[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

[yuyenchang]

I can't seem to rate or "vote" on this idea...please help!

[elisat]

I had a problem with this in a course I helped to create. The idea was that the instructor wanted to let students choose whether to do a series of quizzes that would be due weekly versus a final exam that would be due at the end of the term. We set-up the due dates for the quizzes and the exam and added them to a mastery path. After students had been assigned to their choice, based on a scored "choice" pre-quiz, they were still assigned to the other option because the due date had been added. This is not what we wanted AT ALL! I like to give students options of the assignments they would like to do. There has got to be a better way.

[mheckman]

This is a major flaw! Instead of creating confetti, maybe this could be addressed?

[ErnstCD]

This is a great idea, and I cannot believe that it hasn't been created yet by Canvas. This is a huge reason why many teachers at my school are not going to use Mastery Paths. It has great functionality and differentiation ability, but this one flaw prevents us with our grading system from using it at all. 

Please, make this happen. Dynamic due dates as suggested above would be even better, but we'll take what we can get. 

[rislis]

REALLY glad I read this before I started huge advertising with my educators.

Always amazing to me to see requests that are this old, but most telling is the fact that the Mastery Paths Instructional video is dated 2016 - and noted that it will NOT be updated.

via Ecomity Asia on GIPHY

[cindyk]

This really needs to be implemented.  We're moving to standards referenced grading and need a way to both remediate and extend learning.  Mastery paths offer an ideal solution but not if kids don't know they have assignments.  I have tried many times over to train students to use modules instead of the to-do list but the poorest performing students seem to be the ones most reliant on using the calendar to put out fires and miss the extra instruction that would benefit them the most.

In addition, keeping the due dates will allow these grades to be synced to our SIS.

[mlehman1]

Can anyone explain *why* this is the intended behavior? If I set a due date, I want that to be the due date. Why would anyone want the due date to disappear and the item to no longer appear in a student's to-do list once they are on a path where they have to complete that item?

If Canvas kept the original due date, you could still change it if you wanted to. And if you don't want a due date, you wouldn't put one in the first place. Who benefits from Canvas deleting the due date once a student is on a path?

[A00301621]

@mlehman1, I agree that this is weird intended behavior and makes no sense!

[CarlaD07]

AGREE! I was disappointed to research in to this issue only to find this idea and that it is four years old and had not gone anywhere. 

Our teachers love using Mastery Paths to differentiate assignments and provide kids choice. Our district is requires teachers to put due dates on assignments. When they have to go back in to every assignment that is part of a path to add in due dates after the students have completed the source assignment that sends them in to their path, this means teachers are required to go in to every single assignment (which for some teachers can be 20+ assignments) to assign due dates, even though they had already assigned due dates when setting up the assignment. 

It would be amazingly more efficient if the due date from the original assignment, connect to the mastery path was given to students who are assigned the assignments.

[SaraRobel]

I have just started using Canvas and mastery paths this year, but I am hesitant to continue using mastery paths more extensively because of this date error and the time it takes to have to continually update the due date after the path is assigned to learners.