On November 13, 2025, the “Discussion Checkpoints” feature in Canvas will be enabled at UW-Green Bay. This long-requested feature allows instructors to assign two due dates for a discussion: a date for when initial replies to the topic are due, and a date for when additional replies (e.g., replies to peers) are due. Students will see dates for both “checkpoints” in modules and on their calendars and To-do lists.
When creating or editing a discussion, you can enable discussion checkpoints through an “Assign graded checkpoints” checkbox that appears after enabling the “Graded” checkbox under “Options.” Then in the “Checkpoint Settings” that appear, you will set separate point values for the initial “Reply to Topic” and for the “Additional Replies.” You will also enter the number of additional replies you require each student to make.
The Assign To box for a graded checkpoint discussion will include two due dates: a “Reply to Topic Due Date” and a “Required Replies Due Date.” As with all other graded discussions, you can still use “Available from” and “Until” dates as hard cut-offs for opening and closing the discussion, if desired. You can also create multiple Assign To boxes and assign different checkpoint due dates for different students, sections, and groups.
Graded checkpoint discussions appear as a single column in your gradebook, but you will enter separate scores for the initial “Reply to Topic” and subsequent “Additional Replies” in SpeedGrader. These scores are added together to create the total score shown in the gradebook column. When working in SpeedGrader, you can now switch between the classic “individual posts” view, which shows each of a student’s posts in a list without their surrounding context, and the “full discussion context” view, which lets you view each of a student’s posts one at a time, shown with the replies that surround it.
We encourage you to give graded checkpoint discussions a try in your future courses if your discussion activities follow a pattern where students must make their first reply to the main topic by one date, and then make some number of threaded replies by a second date. The checkpoints feature is somewhat rigid, so if your discussion doesn’t fit that pattern, this feature may not work for it and may confuse students instead of clarifying expectations for them.
For your active Fall term Canvas courses, we recommend continuing to use your current approach to discussion due dates rather than implementing the discussion checkpoints feature mid-term. This will keep the experience consistent for students throughout the course.
Here are some finer points to know when using graded checkpoints:
- Graded checkpoints work with both regular (whole-class) discussions and group discussions.
- Despite there being two scores to enter for each student while grading, you can still add only one rubric to a graded checkpoint discussion. The point total calculated from the rubric ratings you select won’t be automatically entered into the point fields in SpeedGrader; you’ll need to enter points manually into the two fields in addition to selecting rubric ratings.
- Due dates for graded checkpoint discussions currently can’t be managed from the Edit Assignment Dates page used to make bulk changes to due and availability dates. Discussions with graded checkpoints will not even appear on this page, and the dates can only be changed while working in the individual discussion.
If your Canvas discussion activities fit the format that works with Discussion Checkpoints, we hope this feature makes it easier for you to clarify expectations for students and keep them on track. If you’d like to meet with a member of the CATL team to discuss designing discussions for your classes, please reach out to catl@uwgb.edu or request a consultation!