Add Skills Practice (Creating AR 360 Skills Practice Assignments)

Next, you will download and fill in a Microsoft Word template to create skills practice assignment. Follow these steps:

1. First, select Create Skills Practice Items.
   
2. In the Import Skills Practice window, select Download Skills Practice Template under "Step 1".
   
   

   The options that you see when you click the Download link depend on your browser and operating system. On Windows computers, in many cases the file can be seen at the bottom of the browser window as it is downloaded, and you can click the file name there to open it; if not, the file is put in the Downloads folder (or opened in Microsoft Word if you have chosen to do that). On Macintosh computers, the file is either placed on the Desktop or in the Downloads folder; the browser may give you the option to open it.

3. Open the file. Make sure that you are using a version of Microsoft Word that supports .docx format. You may need to select Enable Editing at the top of the window to begin working in the file.
   
   

   Microsoft Word 2007 or above is required to create skills practice assignments. Note that Microsoft Word Online is not compatible.

4. If you have not created a skills practice assignment before with the template, read the information at the beginning of the file.
5. You can add instructions for the beginning of the skills practice assignment by entering them in the field. (Instructions are not required, so you can leave them blank.) This can help give your students a better understanding of the focus or purpose of the assignment and what they should be looking for as they read the article.
   
6. Now, you can add the items that you want on your skills practice assignment. For each item, you must first check the type of item that you want to add and then fill in the information. You can only check one type of item for each item number. A typical assignment might include one or more Highlight and Tag items and then Show You Know Questions. For some assignments, you may also want to include a link to a web page or video.
   • Highlight and Tag items ask students to highlight text and then choose the appropriate tag for that text. For example, you may want your students to find examples of cause and effect and to tag text "cause" or "effect" in those examples. If you check this type of item, first, enter instructions to tell your students what type of text to find and tag . Then, enter the name of the tag that you want students to see when they have selected text in the article (such as Main Idea or Cause or Effect) . Finally, enter the exemplar response , which teachers will see during scoring to help them evaluate the students' responses. For this type of item, the exemplar response would include the text in the article that you would expect the student to highlight and tag.
     
   • Show You Know: Enter a question that you would like to ask the student that shows that the student understands the related skill. If you have included Highlight and Tag items, the question might ask students why they chose the text they did, or how it meets the criteria for the tag. You can also enter an exemplar response that teachers will see while scoring students' answers to this question.
     
   • Web or Video Link: In this type of item, you enter a link to a web page or a video that you want the student to watch. Enter instructions; then, enter the URL or address of the link. This type of item is not scorable.
     
   You can enter up to six items. For each item, make sure that only one type is checked and filled in to avoid problems when you upload the file.
7. When you are done, save the Microsoft Word file, using a name that will make it easy to find the file.
8. There are two ways to upload your quiz file:
   • You can drag the file from the folder on your computer into the dashed box in the Import Skills Practice window.
     
   • You can select click to browse your computer and select the file.
     
9. Select Import Skills Practice at the bottom of the window.
10. The skills practice assignment file will be uploaded. When the process is done, you will see a message to tell you that the assignment was created successfully. Select OK to close the message and the window. A message under the "Add Skills Practice" heading will tell you that skills practice items have been imported.
    
    

    When you select Import Skills Practice, you may see one of these errors:

    • At least one question must be entered in the template. This means that you have not filled in all of the required fields for at least one item.
    • There is at least one incomplete item in the template. You have not filled in some of the required information for one of the items.
    • Only one item type checkbox per item may be checked. For each item, you must check just one of the item types (Highlight and Tag, Show You Know, or Web or Video Link). When you see this message, one of the items has two boxes checked.
    • An unsupported character was found. Check the file for unusual or unintended characters; then, save it and upload it again.

    After you upload the file, you can select Delete if you need to delete the file and upload a different one. (You can also drag in or select the new file and choose to replace the old.) You can only upload one file per skills practice assignment.

11. Select Continue > at the top of the page to go to the next step in creating the assignment.