Series task

Use a series task when several questions depend on the same material: a short passage, a data set, the description of an experiment. Students read it once and answer everything beneath it, and you see their answers together.

A useful pairing is a choice question followed by a free-text question asking why. The first checks the answer, the second shows the thinking behind it.

1. In a worksheet, use the + between two items and choose Series task.

2. Click the pencil to open it and write the shared text at the top. Put everything the questions rely on here, for example “Mia goes to school by bike.”

3. Use the + inside the series to add the questions one after another. Any question type can go in, and so can a text or an image that explains something along the way.

4. Open each question with its own pencil and set it up as you would anywhere else: the options and the correct answer for a choice question, just the question for a free-text answer.

5. Click the tick when you are done.

Students see the shared text with its questions underneath and answer each question where it sits. Each one works exactly as it would on its own: a choice question is checked straight away, and if the presentation shows feedback, the student sees at once whether they were right. A free-text answer is saved for you to read.

Open Results on the series to see every student's answers to all of its questions together, so you can read an explanation next to the choice it explains. Questions with a correct answer are marked automatically. Free-text answers are not marked automatically; they wait for you, for example in the Grading Dashboard.

• If you change the shared text later, check that every question still matches it.

• Go from recall to reasoning: choose first, explain second.

• Keep a series to two to four questions on one text. A longer set is easier to follow split into two series.