Creating Student Supports

The Student Support authoring tool allows you as the teacher to create Hints and Explanations for problems and problem parts that will only be visible to students in their classes.  Teacher-authored Student Supports automatically override any existing Student Supports associated with a problem.  To learn more about how to enable Student Supports in ASSISTments, click here. 

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Learn how to create student supports by reading the directions below or watching this video.

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Before you get started with authoring Student Supports, here are some useful tips to help you:

1. Hints:

          a. Pay attention to the language you use. Ensure you are using terminology that students are familiar with                and is aligned with your curriculum.

           b. Use the sequence of hints to build on student knowledge that helps move students forward

           c. Keep it Simple! Use simple sentence structures to ensure that reading the hint doesn’t pose an                additional challenge.

           d. Keep your hints brief and mathematically accurate.

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    2. Explanations:  Explanations must contain the specific answer that you want the student to submit.  They          also contain a walkthrough of how to arrive at the correct answer.  

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     3. Note:  You can either add multiple hints or a single explanation, but not both, to any problem. 

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Start by logging in to your ASSISTments Verified Teacher account and navigating to the problem set to which you want to add Student Supports.   Then, click the triple dot next to any problem for which you would like to create a Student Support and select ‘Edit Student Supports’ to get to the Student Supports edit screen.

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You can navigate between different parts of a problem once you reach the Edit Student Supports screen either by clicking the tabs at the top (Part A, Part B, etc) or clicking ‘Next’ in the bottom right corner.  Note:  You will only be able to edit Student Supports for one problem and its associated parts at a time.  

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If the problem or problem part is an Open Response question, you will not be able to add a Student Support.

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To create a Hint, select ‘+ Add a Hint’ in the Student Supports edit screen.  Type the text of your Hint in the box provided and click Publish once finished.  

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You can add as many hints as you like.  Note: The order in which you create your hints will the be order in which students will receive the hints.

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You can also re-order hints in a problem.  To do this, simply click and drag the hints to reflect the order that you prefer.

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If you want to add an Explanation, select ‘+ Add an Explanation’ on the Student Supports edit screen, then type the text of your Explanation in the box provided and click Publish once finished.  Note:  Explanations must contain the specific answer that you want the student to submit.  They also contain a walkthrough of how to arrive at the correct answer. 

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You can always switch the student support editor to either a hint or explanation.  Note:  If you switch after authoring Hints or an Explanation, your existing Hints or Explanation will be automatically deleted.  

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