Marian Teaching Best Practices

SPARK Alerts

Marian University’s SPARK Alert system is designed as a proactive tool to help support student success by identifying and addressing non-crisis concerns early—before they escalate into larger challenges. Faculty and staff can submit alerts when they notice students facing difficulties in areas such as academic performance, financial stress, personal health, or overall engagement. These alerts are reviewed by student support teams who then connect the student with the appropriate campus resources, such as academic advising, counseling, financial aid, or health services.

While SPARK plays a key role in tracking and responding to emerging student needs, it is not meant to replace direct communication between faculty and students. In fact, it works best when paired with consistent, compassionate interactions in the classroom. Faculty-student conversations can provide context and build trust—both of which are vital when encouraging students to take advantage of available support. Ultimately, the SPARK Alert system supports a community-wide effort to foster student well-being, retention, and success by ensuring that no student slips through the cracks unnoticed.

Submit a SPARK Alert for a student

"Message Students Who"

The “Message Students Who” function in the Canvas Gradebook is a powerful communication tool that allows instructors to reach specific groups of students based on their assignment performance or submission status. You might use it to send reminders to students who haven’t submitted an assignment, offer encouragement or resources to those who scored below a certain threshold, or congratulate students who performed well. This feature helps streamline outreach by targeting only the relevant students, saving time and ensuring that messages are timely and purposeful. It’s especially useful for prompting engagement, providing personalized support, and helping students stay on track throughout the course.

In this guide, there is an explanation of how to communicate with your students based on specific assignment categories:

• Have submitted—students who have submitted the assignment, even if they have a grade or not.
• Have not yet submitted—students who haven't submitted the assignment, even if they have been manually awarded a grade.
• Have not been graded—students whose assignments have not yet been graded (submitted or unsubmitted).
• Scored less than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment less than X number of points.
• Scored more than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment more than X number of points.  
• Reassigned—students who have submitted an assignment and you have reassigned it to them.

Although one message most likely will be sent to multiple students at the same time, each student will receive an individual message.