What are flexible tasks?
Flexible tasks do not have a pre-determined set of questions. Instead, questions are generated as the student progresses through the task.
When setting a flexible task, you choose the subskills or exam practice topics to include, but you do not choose the exact questions. The questions students receive as they work through the task are selected dynamically based on your chosen topics and task settings.
What are the advantages of flexible tasks?
- Automatically differentiate by ability. Depending on the settings you choose, flexible tasks can allow students who are consistently answering questions correctly to progress to more challenging questions, while presenting easier questions to students who are struggling.
- Reduce opportunities for copying. Students will not all receive the same questions in the same order.
- Choose the completion criteria. You can require students to either answer a fixed number of questions or achieve a specified accuracy in order to complete the task.
What should I be aware of when using flexible tasks?
Because flexible tasks are not a pre-determined set of questions, there are a few things to note:
- You cannot save or reuse the exact task. If you want to set it again, you'll need to recreate it by selecting the same skills.
- You cannot preview the questions before students answer them.
- Students cannot jump between questions.
- Students cannot retry only the questions they got wrong. If reattempts are enabled in the task settings, students can reattempt the task, but they will get an entirely new set of questions from the same skill selection, rather than being able to simply reattepmt the exact questions they previously answered incorrectly.
How do I set a flexible task?
From the menu, navigate to the Question Explorer page.
Choose the course you would like (or the All Skills course) on the left hand side of the page.
Select the subskills or exam practice you want to include. You can choose content from different units and modules in the course.
- Exam Practice is denoted by a number only (e.g. 133: Exam Practice: Function machines).
- Subskills (Question Generators) are denoted by a number followed by a letter (for example, 133b: Calculate the input of a one-step function machine).
Note: If your selection contains both exam practice and subskills, you will not be able to create a flexible task.
As you make your selection, the Your selection panel on the right-hand side will show everything that will be included in the task.
You can use the Example button on any subskill to view an example of the question, and the Browse button on any exam practice to view the selection of exam questions we have available for that topic.
Once you have selected the skills, press the blue Set a Task button.
Review your selected skills, choose Flexible Questions, then select Continue.
When setting the flexible task, you can choose between these two options:
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Fixed number of questions - Students answer a set number of questions to complete the task. With this option, you can set the task with differentiation, interleaving, or neither.
Differentiation: The student's starting question is based on their current mastery value (see What are mastery and points, and how do I view them?). From there, as the student gets different questions right and wrong, their mastery for each skill goes up and down, and this is what determines which question will come up next. If they keep getting the questions correct for a certain skill, then they will be shown more challenging questions for that skill. If they struggle, the questions will become easier.
Interleaving: Questions from your selected skills are presented in a mixed order, rather than showing all the questions from one skill before moving on to the next.
Neither: Questions are presented in the order you selected the skills.
Accuracy required to finish - Students continue answering questions until they reach the required level of accuracy for every subskill. With this option, you can set the task either with or without interleaving.
Once you have chosen your preferred options, click Set to set the task.