2024 Summer Updates

[stephenwatts1]

We’re excited to focus this month’s blogpost on some great new updates to Mastery Connect, including a new and improved user experience and header, new analytics dashboards, new clone & realign features, and the ability to now clone from 3rd party item banks!

Don't forget to watch the Video Blog about this post as well!

Key Audiences: Admins & Teachers 

User Experience/Header

• Mastery Connect now has a new updated header and UI experience designed to better reflect the user experience in Canvas. Key updates include:
• New Analytics tab that will enable district admin, school admin, or faculty to easily navigate to applicable assessment dashboards
• Quicker drop-down menu of options under the Admin tab
• Removal of the More tab
• Depending on role/permissions, the Analytics tab replaces the Overview Report, adding expanded functionality.
• The More tab previously housed Pins and Community. Pins can now be found under the user’s name, and Community information can now be found under the user’s name - Profiles.
• Previous sub-navigation menus for trackers, curriculum maps, items, and student & parent portals, have been updated and are now displaying vertically on a page.
• The Items and Passages tabs have been more clearly delineated and broken apart. This applies to accessing items from the Admin Tab and the Items Tab. 

PRO TIP: 

Custom Standards is now listed under the Admin Tab -> Manage -> Custom Standards.

Analytics Dashboards

• Mastery Connect now has a new update to the reporting visualization of data, which uses the same software as Canvas New Analytics. 
• This dashboard creates a bird’s eye view of a district’s (or school’s) overall performance on all subject areas, specific assessments, student populations, and mastery of standards, with the ability to filter any of the information. 
• Mastery Connect Analytics can be accessed from the Analytics ➜ Overview menu. All users will have an Analytics tab. 
• Data in the Analytics dashboard is role-dependent. Depending on your role, you will see certain district, school assessment, student, and standards data scoped to YOUR role and access.

PRO TIP: 

You can easily see demographic, assessment and standards specific information. The information you see is role-dependent and will change based on your access level.

Clone & Realign

• Mastery Connect now has a new update that allows users to take their existing assessments and re-align them to their new or updated standard sets. This update is helpful for states that have released new standards and districts will have the ability to realign any of their existing benchmark or formative assessments to a new standard set. 
• Note: The user who clones and re-aligns any assessments should verify the standard crosswalk/alignment when determining the new standard set 
• All document-based assessments are eligible for clone and realign.
• All assessments that contain items authored by a user are eligible for clone and realign.
• If using the Clone 3rd Party Item Banks feature (this feature is enabled by a project consultant or CSM during implementation) is enabled for a user, then clone and realign will allow the user to clone an assessment that contains items from the following purchased banks: 
• Mastery Item Bank
• Supplemental Item Bank
• Inspect Item Bank

• Admins and instructors can clone and re-align benchmark and formative item-based assessments. This option allows users to easily create copies of assessments that are aligned to another subject, core, or class.
• In the More menu for individual assessments, the clone & re-align option allows users to clone the assessment to a new standard set.

PRO TIP: 

If the assessment clone and re-align does NOT align a question, then it is likely that standard crosswalk/alignment does not exist. Check with your curriculum team to verify correct alignments.

Clone From Third Party Item Banks

• Mastery Connect now allows users with the appropriate permissions to clone purchased 3rd party Item bank questions.
• This also includes the ability to use any passages from those banks in user-created questions.
• When using the Clone 3rd Party Banks feature (this feature is enabled by a project consultant or CSM during implementation) is enabled, users can clone items directly from the assessment builder.
• Mastery Item Bank
• Supplemental Item Bank
• Inspect Item Bank
• Districts can restrict cloning 3rd party to just users with District Item Author permissions.
• To use this feature, simply create an assessment in the Tracker and add items to a draft assessment. 
• Click the More menu and select Clone. It will now create a draft item in the user’s item bank.
• Important Note: If an item is revoked, removed from the item bank, or if a passage is revoked by the publisher, all items will be removed from any existing assessment, and any items created by cloning the original 3rd party item will also be removed automatically. 
• If an assessment is in a Tracker, that version will remain intact, however, the original will be updated to remove the revoked items. 

PRO TIP: 

You can easily use this feature to use passages from the Item Banks to expand the questions assessing those passages.

FINAL THOUGHTS

These new updates provide users with an easier navigation experience, more flexibility and insight into student mastery performance, and the ability to now clone and realign assessments to new standards, and clone from third party item banks directly in Mastery Connect! 

Please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!

Our Mastery Services team provides expert professional development, strategic consulting, and alternative options designed to support the vision, goals, and adoption of Mastery products. If you would like to learn more about our services check out our Professional Development Options  and contact your CSM for more information!

Also don't forget to watch the Video Blog about this post as well!