Goal setting and learner agency
Encouraging students to set their own goals is one way to foster student agency and begin to create a learner-centred environment. Students are more likely to take on challenges and take steps to proactively meet their goals if they are given ownership of their learning. Learner agency has two components:
- Knowledge of oneself as a learner, and
- The ability to articulate, create, or ask for the conditions necessary to meet their learning needs. Students with high levels of agency take responsibility for and ownership of their learning by reflecting on successes and failures.
How does this link to learner progress tracking? Often, tutors know how students are doing overall, but students themselves rarely have an in depth insight. When students monitor their own progress, it means that they have set a goal and know how to measure where they are in the process of achieving it. Students can revisit their goals at regular intervals and reflect on what is working for them and what they might need to do to make further progress toward their goals. Additionally, progress monitoring and goal setting is an important life skill, and something that will be called upon throughout almost any future career.
Enable progress tracking in Blackboard
You can enable this functionality to give your students an easy way to keep track of what they have done inside each one of the courses. When enabling progress tracking later than the beginning of the term, participatory items will be retroactively marked as complete. For example, assessments submitted previously by students will be marked as complete. Non-participatory items, like Ultra documents, will still need to be manually marked by students.
You can enable progress tracking at any time during the term.
Turn progress tracking on for your course:
1.Select Courses from the Ultra navigation menu.
2. Select a Course.
3. On Details & Actions > Progress Tracking, select Turn on.
4. Once the Progress Tracking panel opens, switch the toggle from off to on.
5. Save your new settings.
Your students will now see the progress of their course. Every item like content or assessments will display a circle icon showing the progress.
- Empty when a student had not yet accessed the item
- Partially filled when a student has opened the item
- Green checkmark when the student has completed the item
If you would like any further help or information, contact eLearning@tees.ac.uk