[MasteryPaths] Mastery Paths: Automatically Set Conditional Item Due Dates

[tcparodi]

Right now, as it stands, you can create a pre-test and then trigger 3 paths using Mastery Paths. But, if I give a due date for each item in the Mastery Path (before student interaction), this due date does not 'stick' to the assignment as the students begin to take the pre-test. Does not sound too earth shattering, right? Wrong.

I have elementary students and I have come to learn that if it is good for elementary, it is good for the rest of the world. Our gradebooks are organized by due date (numerically). In addition, if an assignment does not have a due date, it won't show up in the gradebook. So my kids/parents were really thrown off when I started using Mastery Paths. They could progress monitor completion of the items in the path (using requirements set in the modules), but when it came to viewing the student's achievement on those assignments, they were lost. This is because I need to go in and manually assign due dates to each student's assignments in the path after they complete their pre-test. Granted, there are only three paths, but if I have 18 kids, I'm going in after the last of the 18 finishes that pre-test (and I'm virtual, so that could be 3 or 4 weeks after the first kid finished their pre-test). It is sort of a logistical nightmare.

The intention is for this to personalize and individualize their education. Right now, for that potential to be reached (as Canvas intended), the due date predetermined by the teacher as they built the path, needs to follow as each child completes their pre-test. This will make each item in the path show up in the gradebook so parents and students can see if the concept was understood and to what degree.

How I set it up

How it breaks

[tmercer]

Somehow I got an accidental vote down but it won't let me correct.  I vote up up up

[traceye_surrett]

This would simplify things so much! I teach my students to use the calendar feature religiously, but when the assignments from Mastery Paths don't show up on their calendar because they do not have a due date, it gives students a false sense of completion when there is still work they need to accomplish, or creates more work for me to go in and assign due dates to each student for each task within the Mastery Path. . 

[toddp_nasife]

I found this post really informative. I am going to start using Mastery Paths this year and it was helpful to know some of the issues that might happen for me and the students. I was thinking of using pretest as a start to the mastery path and know that there might be an extra step like this once all my students are done is making me reconsider how to use a pretest and the mastery path. I think this might be an issue for me, as well, because we can also link grades from Canvas to our grade books. Thanks for the post and the videos.

[ssimpso4]

Please reference the Mastery Paths resources I provided to teachers this summer in this publicly-visible course: Differentiation via Canvas' Mastery Paths (Self-Paced) 

I'm hoping that I haven't pushed awareness of MP too much in my district, to date. Honestly, it still has some bugs that can frustrate and confuse teachers and students, so the faster these are resolved the more likely MP becomes a widespread solution to teachers' need to provision ready paths of intervention and/or extension in Canvas. 

In other words, before Mastery Paths functionality can be enhanced, the existing functionality needs to work in a reliable and intended fashion, every time for every student. Deactivated user

[SHEBENE]

Our district is having an issue with this as well. It's not really setting things up to easily be self-paced if the due dates for follow-up assignments can't be preset. +1 from me!

[SHEBENE]

Canvas people, can you update the name of this feature request to something that matches what it's asking for? I almost didn't find it. Maybe "Mastery Paths: setting conditional item due dates"?

[MattHanes]

I ran into this behavior today. Is this working as intended? I would classify this more as a bug. Has anyone put in a support ticket yet? I was just about to do it when I stumbled on this idea.

[jndickson]

Agreed!

[lcayres]

We submitted a support ticket about this issue yesterday, and were told Mastery Paths were working as intended and pointed us to this feature request. This is a HUGE issue for us and is causing quite a bit of confusion with our students, parents, and teachers. 

[aaron_bahmer]

Am I understanding that the problem is the due date set on a conditional item *is not* passed to each individual student as they enter into that path? That does sound bad.

As I was reading this, I wondered if a number-of-days-later due date might be a useful setting here, especially if students arrive at the Pathway branch/qualifier at different times. I know that is a whole other idea than what is here.