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Monitor progress guide

Explore the activities and features available in Moodle to help you monitor student progress.

About Checklist

The Checklist allows a lecturer to create a task list for their students to work through. Students can tick off each item on the list, as they complete it. The progress of the class can be tracked by the lecturer. Students can also view a progress bar that shows how far through the Checklist they have progressed.

Other features include:

  • List of items students should complete, with the option to include module activities and resources in that section or the whole module, and / or manual items.
  • Checklist items can be ticked off by students only, lecturers only, or both.
  • Students can add their own items and notes to a Checklist.
  • Lecturers can set due dates for Checklist items.

How to use Checklist

There are three major uses of the Checklist activity, as described below. Any individual checklist could offer a blend of these uses.

  1. Lecturers can add tasks that students can check off
    • In this option, lecturers manually add items to a Checklist. Depending on the settings for the activity, students and / or lecturers can then manually tick off each item on the list as it is completed. The lecturer can monitor the resulting progress, and the Checklist will also display a progress bar to the student.
  2. Lecturers can create a Checklist and allow students to add tasks to it
    • In this option, lecturers allow students to add their own items. The tasks a student adds will be visible only to that student, not to the others in the class or even to the lecturer.
    • Student's will only be able to add sub-tasks to a task or headings the lecturer has already created.
  3. Lecturers can use activities and resources in the module to automatically populate the Checklist
    • In this option, lecturers automatically create a to-do list on a Checklist's Edit settings page. The Show course modules in checklist option will create a list populated either with all activities and resources from the whole course, or just those from the section the Checklist is in.

Create Checklist

  1. Turn Edit mode on.
  2. Open the section where you want Checklist to display. Select Add an activity or resource.
  3. Select Checklist from the Activities tab.
  4. Complete the General fields:
    • Enter a name for the activity in the Checklist input field.
    •  Provide instructions or background information for your students in the Introduction field. Check the Display description on module page to display the text in the activity cared on the module page.
  5. Update the Settings
    • User can add their own items: Controls whether students can add items to the Checklist.
    • User can add their own comments to checklist items: Controls if students can add comments to checklist items.
    • Updates by: Controls who can manually update a Checklist. 
      • If the student and teacher option is selected, both student and teacher have to tick off the checklist item in order for it to be recorded as complete.
      • If you are including activities with activity completion in your Checklist, set this option to Student only.
    • Add due dates to calendar: Allows due dates attached to manually created items to appear in the Calendar.
    • Teachers can add comments: Allows teachers to add personalised comments on students' individual Checklist items.
    • Maximum grade: If you want to make the checklist ungraded, set this value to zero (0)
    • Email when checklist is complete: Determines when a checklist is complete, whether a notification email will be sent to the student who completed it, to all the teachers on the course or to both.
    • Show course modules in checklist: Select No if you want to add manual items only.
      • Select Current section or Whole course if you want to automatically add a list of all the resources and activities to the Checklist.
      • This list will be updated with any changes in the section/module.
      • Items can be hidden from the list, by selecting the Hide icon beside them. You have the option of add manual items in addition to the module resources and activities after you have set up the checklist activity.
    • Check-off when modules complete: This will automatically check-off items in the Checklist when the relevant activity in the module has been completed by students. Completing an activity varies from one activity to another - view a resource, submit a quiz or assignment, post to a forum or join in with a chat, etc. If completion tracking is switched on for a particular activity, that will be used to tick-off the item in the list.
    • Lock teacher marks: When this setting is enabled, once a lecturer has saved a 'Yes' mark they will be unable to change it.
  6. Common module settings: If you are not ready to make the activity visible, you can change the availability to Hide from students.
  7. Restrict access: Where relevant, select Restrict access to add a restriction to ensure that the Checklist will only be available to students assigned to a selected group or grouping or on a particular date.
  8. Select Save and return to course.

Add manual items without due date

  1. Open the Checklist activity.
  2. Select Edit checklist from the contextual navigation menu.

    Edit checklist

  3. To add a new item to the end of the Checklist, enter a name for the new item into the text field at the bottom, then select Add. Alternatively, select the plus icon Plus icon within green circle to the right of the checklist item to enter a new item after that item. 
  4. Do not use the Next text color Choose text color as this produces inaccessible colour options.

Other editing features (for manual added items):

  • To edit the name of a manual checklist item, select the settings cog icon.
  • To delete a manual checklist item, select the delete (bin) icon.
  • Toggle checkbox to Checkbox with green checkmark : Make this item required to complete.
  • Toggle checkbox to Checkbox with grey border : Make this item optional to complete.
  • Toggle checkbox to  Checkbox with dotted border : Make this item a heading. No checkbox will be available to tick off.
  • Arrows : Use the arrow icons to indent the item or move it up and down in the list

Automated and manual checklist items displaying in a list

Add manual items with due date

  1. Open the Checklist activity.
  2. Select Edit checklist from the contextual navigation menu.

    Edit checklist

  3. Select the Edit dates button at the bottom of the Edit checklist tab.
  4. Uncheck the tickbox next to Disable.
  5. Select the due date from the date drop-down menu.
  6.  Enter a name for the new item into the text field.

    Revision session added with a due date 22 September

  7. Select Add. The due date will be displayed on the right of the newly created checklist item

Amend a due date

  1. Open the Checklist activity.
  2. Select Edit checklist from the contextual navigation menu.
  3. Select the setting cog icon to edit the checklist item which has a due date.
  4. Select the Edit dates button at the bottom.
  5. Amend the due date
  6. Select Update.

Show hide selected items

If the Show course modules setting in the Checklist is set to Current section or Whole course, you can hide selected items from students.

  1. Open the Checklist activity.
  2. Select Edit checklist from the contextual navigation menu.
  3. A checkbox is available on the far left for the checklist items which are linked to the module content.
  4. Select the checkboxes to choose the item which you want to hide from students.
  5. Select the Show/hide selected items button at the top of the list. When hidden, the name of checklist item will appear with a strike-through and the eye icon changes to closed.

Checklist with two assignments hidden. Checkboxes to the left of the items hidden

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