The Canvas MasteryPaths feature allows you or a course designer to customize learning experiences to students based on student performance. With MasteryPaths, you identify activities for each student’s learning path and differentiate assignments for required learning, optional learning, or choosing their own content and assignments within a specific path, which helps them achieve course mastery.

MasteryPaths is based on differentiated assignments, which allows assignments to be assigned to different users and sections. With MasteryPaths, assignments are differentiated to individual students automatically and no additional work is required aside from grading student assignments as usual. After the initial assignment has been graded (either manually or automatically), the student’s score designates which conditional items(s) will be assigned as a learning path.

If you use weighted grading in your course, additional course work may affect student's total grades. However, grade calculations are based on the assignments assigned and completed by the student; students are not penalized for any assignments that are not assigned to them. If you are concerned about grade variances with point values, you may want to review the conditional assignments assigned to each MasteryPath and try to balance out grading totals in each path. Additionally you could evaluate student progress and add individual students to assignments as necessary that they can complete to improve their grade.

When creating MasteryPaths, all assignments and pages should be created and added as conditional items before publishing the course to students.

Notes:

• MasteryPaths is currently a course opt-in feature. To enable this feature, learn how to manage feature options in the course features lesson.
• MasteryPaths cannot currently be used with assignments being passed back to a student information system (SIS) such as PowerSchool or Skyward.
• Currently MasteryPaths does not support association with outcomes.

There are different icons on the Grades page. Depending on the type of assignment submission, grading rules, and comments, you will see different icons.

Submission Comments allows users to view all comments sent and received from assignment submissions. You can reply to submission comments directly from Conversations.

You can also reply to comments directly from assignment submissions. You can evaluate assignments in SpeedGrader and leave feedback for your students, or you can make comments in the Gradebook.

Note: Submission comments only appear between a student and any user who has appropriate Gradebook and SpeedGrader editing and commenting permissions—most commonly an instructor, TA, or both.