Introduction

You may have seen there is a "Recommendation Source" in Dash, and you may be wondering what it means. Well, we got you covered!

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Starting on November 19th, 2023, students are now able to see the source of their lesson recommendations. Previously, only Guides and admins had access to this.

You can find additional information about recommendations and the technical aspect of things in the article Understanding recommendations in Dash. 

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What is "Recommendation Source"?

This basically lets you know where the recommendation came from.

What are the different recommendation sources?

• App Roster: These are links to take you to your learning apps so that you can manually locate and start working on your available skills there. This is only used for apps where we can't share a direct link to every individual lesson.

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This means this source is for non-deep-linked apps only.
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• Academics Testing: These might be links to Edulastic mastery tests, Renaissance tests, or IXL Diagnostics. There might also be other tests that our teachers and the academics team think are important for us to try. These tests help us show what we've learned and understand new things better!
• Academics: These are assigned by our Academics Team to help you with skills for which the Skill Plan may not be enough.

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Usually added by the Academics Team (hence the name), any recommendations added (or overridden) through the Skills Override App will have this source. 
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• Knowledge Gap: These are assigned to reinforce your knowledge after test coaching, or when the Alpha teams identify that manually adding some extra skills will help you make progress, so you can learn better what you need the most. It's very important to work on them, but there's a catch: If you have completed them before, they will not count again as mastered levels. Make sure to learn your skills very well the first time!

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Used to help students fix knowledge holes identified at any point, but most commonly due to post-test coaching. Any recommendations added via the Manual Suggestions Sheet will have this source. Be aware that Guides may refer to them as "scaffolding skills", although this is not the official term for them. 
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• Skill Plan: This is the most common type. These are the essential skills on your plan that Alpha built for you depending on your Grade!
• Supporting: Assigned automatically to help you when you have been doing your best (no Anti-Patterns), but a lesson is too hard for you (2 days without mastering the skill after complete 25 minutes learning sessions).

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The criteria to define a student as struggling are:

• They have spent more than 2 sessions totaling at least 50 minutes in the skill.
• They haven't reached mastery for the skill.
• They have committed no Anti-Patterns in any of the sessions.

If the criteria are met, the "Supporting Skills" predefined in the Skill Plan for the troublesome skill will be automatically added to Dash (see Understanding the Skill Plan for instructions on how to check the predefined Supporting Skills for any given skill). If you are certain that the criteria were met and that Supporting Skills exist for the skill on which the student is struggling, but they were not added to Dash after the next recommendations refresh, escalate the issue to the Learning Team.  

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Conclusion

There are many different recommendation sources, but don't worry! For you, nothing changes too much; just work them as usual and do your best to learn effectively! Consult with your Guide or Contact Support if you have questions or issues.

 

FAQs

• What is "Recommendation Source"? This tells you where your skill on Dash came from.
• What are the different ones? You will usually see Skill Plan, App Roster, Knowledge Gap, Supporting, or Academics.
• Do I need special instructions for a skill depending on its Recommendation Source? No, just work on them as usual, always doing your best!
• What is the most common Recommendation Source? Skill Plan, as they are the main ones for your regular courses.