This article provides an overview of Gated Progress, a feature of CLANED® that allows you to control the order in which learners progress through content. You'll find instructions and options for setting up gated progress, as well as three scenarios that illustrate how it can be used in different situations. Learn more about how to keep your learners experience in mind while using this feature!
What is gated progress?
Gated progress is a function that allows you to exercise a degree of control over what contents are mandatory and in what order learners proceed. This can add an additional layer of structure to your learning program and create opportunities for added flexibility in learning while maintaining a core of common knowledge.
Instructions & Options
- In the content tab of your board, click the “gated progress” button
- Select the content you want to include in the gated progression by clicking the check boxes in the upper right corner of each content block.
- On the right side of the screen is a list of all the content added to the gated progression. To arrange the order content must be progressed through in, simply drag and drop the list items. The top being the first content and the bottom being the last content. Content not included in the gated progress means it can be accessed at any point during course of study. When you have the order you want, click “SAVE”.
Keep Your Learners Experience In Mind
While the gated progress function can be used to ensure compliance and that everyone works through all materials in a specified order, it can also be used as a tool to promote intrinsic learner motivation and exploration. Consider paring gated progress with optional or “free choice” content. This way you can ensure a common base of essential learning or knowledge and provide the opportunity for interest-based inquisition and individual learning.
Next, you’ll find a few examples of gated progress scenarios.
Scenario 1: Everything Gated
In this example of a jobsite safety training, we see that all content is gated, meaning that learners must work through all materials in order. There are surprisingly few instances where this approach to structure is a good call, but in a safety training is a good example of the kind of situation where you might want to use this kin of structure. Check the accompanying material to learn more about what to consider and what kind of gating structure is appropriate.
Scenario 2: Assessments Gated
In this example, only the module assessments are Gated, meaning that a learner must successfully complete module quiz 1 before attempting module quiz 2. This provides a more flexible format when it comes to studying course materials – allowing learners to study materials in an order and at a pace of their choosing – but sets out clear and concrete structure and controls on what constitutes acceptable success.
Scenario 3: Common Core Knowledge Gated
In this example is an entrepreneurship and start-up incubator program. It is a wide-ranging topic, and the program creators understand that not all learners will be interested in or find all course materials relevant. Therefore, they have identified what they consider to be “core” or “essential” knowledge that everyone successfully completing the program should be familiar with and used gated progress to control and direct learner activity in relation to these. At the same time, they have left the “optional” content ungated, meaning learners can assess this when ever and in whatever order they choose – providing them a degree of freedom to focus on the elements most interesting and relevant to them.