Point Recapture
What is the purpose of point recapture?
"Point recapture" is intended to act as a hook during the transition from when students complete a Homework to when they start to review the content covered on that Homework in the Study Path. When a student misses a question twice on a Homework assignment, they can't try it again until they've completed the rest of the assignment. We give them two attempts to allow them to immediately address obvious mistakes or misunderstandings, but after that we presume that the question represents a challenging concept for the student.
After the student completes the rest of that Homework assignment, they are encouraged to head to the Study Path to resume working on missed questions. From there, they can try the question as many times as they need to figure out the correct answer (and can continue trying it after that as well for practice!).
This pause between attempts two and three serves a few purposes:
- It helps differentiate topics the student is succeeding on from those that they're struggling with. Topics associated with missed questions will load under "I Should Review", whereas topics where all questions were answered correctly will cruise ahead to "Prep Me".
- It gives students a cognitive break so they can come back to the question with fresh eyes.
- It (hopefully) discourages random guessing.
Does point recapture only apply to Homework?
Point recapture primarily affects Homework assignments. When a student answers a Homework question incorrectly twice, the question freezes. To "recapture points" on a frozen question the student must continue attempting that question from the Study Path so that they can identify which learning objective it is associated with and find related questions from other assignments.
Preclass and Readiness assignments are the first step in the learning cycle and are therefore intended to be very low stakes. Because of that, students simply continue attempting Preclass and Readiness questions in the assignment until they answer them correctly. Students can return to the Preclass assignment later and continue to attempt missed questions as long as it is BEFORE the due date. In other words, they don't have to complete assignments all in one sitting.
Because assignments of any type load on the Study Path after the student has attempted each question at least once, the student could technically re-attempt missed questions on Preclass and Readiness assignments from within the Study Path and they will still earn points as long as the due and/or late date hasn't passed. However, this isn't the workflow most students take.
When can point recapture happen?
When a student answers a homework question incorrectly twice, the question freezes. The student must then finish the assignment (by answering each question at least once) to trigger the associated topic cards to load in the Study Path. Once the assignment is complete, the student can immediately begin recapturing points in the Study Path, but they must do so BEFORE the due date for the assignment, or before the late date if there is a late policy in effect. Point recapture is not a workaround for late work.
Where does point recapture happen?
Topic cards associated with missed questions will sort into Checkpoint 1 ("I Should Review") in the Study Path and will be marked with a star icon. After expanding the card, missed questions will be marked with a star. Students can click on them to open and reattempt them. After point recapture has expired because the due and/or late date has passed, the star icon goes away.
How are points calculated during point recapture?
The grading policy selected for that assignment continues to apply to the attempts made in the Study Path. No additional calculations are done just because the student is now working in the Study Path / doing point recapture.
What would prevent a student from being able to recapture points?
The student can find the question in the Study Path, but cannot earn points on it:
- The assignment is past the due date or late date, then not points can be earned
The student can't find the question in the Study Path:
- The student hasn't yet answered each question in the assignment at least once. Questions from an assignment load in the Study Path once the student attempts every question in the assignment at least once.
- The Study Path is not published.
- The question is in a homework assignment that has not been selected for Checkpoint 1 Assessment Review. The platform automatically links assessments to Study Paths based on due date windows, but due date rearrangements or manual unlinking of assessments from Study Paths can cause an assignment to not be linked to the current Study Path.
- The question isn't tagged with any LO that has been assigned in the class.
Study Path
What is the purpose of the Study Path?
The Study Path is where students go to reflect on how they've been performing on assignments so far and prepare for upcoming exams by engaging in additional rounds of practice (Prep Questions and a Practice Test). They can review their performance by examining the sorting of topic cards into checkpoints, and by seeing which LOs and topics are associated with questions they've marked Muddy. The platform assumes there is always a Study Path available, so that students can pop in and out as they complete assignments. However, topic cards only appear on the Study Path after students complete assignments covering those topics, so as to not overwhelm the student at the beginning of a new unit.
When does a Study Path open for students?
The Study Path that is due first is open as soon as students access the course, as long as it is published.
Once the due date of the first Study Path passes, the next Study Path becomes available. Past topic cards remain on the previous Study Path, and the new Study Path starts over and begins to fill again as student complete related assignments.
Students can always go back to past Study Paths using a drop down menu to revisit past topics and questions. Students cannot access future Study Paths (i.e. Study Paths with a due date further in the future than the current Study Path).
When do topic cards appear on the Study Path?
Questions from an assignment load in the Study Path within their associated topic card once the student attempts every question in an assignment at least once.
Can I edit the Study Path once students start it?
CHECKPOINT 1 ASSESSMENTS TO REVIEW
You can add or remove assessments at any time to control whether the questions on those assessments are available to access on that Study Path.
CHECKPOINT 2 PREP QUESTIONS
Once you publish the Study Path and students click on it, the Prep Questions are "initialized" and changes are restricted to limit impact on in-progress scores.
You can still:
- add Prep questions
- change points assigned to questions that no students have answered
- remove questions that no students have answered
You can no longer:
- change points assigned to questions that students have answered
- remove questions that no students have answered
- change the grading policy
CHECKPOINT 3 PRACTICE TEST
The Practice Test becomes available to students if they have completed all of the published assignments associated with that Study Path OR if there are 3 or less days until the Study Path due date. Once students start the Practice Test, changes are restricted to prevent impact to in-progress scores.
You can still:
- change points assigned to questions that no students have answered
- remove questions that no students have answered
You can no longer:
- add or reorder questions
- change points assigned to questions that students have answered
- remove questions that students have answered
- change the grading policy
Should I publish a Study Path if I'm not done building it?
If you have Homework assignments in your class, student won't be able to recapture points unless the Study Path is published. If you are okay with the editing restrictions described in the section above, go ahead and publish the Study Path so students can recapture points on the Homework.
Because you can always add more Prep questions to started Study Paths and because students typically can't access the Practice Test until a few weeks into the unit, the most common scenario under which we would recommend delaying publishing the Study Path would be: (1) You haven't finished building the Practice Test and (2) All of your published assignments are open, and so students could feasibly move all of their topic cards into Checkpoint 3.
If you keep the Study Path unpublished to continue editing, remember to also unpublish subsequent Study Paths as well since the next available Study Path automatically becomes open to students.
What causes questions to be left off of a Study Path?
1) If the assignment containing the question is not published.
2) If the question is in a homework assignment that has not been selected for Checkpoint 1 Assessment Review
3) If the question is associated with an LO that has not been assigned in the class
How does grading and point recapture work for multi-part questions?
See this article for specifics on grading multi-part questions: https://codonlearning.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/69000802487-grading-policies
Students cannot submit their answer until all parts of the question have an answer selected. In the Study Path, students get a fresh start on a question, previous answers are not saved. Thus, when recapturing points, students must re-attempt all parts of the question.