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Learning Plans: Create and Assign a Template

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Overview

This article details how to create a learning plan template in Foundry. We suggest you read this introductory article on Learning Plans first. If you have not yet created and uploaded a learning target set, you must do that before creating a template.

Contents

 

Title the Template

Log in as Admin user and navigate to Learning Plans > Manage Plan Templates:
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Below the instructions, click 'Create Learning Plan Template':
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Then, title your learning plan and select the date range:
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Some considerations for your new template:

  • Let the title and description reflect the purpose for the template ('graduation plan', or '10th grade' plan)
  • Make sure you enter a start and end date for the template and that the date range is supporting the purpose of the plan (e.g., a 'graduation plan' might have a 4 year date range).

IMPORTANT: The date range you select for your template tells Foundry which targets to show as complete on the Performance Page. Learning targets are marked as "complete" on the date they are evaluated.

So if your learning plan ends on October 31, a target completed on November 2 will not show on the Performance page when that learning plan is selected. It is, however, still complete. 

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Populate the template

Now you are ready to start designing your new template. You can only include Subjects in the Learning Target template from the active Learning Target Set.

 

Using the drop down menu, select the plan's Subjects, clicking 'add goal' after each one.

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Set Goals

When you have added all of the subjects to be included in the plan, you then have the option to remove subject groups or individual targets you do not want available in the plan. This may be the case for schools using one of the pre-loaded target sets, for example.

To the right of each subject group and target is a blue 'remove' link. Click this link to remove a subject group from your plan. The targets and groups remain part of the active set and can be re-added at any time.

 

Target and Credit Levels

Once all targets and groups are determined, you can set target requirements at three levels (Subject, Subject Group, and Target), and credit requirements at two levels (Subject and Subject Group):

  • At the Subject level: A number in these cells means students must complete targets and/or credits within the subject, but does not specify a subject group or individual targets. For example, 10 targets at the Subject level means any 10 Social Studies targets - it doesn't matter if they are Civics, Economics, US History, etc.
  • At the Subject Group level: A number in these cells means students must complete targets and/or credits within the subject group, but does not specify which targets. For example, 10 targets in US History means any 10 targets, regardless of the scope or sequence:

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Note: The number of 'total targets' in parentheses after each subject and subject group refers to the total number of targets in the set, not the total number of targets in the plan.

 

  • At the Target level: Here you will select  specific targets to be completed, and the number of times they must be completed. Foundry will add these to the totals from the Subject and Subject Group levels, if you chose them. 

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In the above scenario, students assigned this plan must complete 20 specific targets - 15 in Civics and 5 in Government.

They must also complete 5 targets each in State History, Economics, and Current World Problems, and 10 targets in US History, but they can choose which targets, or whether to repeat targets.

Additionally, they must complete 10 additional targets anywhere in the Social Studies subject.

They must also earn credits in each subject group (3.5 total) and 1 credit anywhere in Social Studies.

The totals of 55 targets and 4.5 credits are summarized below the Subject.

 

To recap, these levels are not mutually exclusive. They can work in whatever combination you choose, depending on the amount of choice you want your students to have. You can designate certain targets and credits that must be completed - at the Target level, the Subject Group level, and the Subject level. 

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Guided Choice and Free Choice

Note: Guided Choice and Free Choice are somewhat advanced Foundry concepts that require a solid understanding of how Learning Plans and Learning Targets/Competencies are captured by them. If you are just getting started in Foundry, we recommend you skip this section for now.

 

Foundry Learning Plans are built to support a wide array of curriculum designs. In addition to setting goals at the target, subject group, and subject levels, schools can also support student goals by enabling Guided Choice and/or Free Choice.

 

Guided Choice

Guided Choice allows schools to choose one or more Subjects from the target set where students can earn targets or credits with greater freedom.

To use Guided Choice, open the menu and check all subjects you want to enable.

Then, set the number of targets and/or credits you want to allow students to earn. Earned targets and credits 'flow upward' from the most specific level to the most general (Target > Subject Group > Subject > Guided Choice).

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Consider the previous learning plan. In Social Studies, the plan requires 5 targets and 0.5 credits in Government, a subject group within Social Studies. For relative simplicity, the following example focuses on targets only, though credits function in the same way:

An aspiring political science student completes those 5 specific targets, then completes 20 more targets within Government (a useful exaggeration, perhaps). No additional 'group targets' are required in Government, but there are 10 additional 'subject targets' in Social Studies. Thus, the first 10 of those 20 additional targets will fulfill the Social Studies requirement.

Because the school has enabled 'Guided Choice' for Social Studies, the next 10 of the Government targets will now count toward (or 'flow into') Guided Choice.

Note that the plan has allotted 80 total Guided Choice targets. The 80 targets can be from any subject checked in the menu. The student now has 70 Guided Choice targets left. They can come from any of the checked subjects, provided the student has completed the target, group, and subject requirements within those subjects.  

Refer to the graphic below 'Free Choice' to visualize the entire scenario.

 

Free Choice

Free Choice is the least restrictive level of target and credit requirement. A school can use Free Choice to count targets and/or credits in any subject, provided all lower-level requirements (Target > Group > Subject > Guided Choice) have been met. 

To use Free Choice, simply designate the number of targets and/or credits students may earn this way. There is no sub-menu for Free Choice:

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Reconsider our aspiring political science student, who by grade 12 has (somehow) completed 40 Government targets, 40 Civics targets, and 50 US History targets. 

From our example above, the first 5 Government targets and 15 Civics targets were required at the target level. 35 Government and 25 Civics targets remain. There were no group requirements for Government or Civics, so those targets would 'flow up' to the Subject level, which required 10 targets.

Foundry will fill the Subject targets in the order they are met, but for our example, we will divide them evenly - 5 and 5. 30 Government targets and 20 Civics targets remain, and all Subject targets are met. All 50 targets can now 'flow up' into 'Guided Choice,' which has 80 total slots for targets (they cannot flow into another group target requirement like US History). 30 slots remain in Guided Choice.

US History required 10 group targets, so that 'bucket' has been 'filled' by the first 10 US History targets. 40 US History targets remain. These targets can flow into Guided Choice, which is now full. All 80 Guided Choice targets have been completed, and 10 US History targets remain.

These 10 targets can now 'flow up' into 'Free Choice,' which has 20 available targets. 10 targets would now remain for 'Free Choice.' Any additional targets earned beyond those 10 which do not not meet other requirements will not count toward completion of a Learning Plan, although Foundry will still record them. 

Refer to the graphic below to visualize the entire scenario:

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Note: It is entirely reasonable to suggest that this student should be completing the group targets in the Social Studies (Economics, State History, etc) before completing more Government targets, or perhaps focusing on other Subject requirements, like Math or Reading. However, this is left to the curriculum designers and advisors to provide adequate guidance so students do not over-exercise this freedom and fall behind on other requirements.

 

 

 

 

Additional Considerations

Repetition

At the target level, you can set the number of times you want students to complete a target:

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Depending on the specificity of your target - Analyze and evaluate key documents, for example - you may want to see it demonstrated multiple times for true proficiency.

Alternately, you might use some other tracking tool outside of Foundry, then designate the target as met once within Foundry. 

You could also use that function for a broader goal - for example, 'read 3 nonfiction books.' If you have a learning target named read 1 nonfiction book, you would set that goal to be completed 3 times.

If you are using a target set with a clearly defined scope and sequence in a more 'traditional' format, like the Common Core Math Standards in a course-based setting, you might expect each target to be met one time in order to fulfill requirements. In this case, simply set the requirements for all targets within a subject group and hit the 'apply' button.

 

Degree

You can also specify which scale mark must be met in order to 'complete' specific targets, or all targets within a particular subject group:

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By default, this option is unchecked, because you have likely set a default mark in your scale manager. If you do not select a completer option at the target level, your Target scale will serve as the default.

These default settings are handled by navigating to Admin > School Settings > Manage Scales (shown below):

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A possible use case for overriding the default would be to differentiate rigor within a mixed-ability classroom. An experience for all students could contain the same targets for all students, but require students working at a higher level to achieve a higher scale mark. This simplifies tracking target completion progress.

Once you have selected and adjusted all Subjects, Groups, and Targets to include in the plan, click 'save' to store the template.

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Assign the Template to Students

You will be returned to the list of Learning Plan Templates for your school. Find the newly added template and click on the 'Assign Students' link. If a plan is already assigned to students, you can click to view the students.

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Note: you can edit an individual student's plan -- or remove it from a student -- from here by clicking the links to the right.

 

To assign the plan, click "Assign Students" and this window opens:

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Select the students to whom you wish to assign the plan. Note that students already assigned the plan will be checked. You can filter by group or use "Select All" to make selecting easier. Click "submit" to assign the plan.

VERY IMPORTANT! The current default setting in Foundry is to select the students to whom the template is already assigned. If you wish to assign that plan to new students but not to the already assigned students, make sure to uncheck their names individually in the selection box or click 'Select None' to the right before assigning the plan. Otherwise, those students who already have the plan assigned will receive a duplicate.

 

 

IMPORTANT: When you assign a Learning Plan to a student, you are actually creating a copy of the Learning Plan template and assigning the copy to your student. This means that if you edit the template, you are not editing individual student copies. You will need to remove the previous copy and reassign the edited copy. Read here for a deeper understanding of how learning plans are assigned.
If this is your only Learning Plan, this will automatically show in the User Profile as the 'default' user plan. If you have more than one plan, You will be able to choose this new plan as the default, when appropriate.

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Customize an individual template

Once assigned, An Admin can edit each student's individual plan. Navigate to Admin > Learning Plans > Manage Individual Plans. Type a student's name to search, and click "edit plan" to customize a plan:

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Be sure to read Learning Plans: A Conceptual Framework for an understanding of how customizing plans affects subsequent assignments. 

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Suggested Reading

Note: Articles linked here under "Suggested Reading" are chosen by Foundry Support team members for their relevance and are updated as needed. The articles listed here may differ from those on the right side of the page, where the Knowlege Base AI lists "Related Articles." 

 

Learning Plans: an Introduction

Learning Plans: a Conceptual Framework

Learning Plans: How to Edit and Reassign a Plan

Create a Target Set: Content or Skills

Labels: Free Choice, Guided Choice, learning_plan, learning plan template,
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