Different types of assignments within Assignment Groups

I assign a Weekly Topic Assignment each week of my online class. In the past these have all been short written responses to a prompt or two, but this term I would like for some of these Topic Assignments to be more "quiz-like." Is there a way to have different assignment types within one Assignment Group? Together I want all of these assignments to be worth a percentage of the final grade, so that's why I have them in one Group.

Find more posts tagged with

Accepted answers

All comments

Jeff_F

Hello @AliceJackson yes, we sure can have assignments of different types within one Assignment Group. That is a good way to ensure you have control over the weight of the assignments in the assignment groups.

jeremyfw

Yes, as Jeff noted, this is absolutely possible in Canvas. The key is to think in terms of assignment groups (for weighting) and assignment types (for pedagogy) as two separate layers.

Here’s how to set it up cleanly and avoid common grading surprises.

How this works conceptually

An Assignment Group controls how much a set of activities counts toward the final grade.
The assignment type (written response, quiz, discussion, etc.) controls how students complete the work.

Canvas doesn’t require all items in a group to be the same type - they just need to live in the same group.

Step 1: Create your Assignment Groups

Create groups such as:

Weekly Topics (or Category 1)
Projects
Exams
Extra Credit (optional)

These groups act as grading “buckets.”

Step 2: Set Assignment Group weightings

In Assignments → Assignment Groups Weight, enable:

✔ Weight final grade based on assignment groups

Then assign percentages, for example:

Weekly Topics – 30%
Projects – 40%
Exams – 30%

Now everything placed inside Weekly Topics collectively contributes 30% of the final grade - regardless of whether an item is a quiz or a written response.

Step 3: Mix assignment types within the same group

Inside your Weekly Topics group, you can include:

Short written reflections
Quiz-style assignments (New Quizzes or Classic Quizzes)
Low-stakes checks for understanding

Canvas will happily calculate them together as long as they’re in the same group.

One important caveat: intra-group point balance

This is where people unintentionally skew grades.

Canvas calculates grades within a group proportionally by points, not by “number of assignments.”

Example:

Weekly Topic 1 (Reflection): 10 points
Weekly Topic 2 (Quiz): 100 points

Even though both sit in the same group, the quiz now dominates the group’s impact.

Best practice:

Keep assignments within the same group similar in point value
Or intentionally scale points only when an assignment genuinely requires more time, effort, or rigor

For instance:

All weekly tasks = 10 points each
Or all quizzes = 20 points, reflections = 10 points (with clear intent)

What matters is consistency, not equality.

Practical rule of thumb

If two assignments:

Sit in the same group
Are meant to represent similar workload and importance

They should have roughly comparable point values.

If one truly matters more pedagogically, then it should carry more points - just do so intentionally.

Bottom line

Yes, you can absolutely mix quiz-like and written assignments within a single Assignment Group.
Just remember:

Groups control weight
Points control influence within the group

Once you keep those two ideas separate, Canvas grading becomes very predictable - and much easier to explain to students.

Unanswered Questions

Dropped Scores
I have Canvas set to drop the lowest quiz score, however, my students can only barely tell that the grade text is slightly grey when dropped. Can it have a tag like the "missing" and "exempt" ones in the student gradebook?
Batch edit assignment due dates by section
My Canvas shell has three different sections that all meet at different times throughout the week. I need to be able to batch edit assignment due dates by section, but right now Canvas can't filter by section for batch edit. My only option is now to manually (tediously) edit due dates for each assignment individually.
Change Group Assignments to NOT save if no groups are selected
Morning! One of the more frustrating aspects of Canvas are groups and the issues that show up when copying courses that have them. But now we have yet another issue. Most recently we have had instances where people mark an assignment/discussion as a group assignment but then do not link the discussion or assignment to any…
Has anyone experienced the "Empty Course" page for Speedgrader, when there actually are students assigned and active on the assignment?
So, we have encountered a few assignments where the Speedgrader presents the teacher with the "Empty Course" page, even though the course is not empty. I have discovered two New Quizzes in the same course where this has occurred, despite multiple students being assigned (at Module level, which passes the permission down to…
Problems with grading since update
A teacher has expressed concerns with the recent update. Exact concern is as follows: "My Canvas has been acting glitchy since the last "update." For instance, when I grade essays the highlight and cursor tools do not always work. I have to try highlighting several times,or come back later to finish. It's told me I "ran…