Moderate a Collection of courses

Moderators can navigate their Collection of courses and use Learn and Teach modes to both learn and guide other learners.

Laurie Garcia avatar
Written by Laurie Garcia
Updated over a week ago

The Collection feature is currently in beta testing and pre-requires the Complete Plan or above. Admins may apply for the beta. See main article for admins

For moderators

As a Moderator, you'll guide your group members through a learning Path to complete a course or a full Collection of courses. In this article, we'll guide you through basic navigation and tasks that you can complete to encourage and monitor their progress.

The Course Path

A Path leads learners step-by-step through everything they should learn in a lesson or course or an entire program. A Path is made up of two core parts.

Steps

Steps are a single learning action a learner should take: a video to watch, something to read, a quiz or test, a guided discussion — you name it. Steps help learners understand, practice, apply, and articulate each concept or skill they're learning in a bite-size way.

Lessons

Lessons are a sequence of multiple steps that usually cover one concept. Some concepts are simple enough to teach in only one Lesson while others take multiple Lessons.

Steps + Lessons = Path      

Now back to the Path. A Path is simply the full sequence of Lessons which contain all the Steps your learners will complete.

Path + More Paths = Collection

When multiple Paths are combined or collected into a larger Path, we call this superpath a Collection. If you're moderating a Collection, you'll open it from your Home page to find multiple smaller course Paths that may be arranged in various ways. 

For example, here's what a NASA space training program might look like as a single Collection made up of nine smaller course Paths. 

As learners work their way through their Paths, they'll have everything they need to learn, when they need to learn it, with plenty of opportunity for feedback and discussion along the way. Let's keep exploring!

Home 

Your Home screen organizes everything you’re learning and teaching in one place. As a moderator, your Home screen includes your Learn tab and Teach tab. 

Your Home screen is the first screen you'll see when you sign in; you can also get back to it anytime by selecting "Teaching" on the main menu. 

Your Teach tab is where you’ll find all the courses and Collections that you are moderating.

If you're taking any courses as a learner, you'll find them under your Learn tab on your Home page. 

When you click into a course or a Collection, you'll be taken to the Path tab for that course. We'll take a closer look at that next. 

You’ll notice the course is organized into three tabs:

  • About: Includes the course description, author bio, and other information.

  • Path: Includes everything each member needs to complete in order to finish the course or Collection. This is the most important tab and where you’ll spend most of your time.

  • Community: Shows all the discussions happening throughout each course in one place. (Coming soon for Collections). 


Using Learn mode and Teach mode

As a moderator, most of the tools you'll use are located on the Path, which can be viewed in two modes: Learn Mode and Teach Mode. Alternate between Learn & Teach modes with the toggle in the left corner.


In Learn Mode, you see exactly what other learners see. Here, you experience the Path as a learner. This provides a helpful lens for understanding any questions or concerns that come up and allows you to take the course along with the members in your group and track your own progress by marking items as Complete.

In Teach Mode, you’ll see extra information which will display exactly where learners are and how they’re doing. This view also includes some special tools that will help you in increasing learner progress. Your progress is not tracked when you move around in Teach mode. 

Teaching with a Collection

If you're teaching within a Collection, you can drill down into each of the course Paths inside the Collection to access the teaching tools and learner progress for that individual Path. 

To start taking and teaching an individual Path, select the "Start" button (or "View" if you're in Teach mode). This will enroll you as a moderator. 

Similarly, anyone you invite to this Collection as a learner or moderator will be able to access all the individual course Paths simply by clicking into them and will be automatically registered in the same role. 

Once inside a course Path, you can start taking the course as a learner in Learn Mode, or switch to Teach Mode to access the teaching tools for this Path. 

This is a course Path in Teach Mode. The Learn/Teach toggle is on the left, and teaching tools are listed on the right. In the top right corner of the first lesson, you can see icons for additional tools that we'll explore below. 


Schedule

Moderators and teachers who schedule due dates have much more success keeping everyone on track to complete a course than those who don’t schedule dates at all. Completion rates for cohorts with due dates are often 60% higher than cohorts who just move at their own pace.

Use Teach mode to set due dates. To set a due date, hover over the Lesson or Step you want to schedule and click the Schedule icon.

You'll see options to set start and end dates, optionally lock content until the start date is reached, and to schedule customizable reminders to your learners relative to those dates.

You can also set start and due dates on each course or grouping of courses inside the Collection. Each entire course will be locked until the start date is reached. 


Invite learners

To invite someone to join your group as a learner, open the Collection Path and click on the Invite button in the center of your screen (you won't be able to invite learners to the individual courses when they are part of a Collection; instead, invite learners to join the Collection).

Two ways to send invites

  1. Enter email addresses to send an invitation link by email instantly. 

  2. Or, click "get shareable link," copy the full invite link, and send it by email, text, or any other messaging tool to whomever you’d like to join.

Go to "View sent invites" to see the status of invites you've emailed directly from the course or Collection. 

Remember, for Collections, learners will only need to accept one invite. They'll be able to join each of the courses on the Collection Path just by clicking into them. After enrolling, the invite link is no longer needed and learners can log in at the school's web address to resume their course(s).


Invite moderators

Besides inviting learners to take the Collection, you can also invite additional moderators to help you teach. They will have the same permissions as you have.

To invite a moderator, use the "Invite" button in the top header section of the Collection, and be sure to select the Moderator role before sending or copying the link.

Moderators are visible to learners in the top header section of each course or Collection they have joined. 

When your invitees click on the invite link, they'll be prompted to create an account (or to log in, if they already have an account). 

If payment is required to join the group, they’ll also be asked to pay by entering their card information. Or, they can enter a discount code for discounted or free access. 


Manage your members

You can manage everyone in your cohort and access learner data by opening the View Learner Progress screen, either from the menu or by clicking/tapping on the learner avatars in the top right corner of the Path.

Open "View Learner Progress" on the Collection Path to see everyone's cumulative progress that they've marked off on the Collection Path. Drill into any course to see their progress inside that course and open specific assignments. Or, open "View Learner Progress" from inside each individual course Path to see the detailed progress breakdown for that course. 


View overall performance

"View Learner Progress" shows you everyone in your cohort and how they're performing at a glance.


View individual performance

To see a detailed performance report for a learner, simply tap the learner's name. Each learner's performance report shows...

  • a solid checkmark next to steps they've completed, a dotted checkmark next to steps that are completed but still pending your review, or an arrow next to skipped steps

  • how many points they've earned on each step (if points are assigned)

  • an indicator if they were late on an assignment (if you've set due dates)


Download reports

You can download all learner data as a CSV file. CSV files can be opened in Excel and most other spreadsheet tools. At the top of the View Learner Progress screen, click on the vertical ellipses to view the download options.

Edit an enrollment   

Open the "additional actions" under the vertical ellipses to the right of anyone's name to...

  1. Change that learner's role. 

  2. Set an expiration date on that person's access to your group. 

  3. Remove that person from the course entirely (deletes all progress). 


Engage in discussion

Discussion questions are a great way to engage with the members of your cohort. As a Moderator, you can post discussion questions or personal questions at the very bottom of any step while in Teach mode (unless your administrator has disabled discussions). 

Select the "Post a discussion question" button to add a question that appears as part of the course content. 

If you would like the question to appear as coming from you personally and not as part of the course content, you can post your discussion as a personal question.

Start typing in the discussion area beneath the step to start a personal discussion. Personal questions show your name and profile picture and appear as a question from you personally to this class.

You can edit your discussion questions or posts anytime.


Notifications

Many courses come with a few discussion questions built in. Notifications are an easy way to keep up with all the discussion. You'll be notified when anyone in a course that you've joined...

  1. asks a question below a step 

  2. answers a discussion question

  3. replies to you

You’ll receive the notification as email and an in-app notification. Just tap on the notification bell in the top right hand corner to reveal the most recent discussion activity. Select one a notification to jump right to the discussion.


Giving Feedback

If you’re leading a cohort that has steps that are configured to be reviewed, you'll find the Review feature very useful. Whenever there's something for you to review, you’ll see a red notification dot next to the Review icon.

Tap Review and you’ll see a list of everything that's been submitted that requires your review.

You can tap the Review icon in different places to see everything you need to review under one Step, a whole Lesson, or for the entire Path. See everything that needs review in all courses you're teaching from your Inbox, located on the top navigation bar of your account

That's everything for Teach mode! We've covered inviting learners, scheduling steps, moderating discussions, and reviewing completed work. Finally, we'll look at some troubleshooting tips.


Helping your learners log in

If someone you’ve invited to your group has trouble signing in, this most often indicates that they’ve forgotten their password. They can get a new password by clicking on the “Forgot your password?” link on the sign-in page and entering the email address they signed up with.

They can also contact the school's support line by selecting "Need help?"

If the email address they enter into the reset password form isn’t recognized, that usually means they used a different email address or have not created an account yet.

You can find the email address they used to sign up by opening “View Learner Progress.” Select the three dots (...) to the right of the learner's name. Then click on the email address to send an email to that learner. Right-click on the learner's email address to copy the email address.

If you find that they aren’t visible under the "View Learner Progress" screen, that indicates that they haven’t actually joined the group, in which case you’ll want to resend them the invitation link.


Resolving technical issues

If you have questions for the owner of the account where you're teaching, the best way to get help is to select the “Need help?” link. This will show the contact information for your school.

For more help in answering learners' questions, see the Help Center articles for Learners.

Find further teaching tips here: Help Center articles for Teachers and for Moderators.

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