Canvas Morning Check

A comprehensive course health check for educators using Canvas LMS. Run it at the start of a teaching day or week to surface submission gaps, students who need support, and upcoming deadlines -- then take action directly from the results.

Prerequisites

Canvas MCP server must be running and connected to the agent's MCP client.
The authenticated user must have an educator or instructor role in the target Canvas course(s).
FERPA compliance: Set ENABLE_DATA_ANONYMIZATION=true in the Canvas MCP server environment to anonymize student names in all output. When enabled, names render as Student_xxxxxxxx hashes.

Steps

1. Identify Target Course(s)

Ask the user which course(s) to check. Accept a course code, Canvas ID, or "all" to iterate through every active course.

If the user does not specify, prompt:

Which course would you like to check? (Or say "all" for all active courses.)

Use the list_courses MCP tool if you need to look up available courses.

2. Collect Recent Submission Data

For each target course:

Call list_assignments to find assignments with a due date in the past 7 days.
For each recent assignment, call get_assignment_analytics to collect:
- Submission rate (submitted / enrolled)
- Average, high, and low scores
- Late submission count

3. Identify Struggling Students

Call list_submissions to retrieve student submission records, then flag students based on these thresholds:

Urgency	Criteria
Critical	Missing 3+ assignments in the past 2 weeks, or average grade below 60%
Needs attention	Missing 2 assignments, or average grade 60--70%, or 3+ late submissions
On track	All submissions current, grade above 70%

Use get_student_analytics for deeper per-student analysis when the user requests it.

4. Check Upcoming Deadlines

Call list_assignments filtered to the next 7 days. For each upcoming assignment, surface:

Assignment name
Due date and time
Point value
Current submission count (if submissions have started)

5. Generate the Status Report

Present results in a structured format:

## Course Status: [Course Name]

### Submission Overview
| Assignment | Due Date | Submitted | Rate | Avg Score |
|------------|----------|-----------|------|-----------|
| Quiz 3     | Feb 24   | 28/32     | 88%  | 85.2      |
| Essay 2    | Feb 26   | 25/32     | 78%  | --        |

### Students Needing Support
**Critical (3+ missing):**
- Student_a8f7e23 (missing: Quiz 3, Essay 2, HW 5)

**Needs Attention (2 missing):**
- Student_c9b21f8 (missing: Essay 2, HW 5)
- Student_d3e45f1 (missing: Quiz 3, Essay 2)

### Upcoming This Week
- **Mar 3:** Final Project (100 pts) - 5 submitted so far
- **Mar 5:** Discussion 8 (20 pts)

### Suggested Actions
1. Send reminder to 3 students with critical status
2. Review Essay 2 submissions (78% rate, below average)
3. Post announcement about Final Project deadline

6. Offer Follow-up Actions

After presenting the report, offer actionable next steps:

Would you like me to:

Draft and send a message to struggling students (uses send_conversation)

Send reminders about upcoming deadlines (uses send_peer_review_reminders or send_conversation)

Get detailed analytics for a specific assignment (uses get_assignment_analytics)

Check another course

If the user selects option 1, use the send_conversation MCP tool to message the identified students directly through Canvas.

MCP Tools Used

Tool	Purpose
`list_courses`	Discover active courses
`list_assignments`	Find recent and upcoming assignments
`get_assignment_analytics`	Submission rates and score statistics
`list_submissions`	Per-student submission records
`get_student_analytics`	Detailed per-student performance data
`send_conversation`	Message students through Canvas inbox

Example

User: "Morning check for CS 101"

Agent: Runs the workflow above, outputs the status report.

User: "Send a reminder to students missing Quiz 3"

Agent: Calls send_conversation to message the identified students with a reminder.

Notes

When anonymization is enabled, maintain a local mapping of anonymous IDs so follow-up actions (messaging, grading) still target the correct students.
This skill works best as a weekly routine -- Monday mornings are ideal.
Pairs well with the canvas-week-plan skill for student-facing planning.

canvas-morning-check