Read the Step-by-Step Grid
The grid gives every published Lesson a row and every step a column, so instead of knowing that a Lesson is going badly you can see the one step that is causing it, and this article covers the columns, the sorting, and how to tell a genuinely difficult step from a merely popular one.
Why read the grid rather than the totals?
A Lesson-level number tells you something is wrong and leaves you to guess where. The grid does not.
Every published Lesson gets a row. Every step gets a column. The cell where they meet is how often Learners got that step wrong. So instead of knowing that a Lesson is performing badly, you can see that step 2 is fine, step 3 is fine, and step 4 is where Learners come off. That is a fixable problem rather than a worrying number.
What are the columns?
Column |
What it holds |
|---|---|
| Lesson Name | The Lesson, with its Module underneath. The name is a link and a menu sits beside it. |
| Version | The Lesson version the row refers to. |
| Total Incorrect | Every incorrect action recorded across all of that Lesson's steps. |
| Total Attempts | How many times the Lesson has been attempted. |
| Step 1 to Step 30 | One column per step. Lessons are different lengths, so each row fills only the steps it has. |
How do you read a step cell?
Cell shows |
What it means |
|---|---|
| A figure and a See Heatmap link | Learners have attempted this step, and the figure is how often they got it wrong. It is a percentage or a raw count depending on the View As setting. |
| 0 Actions | The step has been attempted and no incorrect actions were recorded. |
| -- | This Lesson has no step in that position. |
The figure is colored by severity, green through yellow to red, so you can scan a row for red rather than reading every number.
How do you read Total Incorrect against Total Attempts?
Always together. This is the judgment the grid asks you to make, and it is the one most easily got wrong.
A high Total Incorrect on a Lesson with very high Total Attempts is often just volume. Plenty of Learners have worked it, so plenty of mistakes have accumulated, and the rate may be perfectly healthy.
The same Total Incorrect on a Lesson with few attempts is a much stronger signal. A small group is generating a lot of errors, which points at the content rather than at the sample size.
Best practice: Sort by Total Incorrect to bring the worst Lessons to the top, then read the Total Attempts beside each one before deciding which to investigate. The Lesson at the top of the list is not automatically the Lesson in the most trouble.
How do you sort the grid?
Every column header carries a sort control, including each of the thirty step columns. Click it to sort by that column, and click it again to reverse the order.
Sorting by Total Incorrect in descending order is the usual starting point. Sorting by an individual step column is useful when you already suspect a particular step and want to see which Lessons share the problem.
What can you do from the Lesson Name?
Three things.
Control |
What it does |
|---|---|
| The Lesson name | Opens the Lesson Versions Dashboard for that Lesson, where the same step data is broken down by published version. |
| Edit on the menu beside it | Opens the Lesson for editing. |
| Preview on the menu beside it | Opens the Lesson as a Learner sees it. |
Best practice: Use Preview before you use Edit. Working through the step yourself as a Learner does, immediately after seeing that it is red, is usually faster at explaining the number than reading the step's configuration.
Where do you go from a problem step?
Click See Heatmap in the cell. That opens the Heatmap Viewer for that step and shows where on the screen Learners actually tapped, which is the difference between knowing a step fails and knowing why.
FAQ
Most of my row is dashes. Is something missing? No. The grid always shows thirty step columns and each Lesson fills only the steps it has, so a short Lesson is mostly dashes.
Two rows have the same Lesson name. The same Lesson can appear more than once when it exists in more than one place in the curriculum. Check the Module underneath the name to tell them apart.
A step is red but only a handful of Learners reached it. The color reflects the proportion, not the volume. Check Total Attempts on that row before acting.
Can I sort by a step column? Yes. Every column sorts, including the step columns.
Why is Total Incorrect high when every step looks green? Green is a low rate, not zero. A long Lesson with a low rate on every step still accumulates a meaningful total, which is why the two numbers are read together.
What is in the Version column? The Lesson version the row refers to. To compare versions against each other, open the Lesson Versions Dashboard by clicking the Lesson name.
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