[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

[KatieMcMillan]

Discovering this "feature" (... bug. It's a bug.) yesterday explains SO MUCH about my experience using Mastery Paths for the first time last year.  I developed a huge unit with three separate Mastery Paths for a unit in my 10th grade English class, and now it makes so much more sense why kids were constantly confused about the due dates.  Upon deploying the first of my three pathway initial assignments yesterday, I caught the fact that the due dates were NOT being auto-assigned to the students. 

I echo several of the other comments from others: firstly, that I've trained my students to actually make use of the Calendar functions, so due dates NEED to appear. Secondly, it helps keep the gradebook organized. 

But also, is this just not an absurd amount of additional work for teachers / instructors, especially if the pathway assignments are numerous?  I spent a solid chunk of my time this weekend ensuring that every due date for all the assignments were ready to go -- this was with at least 24 separate assignments. So now I have to touch them all a second (or third? or fourth?) time. As much as I *love* spending my time REEDITING my Canvas assignments (::sarcasm::) there HAS to be a better way to do this.  A check box, even, that just says "Apply due date within the path" or something?  (The language has to be language that ALL teachers understand, not just those of us with semi-rudimentary understanding of technical computer science jargon, too...) 

I love the pathways feature and want to not only make more use of it more frequently, but want to also be spreading awareness and understanding of how it works; this is a quirk in how it works that will absolutely turn teachers off of it. 

I vote YES: if I set a due date for an assignment in a pathway, it means that's the day I want it due. So carry it over to the students it gets assigned to. Maybe my perspective is limited by my experience using it the way I have, but this just seems like a huge "A-DUH" 

[A00301621]

@KatieMcMillan I agree that a check box to apply due date within path would be a convenient and elegant way to address this issue.

[CoreyMcNeill]

Have there been any updates on this feature request? The original post is from 2017...

[mpfaff1]

Wait, what? Don't the majority of people using an LMS rely on due dates for assignments? I guess I won't be recommending Mastery Paths for now.

[HeidiThornock]

This is a struggle I'm having as well. It makes allowing students to work at their own pace almost impossible. I teach secondary, which means I have an average of 32+ students per class period for seven class periods. I simply do not have the time to check on a daily basis for any students who may have opened up a new pathway in order to reassign the due dates. If I enter it into the original assignment, it should stay attached to the assignment when a student pursues that path. I don't understand the logistical reasoning why this would not have been an included feature when mastery paths was first created. Even teachers who have "no due dates" still have to submit grades each quarter, so there would have to be some kind of due date in order to accomplish that.