How to read mastery data

Open a course and go to the Students tab. You see four numbers at the top and three views below them. Start with the numbers, then the views, then one student.

The four cards

• Students: how many are enrolled.
• Class Average: average mastery across the class.
• Skills Mastered: how many student-skill pairs are mastered.
• Needs Attention: how many student-skill pairs are struggling or not started.

Careful with the last two. They count pairs, not students. Ten students with three skills each is thirty pairs. One student who has not started anything can add many to Needs Attention.

The Mastery Heatmap

One row per student, one column per skill, each cell coloured by state with a percentage. The legend reads Not started, Struggling, Developing, Approaching, Mastered. There is an Avg column, and you can sort by name or by mastery.

Read it in two directions:

• Down a column. A skill that is red or yellow for most of the class is a teaching problem. Reteach it or change how you teach it. Suspect the question too: open it in the Skill Packs tab and solve it yourself.
• Across a row. A student with a patch of red among a mostly green row has one gap. A student red across the board might be struggling generally, or not logged in. Check which before you worry.

How a skill gets its state

Every answer updates a score for that student on that skill. Recent answers count more than old ones, harder questions count more, and using hints lowers the credit. Roughly, as the code stands today:

• Under 40%: Struggling.
• 40% to 70%: Developing.
• 70% to 85%: Approaching.
• Mastered needs at least five answers at about 85% or better, with enough consistency. A single lucky run does not do it.
• With fewer than three answers, a student reads as Developing or Struggling depending on whether they are above or below 50%. Treat a skill with two answers as a guess.

Mastered skills come back later for a quick check, so you can tell whether they stuck. These thresholds can change as the product changes, so treat the colours as a guide, not a grade.

Gap Analysis

This view lists skills with the lowest class average first, and under each says how many students are struggling or have not started. It is the fastest way to choose what to reteach or review. It is the list to use when you run a review game.

Recommendations

This view turns the same numbers into plain suggestions, in priority order. It is rule-based, not AI. A skill with a class average under 30% gets a Reteach note, under 60% a Reinforce note, a student whose overall mastery is under 25% gets a Check in note, and students at 85% or more may get an excelling note. It is a prompt to look, not a diagnosis. You know things the numbers do not.

One student

Click a row. You see every skill with attempts, correct answers, the score and the state, then Recent Activity: right or wrong, the mode they used, time spent and the date. A run of quick wrong answers looks different from slow wrong answers. The first often means guessing, the second means trying and failing.

Override

If you know something the data does not, such as a student who showed mastery on paper, use Override next to a skill. Choose a new state (Mastered, Approaching, Developing, Struggling, Not started or Exempt), write a reason (required) and press Apply Override. The student's page then shows Override active on that skill, so it is clear the state was a teacher decision.

What not to conclude

• The percentages are practice data from multiple-choice items. They are not a grade, and official grades are entered by hand.
• Small numbers of answers swing wildly. Wait for more before acting on a single cell.
• The data cannot see why. For that, you need to talk to the student. See how to help a struggling student and the mastery tracking page.

Common questions