Study Path FAQ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What is the purpose of the Study Path?
• When does a Study Path open for students?
• When do topic cards appear on the Study Path?
• Can I edit the Study Path once students start it?
• Should I publish the Study Path if I'm still building it?
• What causes questions to be left off the Study Path?
• What causes topic cards to load into the Study Path earlier than expected?

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. There are some exceptions to this rule, listed at the bottom of the article.

Can I edit the Study Path once students start it?

The answer depends on which checkpoint you're wanting to edit:

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 more Prep questions 
• change points assigned to questions, whether students have answered them or not
• remove questions that no students have answered

You cannot: 

• remove questions that no students have answered
• change the grading policy

CHECKPOINT 3 PRACTICE TEST

The Practice Test becomes available to students if one or both of two things are true: (1) they have completed all of the published assignments associated with that Study Path OR (2) if there are three 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 whether students have answered them or not
• remove questions that no students have answered

You cannot: 

• add or reorder questions
• 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. You can publish Checkpoints 1 and 2 only, or all three checkpoints.

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

What causes topic cards to load into the Study Path earlier than expected?

There are a few scenarios where topic cards load unexpectedly early in the Study Path. In general, as long as all the following are true, the topic cards will load as expected (after students finish the associated assignment). 

For topic cards to load as expected, these three conditions must be true:

1) At least one question covering a learning objective in the topic, AND

2) Assessment where the question is assigned has to be on the Study Path of interest, AND

3) Assessment has to be published

This table might help explain the Study Path behavior you can expect in various scenarios. A "yes" indicates all three of the above conditions are true.