Schoology and Nuventive Improve (TracDat) considerations
Schoology can track assessment of student learning outcomes based on course work. Nuventive TracDat is an assessment document repository with some querying capabilities. The following is a way to use Mastery data gathered in Schoology as evidence when reporting on student learning in TracDat. The gist of the following is to use a screenshot of the Mastery screen in Schoology as the evidence (related document) in TracDat. This is a kludge at best, but these systems do not interconnect.
At the start of the term I had already set up my student learning outcomes in Schoology in the Resources: Personal: Learning Objectives area of Schoology.
Note that this mapping process cannot be done post-hoc for gradebook column items. For more information on setting up course level outcomes assessment in Schoology, see slide 48 forward in the presentation on the three levels at which Schoology can be used. Slide 55 of the presentation notes this limitation.
The Mastery settings in use were as follows:
The Mastery settings were that a student was expected to demonstrate that outcome at least five times, and the minimum performance level required for that demonstration was 70%. This accomplishment is denoted by a green star in the following Mastery screen image.
The Mastery screen notes that there were as many as 18 course events in which the student could evidence course level outcome one, 19 course events in which the student could evidence course learning outcome two, and up to six opportunities to demonstrate mastery of course learning outcome three.
The background color of a cell does not directly denote the number of times the outcome was demonstrated, the color is linked to the average performance across all demonstrations. A green star on a pink background denotes that the student demonstrated the outcome at least five times above 70%, but their overall performance on all assessments involving that outcome was below 70%. Thus the background color is effectively a measure more akin to a grade that an assessment of an ability to demonstrate the required skill or knowledge.
As a result, I chose to use the green stars to report learning into the institutional assessment system. The green stars have to be tallied manually as the dialog box that appears on "hover" summarizes the background color counts and not star counts.
Whether the reporting of star counts or the average achievement level as tallied in the hover dialog box above is a more appropriate measure of learning achieved is a discussion beyond the scope of this article.
Assessment at the institution is currently tracked in Nuventive TracDat. Unbeknownst to me, Nuventive TracDat is now part of Nuventive Improve, although as far as I am aware, the institution is only using the TracDat module and does not have access to the PlanningPoint module nor the ActionPoint module that are now also a part of Nuventive Improve.
Based on the green star counts, I entered results for course learning outcomes in TracDat as I have done in the past. Then I added as a related document I added a screenshot of the Mastery screen in Schoology. Schoology's Mastery screen becomes the evidence supporting the TracDat values. Screenshots can be done with keyboard shortcuts in MacOS, ChromeOS, and Ubuntu. In Windows 7 the snipping tool would have to be used to screenshot a region of the screen. Related documents can be added from the green plus sign below a given result in the Course Results screen.
The related document will be uploaded to a folder for the course in the Document Repository.
The actual uploaded screenshot included the student names.
At present Schoology and TracDat do not interface with each other, nor do I expect that they ever will. Schoology offers its own Assessment Management Platform (AMP), although I remain unclear as to feature set available in Schoology AMP. Whether Schoology AMP can provide support for the complex assessment needs of a post-secondary institution with their three levels of assessment - course, program, and institutional - is also unclear.
At the start of the term I had already set up my student learning outcomes in Schoology in the Resources: Personal: Learning Objectives area of Schoology.
Resources: Personal: Learning Objectives
During the term all assignments, activities, tests, and presentations were mapped to course level student learning outcomes. Mapping was only done to the course level and not to the specific learning outcomes for each course level outcome because reporting at the college is only done on course level outcomes.
Course level student learning outcomes in ethnobotany
The Mastery settings in use were as follows:
Mastery settings
The Mastery settings were that a student was expected to demonstrate that outcome at least five times, and the minimum performance level required for that demonstration was 70%. This accomplishment is denoted by a green star in the following Mastery screen image.
Schoology learning outcome Mastery screen
The Mastery screen notes that there were as many as 18 course events in which the student could evidence course level outcome one, 19 course events in which the student could evidence course learning outcome two, and up to six opportunities to demonstrate mastery of course learning outcome three.
The background color of a cell does not directly denote the number of times the outcome was demonstrated, the color is linked to the average performance across all demonstrations. A green star on a pink background denotes that the student demonstrated the outcome at least five times above 70%, but their overall performance on all assessments involving that outcome was below 70%. Thus the background color is effectively a measure more akin to a grade that an assessment of an ability to demonstrate the required skill or knowledge.
Schoology Mastery "hover" dialog box for a learning outcome
Whether the reporting of star counts or the average achievement level as tallied in the hover dialog box above is a more appropriate measure of learning achieved is a discussion beyond the scope of this article.
Assessment at the institution is currently tracked in Nuventive TracDat. Unbeknownst to me, Nuventive TracDat is now part of Nuventive Improve, although as far as I am aware, the institution is only using the TracDat module and does not have access to the PlanningPoint module nor the ActionPoint module that are now also a part of Nuventive Improve.
TracDat
Based on the green star counts, I entered results for course learning outcomes in TracDat as I have done in the past. Then I added as a related document I added a screenshot of the Mastery screen in Schoology. Schoology's Mastery screen becomes the evidence supporting the TracDat values. Screenshots can be done with keyboard shortcuts in MacOS, ChromeOS, and Ubuntu. In Windows 7 the snipping tool would have to be used to screenshot a region of the screen. Related documents can be added from the green plus sign below a given result in the Course Results screen.
The white plus in the round green button allows one to relate a document
The related document will be uploaded to a folder for the course in the Document Repository.
A screenshot of the Mastery screen has been uploaded
The actual uploaded screenshot included the student names.
The uploaded document title is displayed on the right as a related document
Click on the green Complete button to complete the process
The learning outcome now includes the screenshot as a related document
At present Schoology and TracDat do not interface with each other, nor do I expect that they ever will. Schoology offers its own Assessment Management Platform (AMP), although I remain unclear as to feature set available in Schoology AMP. Whether Schoology AMP can provide support for the complex assessment needs of a post-secondary institution with their three levels of assessment - course, program, and institutional - is also unclear.
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