Mastery Pathways and Learning Outcomes. How to Connect the two?

[ZacharyBowers]

What I was curious about is whether you can tie the assignments that are auto assigned by Canvas to Learning Outcomes. These are basically like custom standards that can be tied to individual assignments and test questions that you create in Canvas. So I might create a few learning outcomes for Unit 2 of Psychology such as:

2.A: Understand the structure and function of the Neuron.

2.B: Understand the function and divisions of the Nervous System.

2.C: Identify and correctly describe the different structures of the Cerebral Cortex.

So, for example, lets say a student is taking a summative quiz that includes questions on 3 different topics. Let's call them 2.A, 2.B, and 2.C. Topic A is an outcome I've aligned to 3 questions on this quiz. Same for Topic B and C. The student gets 3/3 on topic A, 1/3 on topic B, and 0/3 on topic C. I want the student to do remedial work for ONLY the low performing topics, so 2.B and 2.C. Is there a method of aligning Learning Outcomes to Mastery Pathways in such a way that a single assessment can create a Pathway for based on the performance in multiple different outcomes?

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

Based on the Canvas Guides document on Mastery Paths, we aren't able to connect Outcomes with Mastery Paths. Each fork in a path is tied to the overall score on a single assessment, and it can't distinguish which parts of the assessment contributed to that score. I started to test a workaround where a no-submission assignment that doesn't count toward the final grade is used, but only three scoring ranges are allowed. That's too few for the example you provided.

Your suggestion to allow outcome achievement to control which other items a student can access is excellent, and I hope you decide to submit an idea via the process described on the Canvas Ideas and Themes page.

I’m going to mark my response as a solution, but it's possible our colleagues here in the Community can share other options for meeting the need you describe.

[paul_fynn]

Hi Zachary 

It is unfortunate that Instructure choose to use a range of names for Outcomes (including Mastery) and also use Mastery in both the Outcome context and the Learning Paths context.

Whilst I am sure that Greg is right in terms of no direct link between Mastery Outcomes and Mastery Paths, with a bit of creative thinking I believe that you should be able to find a solution by disaggregating your requirement to i) track and report outcomes and ii) determine learning path based on scores/grade achieved.

i) Certainly it should be possible to set learning / Mastery Outcomes for all elements of assessment. Some niggles on this that we have noted are:-

• If grading is done by bulk upload rather than manually, that bypasses the interaction of instructors with the rubric so as far as we can tell outcomes don't get engaged
• I don't know (someone else may) whether peer reviewed assessments will trigger outcome tracking - I assume that they would if the rubric is outcome linked - if it does then a "Peer Review Yourself" option might be a workaround that would trigger an outcome
• The only activity/assignment that appears to be capable of self-grading is New Quizzes (haven't checked classic) where the outcome can be set (on the Quiz Instructions page) at Quiz level, or where individual outcomes can be set at question level (note to self - check how this works in Quiz banks)
• We don't currently have autograding on other assessment types (it would be nice to have 'you submitted so you achieved the outcome' without instructor intervention
• To report at sub account or account level, the outcomes must be built at the higher level then imported to individual assessments

ii) So you have outcomes in play against activities - you can then turn to the question of progress through the module, and you should be able to wrangle this through judicious use of requirements and prerequisites at module block level

• This doesn't give you exactly what you are looking for, but it does potentially give you the two things in parallel
• I 'd be interested on other views as to whether you could also work Mastery Paths in parallel
  • In both cases you'd need judicious matching of outcomes paths and the relevant graded items to get what you want

iii) From the very preliminary work we've done

• the sub account outcomes report will pull everything for all students with outcomes, linked to a sub account level outcome with a clear link to the assignment they were tracked in by student
• You get a clear view in Student > Student Account details where you can choose to look at individual students, and their outcomes at account or sub-account level

I don't know if that helps take you forwards at all, but would certainly welcome any insights that others more established in outcomes and Mastery Paths can offer.

• A bit of joined up thinking could see development to link the two concepts together within Canvas as shipped