This article explains how the Course Progress Bar works — the bar shown for each student in each course that displays Current and Target percentages and "tasks remaining to reach target."
Looking for how your final course grade is calculated? That's covered in a separate article, since grades and progress-bar percentages are calculated differently.
What the bar shows:
The progress bar compares two numbers for each student in each course:
Current: how much of the course's scored work the student has completed so far.
Target: how much of the course's scored work the student should have completed by today, based on their pacing schedule.
For example, "Current 4% (1 of 24), Target 54% (13 of 24)" means the course has 24 scored tasks, the student has completed 1 of them, and a student on pace would have completed 13 by today. The "tasks remaining to reach target" message is simply the difference between the two.
What counts as a scored task
Only tasks that carry points count toward the progress bar:
Warm-ups
Assignments
Quizzes
Exams
The following do not count:
Reading or video lessons with no points attached.
Diagnostic tests. These work differently — if a student passes a diagnostic for a topic, the entire topic is treated as complete, so the student isn't expected to redo the individual tasks it covers.
When a task counts as "completed"
A task counts as completed as soon as the student submits it — it doesn't need to be graded yet. Work that's submitted and waiting for grading still counts toward Current progress. If a teacher overrides a score, the overridden score is the one used.
Note: this only affects the progress bar's Current percentage — it is separate from how the student's overall course grade is calculated.
How the Target is calculated
Every scored task in a course has a target date — the date by which the student is expected to complete it. The Target marker counts how many tasks have a target date that has already passed.
Target dates come from pacing settings, applied in this order of priority:
Individual student pacing (if set)
Section-level pacing
School course pacing
School-wide schedule: if none of the above exist but the school has a term start and end date configured, tasks are spread evenly across school days in the term (skipping weekends and blackout dates if configured)
If no pacing is set up at any level, there's no Target marker — the bar only shows Current progress.
Two things worth knowing:
The Target moves forward automatically over time. As each target date passes, that task is added to the Target count, so the Target percentage grows day by day through the term.
The Target can never fall behind the student. If a student works ahead of schedule, any task they've already submitted is included in the Target count too.
Reading the bar at a glance
Current is at or ahead of Target: the student is on pace or ahead.
Current is behind Target: the student is behind pace. The gap, shown as "tasks remaining to reach target," is how many tasks they need to complete to catch up as of today.
When the numbers update
Progress recalculates automatically whenever something relevant changes: a student submits work, a submission is graded, pacing dates change, or the student's enrollment changes. The Target also advances as dates pass, so a student's Target percentage will rise over the term even if they haven't submitted anything new.
Frequently asked questions
Why doesn't the total match the number of lessons in the course?
Only point-bearing tasks (warm-ups, assignments, quizzes, exams) count. Reading and video lessons without points are excluded, and topics completed via a passed diagnostic are counted differently.
Why did a student's progress jump after passing a diagnostic?
Passing a diagnostic marks the whole topic complete, so all of that topic's expected work is credited at once.
Does submitted work that is pending a grade count?
Yes. A task counts as completed once submitted, even while it's waiting to be graded.
Is this the same as the student's overall course grade?
No. The progress bar tracks completion pace against Target, not grade performance. Overall course grade is calculated separately.