Tips on the Content

From TeacherWiki

• There are some do's and dont's in ASSISTments building. This page is designed to help you make the best content you can.

• Once you build an ASSISTment you must make a problem set in order to give it to a student.

An ASSISTment is made up of Three parts:

Contents 1 The Question 2 The Answer 2.1 Fill In 2.2 Algebra 2.3 Multiple Choice 3 The Tutoring

The Question

• Since we don't have units (hopefully we will someday) you have to ask the question so that it implies units.
• You can upload an image to your questions. I recommend doing as much of the work with typing not images since you can go back and make edits later if it is text. Images have to be changed.
• I try not to use bold and color in the questions since I want the students to read and do that themselves I leave the color and bold for the tutoring.

The Answer

There are three different answer type normally used:

Fill In

This means the students answer must match exactly! so if you put in 1/2 the student must put in 1/2 not 1 / 2 or .5 or 3/6.

When is this useful

• if you want students to reduce a fraction, just tell them no spaces
• if you are doing dictation and want them to spell words correctly. This could also be used for vocab. The question is the definition and they have to type the word. Tell them all lower case.

Algebra

This means that ASSISTments will do the math for the student so that an answer that is equivalent to the one imputed by the creator will be marked correct.

• Note: ASSISTments does not work with equations as an answer. DO not put and "=" in the answer section.
  • There is a work around however. If a student puts an "=" in their answer then the system only reads what comes after the "=". Therefore if you ask for an answer in the form y = ________ the student can either imput the equation with the expression that will match the answer after the "=" or just the expression that goes in the _______. See: as an example.

• Note: If you are asking for a variable make sure the student knows what letter to use. The letter must match the one in the answer field.

• Be aware that a student can put in an expression instead of the answer. If you are asking for the supplement of 45 the student can type in 180-45 and it will be correct. I actually think that is a fantastic pre-algebra skill and would even be a boon to other kids who see the answer 180-45 instead of 135 in the answer field of the item report.

Multiple Choice

• Use multiple Choice for True False
• Use it to just move on, for example do multiple choice and just one answer like "I have read the instructions and am ready to get to work"
• Don't feel constrained to use just 4 answers there is no bubble sheet here.
• If you want an image in the multiple choice field you will have to put it in the problem, label the images A,B,C,D and then just put A, B, C, D in the answer boxes under Multiple Choice.

The Tutoring

Unless you do multiple choice you NEED to add some form of tutoring for the student to exit the problem if they can not get the answer. Say the answer is 45 and the student can not get it at all!!

• The easiest thing to do is to add a hint. If you want to do more add scaffolding.
  • To add a hint. Go to the bottom of the page. Select New strategy, give your strategy a name and then make it a Hint Strategy. Then add hints. Make the first one say "There is no tutoring in the problem select hint again to get the answer" and then add in the answer in the second hint. DO this because kids hate to get the answer in the first hint.
  • Then you will see when you preview the problem that the student will either get the problem right and be told Correct and move on, or get it wrong and be told so and then they can try over and over again until they either get it right on their own or have to click on the hint button twice and get the answer, put it in and then go on.
  • The neat thing about this method is that on the item report the teacher will see three different types of students .
    • 1. The student who gets it right on the first try. (this will have a green check)
    • 2. The student who gets it right on their own (this will have an x but not be yellow or
    • 3. The student who gets it wrong (a red check) and has to look at the answer to move on (a yellow box).

• The other thing you can do assuming you don't want to tell the answer is to make a scaffold question that allows the student to exit using multiple choice.
  • To add a scafold. Go to the bottom of the page. Select New Strategy, give your strategy a name and then make it a Scaffold Strategy. Then Add the scaffold that says "You did not get this problem correct. We will discuss it in class. Make sure you ask about it." Then add ONE multiple Choice answer that says "I will ask about this in class" (or whatever you want).
  • Then you will see when you preview it that the student will either get the problem right and be told Correct (something that will unfortunately not happen in test mode), or get it wrong and go to the scaffold question and click on "I will ask about this in class" and then go on to the next problem.