Learning Tasks
Overview
The Learning Tasks module allows teachers to create and assign tasks to students, with optional online submission, feedback and grading, all of which can be collated onto Semester Reports. The tasks, feedback and grading can also be shared with parents, allowing the school to provide continuous reporting or academic progress in a simple manner.
Each Learning Task can be created from scratch or from a template, and further configured on an individual level, allowing for fine-grain control of all aspects of the task. Staff may control the selected grading elements, the audience to whom the task is published, whether or not conversation around the task is enabled, and who can see the results and feedback provided by staff.
A few examples of how some schools have used Learning Tasks:
- -Using subject-wide Learning Tasks to create all Assessment Tasks/SACs/CATs that need to be included on Semester Reports at once, and importing these into Semester Reports as a means of continuous reporting
- -Assigning all work (including daily homework and holiday assignments) through Learning Tasks
- -Not publishing the tasks to parents or students, and using the module purely as an online markbook
Permissions and Definitions
Staff can create learning tasks for classes, subjects or in School Resources for ongoing use.
Staff with the LearningTasksAdmin permission are able to create, edit or remove Learning Tasks from any subject. Users with this permission can also access the Learning Tasks Administration page where Learning Tasks Templates and Learning Tasks Reports are managed. To access the Learning Tasks Administration page, staff who have the LearningTasksAdmin permission but not the Configure permission will need to be provided with the URL link (as they cannot access the Administration Tools menu -under the cog icon - if they do not also have the Configure permission).
The ability to edit Learning Tasks can vary for users based on whether your school has enabled Learning Tasks Security.
Without Learning Tasks Security enabled, all staff members have the permission to edit any Learning Task, regardless of which class or subject the Learning Task is located in.
When Learning Tasks Security is enabled, the ability to create, edit or delete Learning Tasks will vary according to the position of the user in relation to Faculties, Subjects and Classes.
For details on staff access to Learning Tasks when the security feature is enabled, please refer to the below information and table.
If you would like the security feature enabled for your school or are unsure if it is in place, please contact our Support Team via support@compass.education.
- Learning Tasks Admin: a staff member with the LearningTasksAdmin permission (for information on assigning this permission to staff, please refer to the Permissions article)
- Faculty Manager: a staff member that is the Faculty Manager for a given faculty. This is set up in Faculty Manager in the Administration Tools menu. Each subject is assigned to a faculty, for example Year 10 Maths would fall under the Maths faculty.
- Subject Coordinator: a staff member that is the Subject Coordinator for a given subject. This can now be (optionally) assigned to a staff member when creating/editing a subject in Subjects and Classes (please refer to the Subject Page article for further information).
- Class Teacher: a staff member that is the lead teacher of a class. This is assigned when creating/editing a class in Subjects and Classes or through your Timetabling Package. Note that a Class Teacher can also be any staff member that has also been assigned a session for that class (excluding daily organisation allocation).
- Normal Teacher: a staff member who is unrelated to a specific subject or class. For example, a staff member who isn’t the lead teacher of 9MATHSB (Year 9 Maths Class B), the Subject Coordinator for 9MATHS, or the Faculty Manager for MATHS is then classified as a Normal Teacher in regards to 9MATHSB.
- Subject-wide Learning Task: A Learning Task that is created on a subject page or pushed from School Resources to the Subject Level. This Learning Task can then be viewed and accessed on the class pages for that subject.
- Class Learning Task: A Learning Task that is created on a class page. This Learning Task is unique to the class it is created on, and cannot be seen on the subject page.
Permissions:
Note: If you are unable to access one of the linked articles or sub-articles in this document it will be related to your permission levels in Compass. Please speak with your supervisor and/or school technician for further assistance.
Creating a Learning Task
There are three locations in Compass where Learning Tasks can be created from scratch or via a Learning Task Template:
- School Resources
- Subject Pages
- Class Pages
Managing Learning Tasks
To access all of the Learning Tasks for classes that you teach, select the 'Learning Tasks' link in the Teaching and Learning menu (pencil icon), which will take you to the Learning Tasks tab of your staff profile.
Click on to the 'Learning Tasks' tab.
From here you will see all the Learning Tasks for the class and the various security, file submission and Semester Report cycle settings that have been chosen for the individual task are detailed under each Learning Task. A full explanation of these icons is included below, and can also be found if you hover your mouse over the icon.
Learning Tasks can be edited from this page using the 'action' button (spanner icon) to the right of the row in the table. Clicking on this button will open a small window of options to choose from:
Export Results
Once results have been entered, clicking this option will export the results for that task to a csv file for you.
Print Cover Sheet
Clicking on the 'Print Cover Sheet' option from the 'Action' menu will create a PDF file to be used as a cover sheet for the hard copy submission of Learning Tasks. This cover sheet includes a barcode that can be scanned to automatically read the name of the student, register the submission date and time, and thus update the details for that student in the Learning Task results entry window.
Learning Tasks with a cover sheet should be turned in at the office, where a member of the office staff can scan homework as received on the Bulk Scanning page, which is available on the Administration Tools page, under the Tools menu (cog icon).
Duplicate Task
You can choose to duplicate an existing Learning Task on a class or subject page by clicking this option. Duplicating a task will create a new task that includes the original task's due dates, students, attachments, components and security settings. Please note you can only duplicate a subject-wide task from the subject page, not via the class page.
Edit
Clicking 'Edit' will open the tabs for configuring the Learning Task. You can then adjust components, due dates etc.
Hide
Setting the Learning Task as hidden will mean it does not show when the Learning Task tab is viewed (either as staff, students or parents). This allows you to curate the initial list of tasks being viewed to those currently relevant (i.e. you may want to hide any tasks from Semester 1 when in Semester 2). If you see 'Unhide' in the tools list for the task, it means it is already set as hidden and you can then choose to 'unhide' it.
Hiding a task will not delete it or remove it from staff, student or parent access, it simply means it is not displayed in the initial list of tasks for the viewer. To access hidden tasks, the view will simply need to click the 'Show All Tasks' option.
Delete
Deleting a class Learning Task from the list, will remove the entire Learning Task for all included students. This is permanent so please proceed with caution when deleting Learning Tasks.
Unless you are also the Subject Coordinator for the subject this class pertains to, you will not be able to delete Subject-wide Learning tasks from the class page.
Categories
Learning tasks are allocated into categories to clearly define the task type. This allows the user to filter their list of Learning Tasks by category.
You can set the category for a task when creating the task.
Extending a Student/Students Due Date
If you need to give a specific student a due date extension you will be able to do this once the task is created and you've enrolled students in the task. Just click the name of the task to open the Results Entry screen, click the name of the student in question, click the button next to the word 'Custom' and then use the Calendar button to select an alternate due date, and time if needed. See below for an example.
Entering Results for Learning Tasks
If online submission was not allowed the teacher will need to mark the submissions as received.
Where the due date is not yet reached, the icon will show the result as 'Pending'.
Using the 'Actions' button above the list of students allows you to update the status of all submissions at one time, email the students or parents of the students included in the Learning Task, or download all submissions if you have included a submission component. Keep in mind that using the 'Mark All' option will override any previously indicated submission statuses and dates.
Detailed Results Tab
The most thorough way to enter results is to do each student individually, as this allows you to submit a document in response as well as add a comment in the Conversation field. Based on the settings you selected in the Security Matrix for the task the Conversation field may or may not be visible to the students and parents
To do this click a student's name on the left and then begin entering results in the fields under the Grading header. From this screen you can download the document/s the student submitted, either one-by-one by clicking the download icon to the right of the document, or all at once using the link below the submission section. You can see these highlighted in green in the image below.
Grid Results Tab
If you want to enter results for all students included in the Learning Task at once and not upload any response documents or add comments in the Conversation field, click on the Grid tab, then double click in the cell in which you want to enter the results.
Results for all Subject-wide Learning Tasks can be entered here, allowing the Subject Coordinator to enter in results on behalf of others, or calculate a final score across multiple classes.
Results can be selected from the drop-down list or typed manually, but if typed, must correspond to an option on the drop down list. Comments can be typed free form, or you can insert comments from the Comment Bank Editor. For further information on the creation and use of Comment Banks, please refer to the Comment Bank article
Staff also have the option to use the 'Fill Up' and 'Fill Down' buttons in the top right corner of the window to copy the information from the currently selected cell into all cells either above or below in the current column. Fill Up and Fill Down cannot be used on comments. Please note that the Fill Up and Fill Down options available here are applied to all students either above or below the selected one so will overwrite any already entered results that are in the path.
If you want to include a comment for a specific grading component within the Learning Task, you can do so by right-clicking the result cell and choosing 'Add Comment'.
Add your comment in the pop-up and click 'Save'.
The cell will have an orange triangle to indicate that there is a comment for the result.
You can hover over the cell to view the comment. Comments cannot be edited however clicking the red cross icon will delete the comment.
When the results for the Learning Task are set as visible to students and/or parents, the comment will display below the specific result on the Feedback tab.
Calculated Grading Component Results
For details on using Calculated Grading Components in Learning Tasks, please refer to the 'Calculated Grading Components' article from our Knowledge Base.
Learning Tasks Results Overview
The Learning Tasks tab on the Class profile page also shows a Grid view of the students in the class and a result for each Learning Task in which they have been included.
You can sort the order of students by clicking the arrow that appears if you hover in right hand section of the 'Name' column and selecting your preferred sort type. There is also the option to move inactive students to the bottom of the list.
You can also filter the results by Roll Flag. To do so, click the 'Roll Flags' button and select the flags to be filtered.
As the year progresses, you may want to curate the list of Learning Tasks that display in the grid view. To do so, click the 'Selected Tasks' option and deselect any tasks you don't want to display. Your selection setting will be retained so that when you return to this screen at a later time, the same selected Learning Tasks will display.
Any Learning Tasks created after your selections were made, will display by default; you can deselect them if required.
Staff also have the ability to export a CSV file of the results grid from the Learning Tasks tab of the Class profile page by clicking on the 'Export CSV' button in the top right corner of the table on the grid view tab as per the screenshot above. To export a CSV file of results for an individual Learning Task, click on the Learning Tasks Dashboard tab, then click on the 'CSV' icon next to the print and edit icons at the right of the row for the Learning Task in which you are interested.
Reordering Learning Tasks
Staff can choose to re-order class Learning Tasks on the Dashboard tab of their class page (or subject wide tasks on their Subject page if they are the Subject co-ordinator).
This is to assist with having your preference of tasks in view when you access this area of your class (or subject) page to add results etc.
The re-ordering only applies to the Staff view of the class or subject page.
To re-order Learning Tasks for your class, go to the class page and click to the 'Learning Tasks' tab.
On the Dashboard sub-tab, locate the task you want to re-order, click and hold on the task and then drag it to the position you require in the list.
If tasks are re-ordered on a subject page, this does not affect the order of tasks on any associated class pages.
The order will update and anytime you access the page ongoing, this will be the order of the tasks. Changes made to the order on the Dashboard tab are also applied when using the Grid View.
Whenever you load your class or subject page, if the Learning Task order has been modified, you will see a notation of when this last occurred and which staff member made the change.
If your school does not have the Learning Task Security feature enabled, then any staff who can access the class or subject page can reordered tasks.
Reading the Learning Tasks Dashboard
The Dashboard sub-tab under the Learning Tasks tab displays a list of all existing tasks, as well as a plethora of other useful information. This means you do not need to open the edit screen of the task to see who can see the task, it's grading, whether or not it's included on semester reports, the due date, and whether students can submit their work online.
Learning Tasks for Students
Students can access their Learning Tasks by hovering over the Teaching and Learning menu (pencil icon) and selecting 'Learning Tasks' from the drop-down menu. From here students can see all their tasks either grouped by class (like in the image below) or just as a list, which can be sorted by clicking on the column headings. Students can also print the cover sheet for the task by right clicking the spanner tool icon at the far right of the task.
From here students can view the task as well as submit their assignments by clicking the name of the task. This will open the Task Details, including the name, description, and due date. If online submission has been enabled students will be able to submit by clicking the 'Create Submission' button for each submission element, like in the image below.
By clicking the Feedback tab the student will be able to see the results they've received, the conversation section, and download any response documents the teacher has uploaded. From the Conversation section the student can see anything the teacher or parent has commented, as well as add a comment, like in the image below. When a student or parent adds to the Conversation the teacher/s of the class will receive an email notification. When a teacher adds to the Conversation, the student will receive an email notification.
Self Assessment Components
Please refer to the 'Learning Tasks Self Assessment' article from our Knowledge Base for details on how students add their responses.
Learning Tasks for Parents
Click here to access our Learning Task Guide for Parents which you are welcome to distribute to your school's parent community.
When parents log in to Compass they will see a notification under their student's name if the student has any upcoming or overdue learning tasks. You can see this alert highlighted in the image below.
Clicking the link will take the parent to the Learning Tasks tab of the student's profile. From here the parent can see all the Learning Tasks that have been set for the student and made visible to parents. If the teacher has given marks for the task and made the grading visible the parent will also be able to see the student's grade/s for the task.
If the student does not have any upcoming overdue tasks the parent can see all the tasks for their students at the school by hovering over the Teaching and Learning menu (pencil icon) and selecting 'Learning Tasks' from the drop-down menu.
Based on the security matrix for the task the parent will see the same content that the student can see (if the settings are the same) and if enabled, will have the ability to upload their child's work for the task. See the images in the 'Learning Tasks for Students' section above as a reference.
Frequently Asked Questions
Click here to access Learning Tasks FAQs.
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