This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas
There are several calculation methods for a specific outcome in Learning Mastery (i.e. number of times, decaying average, etc.) A simple average across all demonstrations would be beneficial.
When using 'outcomes', you have to choose how Canvas will calculate the overall scoring of every outcome. You can now choose between several options (see screenshot in Dutch), one of which is the 'decaying average'. Not an option is a normal 'average'. I would really like that to be one of the options since all our assessments are evenly important!
Our district also wants this option. However, we want the average of the last 3. If there are 5 assignments on one outcome that it only averages the last 3.
I teach technical classes which cover a broad range of skills. When I'm assessing an outcome like "documents the design cycle of a project" it is assessed on different types of projects, but it is equally important on all of them. If I only look at the highest or weight one project more than others (decaying average), students may skip a lower weight project which means they loose out on disparate skill sets. So, they demonstrate mastery of design cycle on the motors project so they skip the sensors project. But in the next level class they need all of those skills.
Though fundamentally my reason is that the aggregate methods listed aren't exhaustive and implementing straight average isn't a huge lift. Why NOT include it?
