Creating Canvas Assignments with Nurture

Watch the video above, or follow the steps below.

Nurture works natively inside Canvas assignments. There are two ways to use it, and this tutorial covers both: you can add Nurture to any existing Canvas assignment as the submission method, or you can use Nurture to generate a brand new assignment for you.

Either way, Canvas handles the assigning, scheduling, and publishing. Nurture handles the task content, the AI feedback, and the student submission experience.

Option 1: Adding Nurture to an existing Canvas assignment

If you already have a Canvas assignment you are happy with (or even an old one you want to reuse), you can keep the task as it is and just use Nurture for the submission and feedback side. You do not need Nurture to generate anything.

1. Open the Canvas assignment (or create a new one as normal with your own questions).
2. Under Submission Type, select External Tool.
3. Paste the Nurture URL you have been given. If you cannot find the URL, reach out to us and we will sort it for you.
4. Click Select to confirm the external tool.
5. Set your assign access and any other Canvas settings as normal. (Submission attempts do not matter here since students will be submitting through Nurture.)
6. Click Save and Publish.

Once published, Nurture appears embedded underneath your assignment instructions. This is where you will access student submissions and create feedback later on.

Tip: A handy way to find the Nurture URL you need is to create an assignment using Nurture (see Option 2 below). The external tool URL will already be set for you, and you can copy it from there for future use.

Option 2: Using Nurture to generate a new assignment

If you want the Nurture AI Assistant to create the task for you (questions, success criteria, and optionally a marking scheme), you can do that directly from Canvas.

Starting the assignment

1. In your Canvas course, go to Assignments.
2. Click the three dots next to the Assignments bar and select Create Nurture Assignment.

What this does: Nurture will generate the title, questions, and success criteria, then save everything as a draft Canvas assignment. You still need to assign and publish it in Canvas afterwards.

Choosing how to create the task

You will see three options:

• Upload a worksheet: Nurture scans it and extracts the questions verbatim. Only use this if you want to keep those exact questions. Nurture adds success criteria to them.
• Upload a past exam question: Same as above. The questions are kept as they are, and Nurture adds success criteria.
• Start from scratch: You describe what the assessment is about and Nurture generates everything for you.

Using a task code: If a colleague has shared a task code with you, paste it in here and click Create Task. This loads their task as your starting point. You can then edit it with the Nurture AI Assistant before assigning.

Starting from scratch

1. Describe what the assessment is about (for example, “World War II”).
2. Upload supporting material or sources (optional). This is different from uploading a worksheet or exam question. Here you are uploading source material (a reading comprehension, an article, a resource) and asking Nurture to create questions based on it. If the document already contains questions, Nurture may reuse some verbatim. If you select more questions than appear in the source, Nurture will generate additional ones.
3. Set the number of questions.
4. Choose the style of questions (for example, essay, short answer, multiple choice).
5. Set the expected difficulty (default is “expected level” for your curriculum; you can make it less or more challenging).
6. Check the student reading age (pulled from your classroom settings, but you can adjust it here for a specific task).
7. Select the curriculum boundary documents you want the Assistant to draw on for this task.
8. Choose the AI effort (faster response or thinking response). The thinking response takes slightly longer but tends to produce higher quality output.
9. Click Generate Task.

Reviewing and editing the generated task

Once generated, you will see:

• Title
• References (click to see which curriculum documents the Assistant used to shape the task, and how it used any source documents you uploaded)
• Questions
• Success criteria

To edit anything, click Edit with AI above the section you want to change (questions and success criteria are edited separately). You can type whatever instructions you like or use the quick options (for example, “simplify the language”). Click Save and Close when you are happy with each section.

Setting up grading

• If the task is ungraded, switch grading off and skip this section.
• If the task is graded, set the maximum marks available to the student.
• To add a marking scheme, click Add a marking scheme. You can either:
  • Upload your own as an attachment. Make sure it matches the questions you have set and the maximum marks.
  • Generate with AI. The Assistant will create a marking scheme based on your questions (including any you added manually). It will be aligned to your curriculum.
• You can also upload a rubric if you have one. This is optional and separate from the marking scheme.

Important: Set your grading and marking scheme up before you assign the task. This makes sure the Nurture AI Assistant creates scoring breakdowns later on that match your expectations.

Setting the due date

Set the due date to whatever you need. You can always change it later in Canvas.

Customising the assistant for feedback

Before you create the assignment, you can set up how the Nurture AI Assistant will handle feedback for all students on this task. This is found in the customisation panel and includes:

• Reading age for the feedback language.
• Custom instructions for the feedback comments (for example, “always reference the student’s use of evidence” or “keep feedback encouraging”).
• Comment length (default is around 120 to 150 words; you can increase or decrease it).
• Feedback language (default is English). You can also switch on a second language, and the Assistant will generate a second version of the feedback comment in that language. This is useful for language subjects or for students where English is a second language.
• Your marking scheme and rubric (if uploaded) will also appear here as context the Assistant will use.

Click Update when you are done.

Creating the draft assignment and publishing

1. Click Create Assignment. This creates a draft assignment in your Canvas course. It is not yet assigned to students.
2. Open the draft assignment in Canvas. You will see the questions are set in the description and Nurture is loading as the external tool.
3. Click Edit Assignment Settings. The external tool and due date are already set by Nurture, but you can change anything you need.
4. Click Save and Publish to send it out to your students.

Good to know

• All the general Nurture tutorials on creating tasks (writing success criteria, editing with the AI Assistant, and so on) apply to Canvas as well. This tutorial just covers the Canvas-specific parts.
• When you create an assignment through Nurture, the external tool URL is already set for you. This is the easiest way to find the URL you need if you ever want to add Nurture to an existing assignment manually.
• Canvas handles assigning, scheduling, and due dates. Nurture handles the task content, student submissions, and feedback.