Mastery Learning and Learner Pathways
Mastery tab in the gradebook – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students, Administrators
This feature will be available on September 17, 2024.
The new Mastery tab in the Gradebook allows instructors and students to see how their activities align with institutional goals. Based on the goal performance scale set by your institution, the tab displays the mastery of each alignment.
The Mastery tab enables instructors to:
- View the level of mastery per alignment for each student.
- View how each student is performing against those alignments.
- Drill down view for individual student mastery performance.
Image 1. The instructor view of the Mastery tab
The Mastery tab enables students to:
- Access a visual display of their mastery performance.
- View specific skills and competencies that they need to master. This insight helps students understand where they should concentrate their efforts. This leads to more targeted and effective learning.
- Access their performance as it relates to each specific criterion. This allows them to identify areas for improvement and work towards mastery.
- Focus on key areas where mastery was not achieved. This fosters a growth mindset and a deeper understanding of the course content.
Image 2. Instructor view of a student’s mastery of goals
The color schema used in the Goal Performance Scale (shown in Image 5) indicates levels of mastery. Instructors can select View Scale to view the Goal Performance Scale from the Mastery tab..
Image 3. Instructor view of the Mastery tab with View Scale selected
Goals tab
Students can drill down on the Goals tab to individual content items to see how goals align with their mastery progress.
Image 4. Student view of details of mastery on the Goals tab
Configuring the Performance Scale (Administrators)
The performance scale is an institutional configuration. This allows for consistent aggregation across courses. It also creates consistency for students in mastery-based programs.
Administrators can configure the number of levels as well as the labels and colors for each.
Image 5. Goal Performance Scale (Administrator only)
Notes:
- Students will always see the Goals tab and instructors will always see the Mastery tab. When there are no goals aligned, the tab will be empty. The Mastery tab will display to other users depending on privileges. If their course role or system role allows them to create or view goal alignment, users will see the tab.
- Users can select the student column header on the Mastery tab to sort students by last name.
- Instructors can preview what the Goals tab will look like for students.
- The calculation method is points-based. To weigh different items, different point values should be assigned. For example, an instructor wants to weigh performance on a rubric criterion ten times greater than a matching question on a test. Therefore, the rubric row should be set to 50 points and the matching question to 5 points.
- The calculation method prioritizes more granular alignments. Priority is given to alignments on individual rubric rows or test questions, and other alignments are then ignored. When the alignments are only on the assessment itself, those alignments will apply to all the assessment’s test questions or rubric criteria.
For administrators: The Administrator panel has a new configuration option on the Ultra Experience Management page: Enable support for Mastery Tab in Gradebook. The default state is OFF. Note that if enabled, students will see the Goals tab even when goals are not aligned to content items. In addition, all instructors will see the Mastery tab. The ability to control this feature at the course level will be available in a future release.