Track Student Activity with Prerequisites for Custom Lessons

For Xello Administrators responsible for managing lessons in Xello, prerequisites is a powerful new option that allows you to select and track activities in Xello that students must complete before starting a custom lesson.

As educators, you know that keeping track of student progress and ensuring each student is successfully completing the requirements you set out is no easy task.
Luckily for you, we’ve recently updated Xello’s custom lessons so you can guide students through Xello activities with ease, keeping track of what’s been completed and how it’s helped your students prepare for the future.
Custom lessons give you the flexibility to tailor Xello’s built-in curriculum by integrating additional student work that’s required to fulfill your ILP requirements and meet state mandates. However, if you’ve ever logged into Xello to check which students have completed a required activity (such as taking an assessment), you may have left wondering how and where to access this data.
With the addition of prerequisites for custom lessons, you can now have visibility into activity completion, while also ensuring that students are learning and connecting to their experiences and work in Xello, by reflecting on their activities.

Track activity completion and save time with easy-to-add prerequisites

For Xello Administrators responsible for managing lessons in Xello, prerequisites is a powerful new option that allows you to select activities in Xello that students must complete before starting a custom lesson. 
Adding prerequisites eliminates the need to include step-by-step instructions on where and how to complete activities. Instead, you can focus lesson instructions on what students should do after completing the activity to enhance their learning experience. This can be as simple as answering one or two reflection questions that help students think about what they have learned and how far they have come.
Once a student has completed a custom lesson, you can be certain that they’ve completed any activities that were set as prerequisites, as well as the written component of the lesson – making it easy for you to track progress.

Get prerequisites set-up in just a few clicks

You’ll find the new option to add prerequisites when building or editing a custom lesson. 

Clicking on the Add Prerequisites button will open up a menu from which you can select up to 5 activities that students will have to complete before starting the lesson.

Let’s say you wanted to track that your grade 9 students are completing the Matchmaker quiz. Simply create a custom lesson assigned to Grade 9 students and name the lesson “Matchmaker Reflection”. Add the Matchmaker quiz as a prerequisite, and include a reflection question or activity in the instructions.

When a student clicks on your custom lesson, they’ll see a gated page that lets them know they must complete the Matchmaker quiz to unlock the lesson. Clicking the button next to the quiz will take them directly into the activity.

Once a student has completed the Matchmaker quiz, the lesson will be unlocked and they’ll be able to review your lesson instructions and submit a response by uploading a file.

To see how many students have completed the Matchmaker quiz and reflection, simply navigate to the Completion by Lesson report. Click on the lesson title to view a list of every student assigned to the lesson and their completion statuses. You can also filter the student list and export the data.

Ready to add prerequisites to your custom lessons?

Simply log into your account and navigate to the Lessons feature to get started. 
Prerequisites for custom lessons is the first in a series of enhancements aimed at improving the way in which Xello supports you in tracking and reporting on ILP and mandate requirements. To learn more about using prerequisites and the upcoming enhancements, sign up for an upcoming webinar.
If you have any questions about custom lessons and prerequisites, feel free to contact us at help@xello.world.