How do I create a Canvas graded discussion for my Mastery Connect tracker?

If your institution uses Canvas LMS, you can link a Mastery Tracker to a Canvas course. Once this connection is made you can access your Mastery Tracker in your Canvas course. Your Mastery Tracker includes mastery data, assessments built with third-party item banks, and tools to support competency-based learning. Existing Mastery Trackers may already contain Mastery Connect assessments.

You can also create an assignment or graded discussion in Canvas associated with a Mastery Connect standard, which automatically populates the assignment or graded discussion into your Canvas-linked Mastery Tracker.

Notes:

  • Only graded discussions are eligible to be aligned with a Mastery standard. If you do not select the Graded option checkbox, your discussion will not populate in Mastery Connect.
  • If a Mastery standard-aligned Canvas graded discussion is deleted in Canvas, it automatically deletes the linked assessment from the Mastery Tracker. Restoring the graded discussion in Canvas will create an entirely new Mastery Connect raw score assessment.
  • If you edit a Mastery standard-aligned Canvas graded discussion and change the Mastery standard, the Mastery assessment is automatically removed from the old standard and repopulated with scores in the new standard within the Mastery tracker.
  • Removing a student's graded discussion score in Canvas also deletes the student score from the Mastery tracker. Changing a Canvas graded discussion score also changes the Mastery tracker score to reflect it.

Open Canvas Course

Open Canvas Course

Log in to your Canvas account.

To log in to your Mastery Connect account from Canvas, in the Global Navigation menu, click the Mastery link [1].

To enter your course, in the Global Navigation menu, click the Courses link [2]. Then, click the course name link [3].

Notes:

  • If the course is not listed, select the All Courses link [4], then click the title of your course.
  • To import a Canvas graded discussion into a Mastery tracker, you must first link a Mastery Tracker to your course.

Open Discussions

Open Discussions

In Course Navigation, click the Discussions link.

Add Discussion

Click the Add Discussion button.

Canvas courses that are linked to a Mastery Tracker include Mastery Standard alignment settings for discussions.

Create Discussion

Create Discussion

Add a title for your discussion in the Topic Title field [1].

To add discussion content, use the Rich Content Editor [2]. The Rich Content Editor includes a word count display below the bottom right corner of the text box.

Note: Learn more about creating Canvas graded discussions and editing additional discussion settings.

Create Graded Discussion

Add Discussion Options

To create a graded discussion, click to select the Graded checkbox. If this option is selected, additional options are added to the settings page, where you can assign graded discussions to everyone, individual students, course sections, or course groups.

Notes: 

  • Only graded discussions are eligible to be aligned with a Mastery standard. If you do not select the Graded option checkbox, your discussion will not populate in Mastery Connect.
  • If you want to create a graded discussion and you have added sections in the Post To field, the Graded option will be unavailable. You must remove the sections from the Post To field before selecting this option. You can add sections as part of the graded discussion options.
  • The points possible for the graded discussion that are set during the Canvas discussion creation are inherited by Mastery Connect.

Edit Mastery Standard Alignment

View Assignment in Mastery Tracker Students Tab

If your Canvas course is linked to a Mastery Tracker and you selected the graded discussion setting, you will see the Mastery Standard Alignment settings menu at the bottom of your discussion settings.

To align your Canvas graded discussion to a Mastery standard, click the Select Standard drop-down menu [1] and select a single standard [2].

Note: Multiple standard alignments are not supported for Canvas graded discussions at this time.

Save and Publish

Save and Publish

If you are ready to publish your discussion, click the Save & Publish button [1]. If you want to create a draft of your discussion and publish it later, click the Save button [2].

View Graded Discussion in Mastery Tracker Students Tab

In your Course Navigation, click the Mastery Tracker link [1]. The default view of the Mastery Tracker is the Students tab [2].

Click the standard heading for the standard you aligned your Canvas graded discussion to [3].

Note: The cut scores & mastery levels of the graded discussion are inherited from the Tracker's default or set levels.

When your graded discussion is saved in Canvas, it displays in your linked Mastery Tracker as a raw score assessment [1].

When you grade the discussion in Canvas, the scores are automatically imported into your Mastery Tracker assessment [2].

To view your graded discussion in the Canvas Assignments page, click the Assignment tag at the top of the assessment column [3].

To view more details and options for your Canvas graded discussion within your Mastery Tracker, click the Tracker Assessments tab [4].

View Graded Discussion in Mastery Tracker Assessments Tab

In the Type column of the Tracker Assessments tab, the imported Canvas graded discussion displays as an Assignment [1].

The Completed column displays the number of students that have been graded out of all students in the course [2].

To open a window that displays student scores, click the Reporting icon [3].

To open Canvas Speedgrader for the graded discussion, click the Grade icon [4].

To return to the Tracker Students tab, click the Tracker View icon [5].

To open the More Options menu, click the More icon [6].

To open the graded discussion in the Canvas Assignments page, click the Canvas Assignment link [7]. To remove the graded discussion from the Mastery Tracker, click the Remove Assessment link [8].

Note: Removing the graded discussion from the tracker removes all scores from the Mastery Tracker.