reflection space and a clearer rubric structure.
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Peer Review Enhancement - A new experience that uses the Allocation Engine to pair students on actual submissions. *Must have Enhanced Rubrics enabled in your course to access this feature
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IgniteAI Summaries for Discussions- Use Canvas’s IgniteAI to quickly gather the main points of a discussion. (This is an optional feature)
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Differentiation Tags- Create custom groups, seen only by instructors, to personalize instruction and communication
Learn more about these features by visiting the Canvas Updates and Changes page.
AI Features:
Faculty can now share targeted Gemini Gems and Gemini Notebooks (formerly NotebookLM) directly with students inside Canvas, providing curated AI study aids and resources to students. To get started with setup and pedagogy, explore our documentation on enabling the Google Gemini LTI in Canvas, our Gemini Notebook Introduction, and general Gemini Notebook Resources.
AI Week: Present and Save the Date
Rice AI Week 2026 is coming this fall, kicking off the week of Oct. 19! Designed for faculty, staff, and students across all experience levels, this event will feature five days of keynotes, panels, and workshops exploring practical AI skill-building and its ethical implications. We want the campus community to help shape the conversation, so if you have an innovative idea, a lesson learned, or a critical question to share, please submit a presentation proposal.
Share the Spotlight: Fresh Ideas Fridays 2026-2027
Sometimes, the best teaching advice doesn’t come from a manual—it comes from your colleagues. If you’ve found a better way to engage students or a tech tool that solves a common pedagogical headache, we want to help you share it with the community. We are calling for short presentations from anyone who teaches or designs at Rice (faculty, staff, and graduate students) for Fresh Ideas Friday sessions for the upcoming 2026-2027 academic year. Submit your proposal.
Shape the Future: Join Canvas Beta Builders
Get ahead of the curve by joining Canvas Beta Builders, an exclusive new group for instructors to test-drive upcoming Canvas features. As a Beta Builder, you’ll get hands-on experience with the latest tools while providing critical feedback that shapes our institution's environment. Help us build a better digital classroom—sign up today to experiment, innovate, and lead the way. If you have any questions, please contact Meg Spivey at Meg.Spivey@rice.edu.
New Quizzes- Transitioning Your Quiz Engine in Canvas:
What's Changing?
Canvas is transitioning from Classic Quizzes to the improved New Quizzes tool over the next year. Currently, both New Quizzes and Classic Quizzes are available in all courses. After the transition date, July 1, 2027, New Quizzes will be the default quizzing tool in Canvas.
When is this change happening?
New Quizzes is already available in Canvas, and will be the default quiz tool in Canvas on July 1, 2027. Here's the timeline of additional feature availability and the deprecation of Classic Quizzes:
- August 2026 - New Quizzes is available for use in all courses.
- December 2026 - Option to create new Classic Quizzes disabled in courses; newly created quizzes will default to New Quizzes in courses.
- July 1, 2027-New Quizzes is the default quiz tool in Canvas at Rice.
What can I do?
Here are some steps to prepare for the transition:
- If you have not already, start using New Quizzes. Create or upload a practice quiz for your students to use.
- If you have a number of Classic Quizzes that you'd like to use, you can migrate Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes.
- If you'd like to learn more about using New Quizzes, please visit the Teaching & Learning Technologies course or take a workshop.
Updated Kaltura Player Coming Soon:
We are excited to share an important enhancement to Rice's Kaltura video platform. Rice will upgrade our standard Kaltura media player to the new Kaltura V7 Player during the December holiday break. The new player includes several significant improvements, including faster load times, searchable transcripts and captions, enhanced accessibility features, and an improved viewing experience for all users.
To help faculty and staff become familiar with the new player before the upgrade, we invite you to take it for a "test drive”. This preview lets you explore the updated interface, test the player with your own media, and experience its new features firsthand. To get started, enroll in the Kaltura V7 Test Course. You can use your own media, from My Media, to test the new player and verify that the process for embedding media in Canvas courses remains unchanged.
We encourage you to explore the new player and share your feedback. Your input will help us ensure a smooth transition for the Rice community when the upgrade is completed in December. Please share your input with our Kaltura Administrator, Mike Phillips, at mp102@rice.edu
Poll Everywhere 2.0 Coming in the Spring
Check out the TLT Training and Workshop Schedule!
- October 1, 2026, 12:00 PM, Designing Authentic and Scaffolded Assessments in Canvas- Construct multi-stage, scaffolded learning opportunities that prioritize student self-reflection, metacognition, and portfolio development. Check back to register.
- October 1, 2026, 12:00 PM- Humanizing the Digital Space: Building High-Presence Online CommunitiesLinks to an external site.- Foster an inclusive, socio-emotionally supportive online climate. Cultivate student engagement, structured dialogue, and cross-functional groups to bridge physical distances.
- October 6, 2026, 10:00 AM, Mid-Semester Gradebook Check-In-Conduct a mid-term check on grade calculations. Clean up unsubmitted zeros, audit active policies (missing/late rules), and ensure accuracy before finals. Check back to register.
- October 12, 2026, 10:00 AM, Transparent Assignment Design: TILT Framework and Enhanced Rubrics-Apply the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework to assignment instructions and build robust Enhanced Rubrics that provide formative feedback. Check back to register.
- October 12, 2026, 12:00 PM, Training Students on Ethical Synthesis with Gemini Notebooks (NotebookLM)Links to an external site.-Links to an external site.Design an assignment framework where students utilize local AI tools safely to map arguments, cross-verify insights, and track research paths.
- October 13, 2026, 3:00 PM, Data-Driven Course Instruction: Leveraging Course and Quiz Analytics-Review course and quiz-level analytics to identify knowledge gaps. Turn data into immediate, actionable instructional interventions and proactive support. Check back to register.
- October 14, 2026, 10:00 AM, The Mid-Semester Course Audit: Using AI to Evaluate, Pivot, and Reframe the Rest of the TermLinks to an external site.-Bring your current syllabus, assignment data, and anonymous student feedback to this hands-on session. We will show you how to securely upload your course materials into an AI workspace (like NotebookLM) to act as a private data analyst. You will learn how to ask the right questions to instantly see if your course is ahead, behind, or on track. Together, we’ll use AI to identify learning obstacles, synthesize student feedback patterns, and map out a strategic pivot to reframe the remaining weeks of the semester while there is still time to make a difference.
- October 16, 2026, 3:00 PM, Three Frameworks for Differentiated Learning: Scaffolding for Success-Utilize automated Mastery Paths, Assign To, and other Canvas features to implement personalized learning pathways. Check back to register.
The Mastering Canvas: Building Effective Online Environments course:
is now open! Whether you're a faculty member looking to level up your course or a staff member wanting to use Canvas for training, there's a path for you in this course. Register to reserve your spot.