Understanding Pathways

Understanding Pathways

• There are two Types of Pathways in Planner: 

  • A Primary Pathway is a direct path to graduation. It includes all of the requirements needed to graduate as mandated by the State or Board of Education.

  • A Secondary Pathway is a specialization path that students can choose based on interest or educational needs. Examples may include a focus on STEM, Health Sciences, ROTC, Culinary Arts, Performing or Visual Arts, etc.

• Pathways have two setup components:

  • Requirements:  a list of all of the courses, subjects, and grade-level requirements needed to complete a Pathway. Pathway requirements are mandatory for both Primary and Secondary Pathways.

    • Refer to Add Pathway Requirements and Edit Pathway Requirements for additional help.

  • Scaffolding:  a visual representation of the grade-level specific requirements within a Primary Pathway. This is the block structure (i.e., scaffolding) students see when they go to My Course Plan to select their Courses. Only Primary Pathways have scaffolding.

    • Refer to Create and Edit Pathway Scaffolding for additional help.

• There are two Types of Requirements:

  • Subject Requirement:  a required subject that can be taken at any time (i.e., 3 Science credits or courses)

  • Grade Requirement:  this requirement must be met at a certain grade level (i.e., English 1 as a 9th grader)

  • It is best practice to add all of the Subject requirements first and then add the Grade requirements. For example, if the Pathway requires 4 English credits to graduate, those are added as Subject requirements. Then you can add a Grade requirement of an English course in grades 9, 10, etc. You can also be more prescriptive by making the requirement be English 1 in 9th grade, English 2 in 10th grade, and so on.

• Each type of Requirement (Subject and Grade) can be either Courses or Credits:

  • Courses:  refers to a specific course (i.e., you need 22 courses to graduate regardless of the number of total credits).

  • Credits:  refers to a number (i.e., each class is worth a certain number of credits and you need a total of 22 credits to complete the Graduation Pathway).

Refer to Getting Started in Course Planner to begin creating Subjects, Courses, and then Pathways.