Creating assignments in LEAP

Creating a new assignment

From your Courses page, select the course you want to work in, then click the "Assignments" button

A screenshot of the MAT tool illustrating the Courses page and the button to click to access the Assignments page. The row with the Calculus course is highlighted in yellow, and the button in the middle column labeled Assignments is circled in red

This will open your Assignments page. Click the blue button in the upper right corner labeled "New Assignment"

A screenshot of the MAT tool showing the Assignments page for a course. The button in the upper-right corner of the screen, labeled "New Assignment" is circled in red

A right side drawer opens to set the assignment settings. The Name and Due Date fields are required on all assignments. Due dates provide a sorting order to the Student Checklist that users will see for your course; they are otherwise unenforced by LEAP. This means that students will still be able to access the assignment and work on it even after the due date and time have passed.
After setting the name and due date, click the blue "Submit" button in the lower right corner to save the assignment (if you wish, you can also adjust the settings for the assignment at this stage, see the section on Assignment settings below).

A screenshot of the MAT tool showing the New Assignment drawer. At the top, there is a text input field for entering the name of the assingnment. Below that is the date/time widget for setting the due date on the assignment.

After clicking submit, you will be routed back to the Assignments page, where your new assignment will now appear in the table. For each assignment in the table, you have the following options:
- Build: add questions to your assignment
- Results: see a list of student scores for the assignment, with links to view individual student's results. See the Results page for more information.
- Link: Clicking on this button will copy a direct link for student's use to that particular assignment. You can also use this link to preview and test your own assignments.
- Three-dots menu: Change the settings or delete the assignment

A screenshot of the MAT tool illustrating the options available in the table on the Assignments page. The following features are circled in red for the highlighted assignment row:The third column in a row has a button labeled Build which opens the Assignment builder page. The fourth column contains a button labeled Results which leads to the student results page for that assignment. The fifth column has a button with a link symbol for copying the link to the assignment for your students to the clipboard, and the far right column has a 3-dots menu for changing the settings of an assignment

Assignment Settings

The settings menu for an assignment can be accessed when first creating a new assignment, from within the Build page, or by clicking on the three-dots menu for the assignment on the Assignments page.
The function of each setting numbered in the image is described in the sections that follow.

A screenshot of the MAT tool showing the Settings drawer for an assignment. The available toggles are numbered from top to bottom as follows: The toggle labeled "Same assignments for eveyone" is number 1, below that the toggle labeled "One question at a time" is number 2, followed by the toggle labeled "Allow multiple attempts" which is number 3, and finally the toggle labeled "Restrict student result view" is labeled 4.

Same assignment for everyone

There are two sources of variation within an assignment: question variation and item selection variation

Question variation: Questions written in doenetML usually generate random numerical variants which are presented to the students by default. If this toggle is checked, a single variant is selected from those available and all users will see the same numerical values in each question for a given attempt. Variation will still occur between attempts, but each student's attempt #1 will have the same numerical values, as well as each student's attempt #2, and so on.
Selection variation: When adding questions from an item bank, you can choose to select a question or questions at random from a bank with multiple items. By default, students will then have different selections of questions from each other, as well as from attempt to attempt. If this toggle is checked, the selection will only occur once and will persist for all students. Variation will still occur between attempts, but each student's attempt #1 will have the same selection, as well as each student's attempt #2, and so on.

One question at a time

By default, assignments with multiple questions will show the questions together on a single continuous page. If this toggle is checked, each question is displayed on a separate page, with navigation buttons for students to progress forward and back through the questions. If you find that an assignment is loading slowly in LEAP, checking this toggle may solve the problem.

3. Allow multiple attempts

By default students are only allowed a single attempt at an assignment. If this toggle is checked, instructors can select a specific number of attempts, or infinite attempts. Instructors are also allowed to select whether the highest score of all attempts or the most recent score of all attempts is used for grading purposes.

A screenshot of the MAT tool illustrating the options available when the "Allow multiple attempts" toggle is selected. These options are labeled: "Score to keep" which has a drop-down menu, and "Allowed attempts" which has a drop-down menu for specifying number of attempts allowed

4. Restrict student result view

This setting toggle has multiple subsettings to explore. By default, students will see all solutions, feedback, and hints written within the question, and they will also see whether they answered each question correctly or incorrectly after submitting each individual question's "Check Work" button.

Advice regarding Solutions: Solutions have a unique behavior in how they impact a student's scores. If a student clicks on a solution to view it before answering a question, they will receive no points for that question. If they click to view a solution after answering a question, their score will not be affected. It is recommended that you Restrict viewing of solutions unless you explain clearly to students how they work to avoid confusion. Solutions are always visible regardless of settings in the student's Results page (as long as they are provided in the question's source code).

If the "Restrict student result view" toggle is clicked, the instructor can choose to place restrictions on the visibility of one or more of the following: solutions, feedback, hints, and question correctness. For formative assignments such as homework, we recommend NOT showing solutions and ALWAYS showing correctness. These recommended best-practices for formative assignments are illustrated in the section below.

Recommended Settings for Formative Assignments

The following recommendations are based directly on our observations of what has worked best for previous students using LEAP. For more information on the different settings available for assignments, see the section above on Assignment settings.

A screenshot of the MAT tool showing the Settings drawer for an assignment. This image has captions illustrating the recommended settings for each toggle for the best student experience. They are as follows, from the top down: Select the "One question at a time" toggle for best load times. Below that, select "Allow multiple attempts" so that students are not locked out after a single attempt. Finally, select "Restrict student result view" and click "Hide Solution" which prevents students from accidentally clicking on the solution and losing credit for a problem.

User Tip:

To avoid having to adjust settings on each assignment individually, you can use the "Set As Default" button in the lower left corner of the settings drawer.

Add questions directly to an assignment

To add content to an assignment, click on the "Build" button corresponding to the assignment on your Assignments page

A screenshot of the MAT tool with the Assignments page shown. The highlighted assignment row shows the button in the "Build" column circled in red. This is the fourth column to the right

Once in the Assignment Builder page, click the "Add Question" button in the upper right corner of the screen

A screenshot of the MAT tool illustrating the Assignment Builder page. There is a button labeled "Add Question" immediately to the left of the Preview button in the upper right corner. This is circled in red

A drawer opens to the right as shown below. The Name and Code fields are required. Questions default to 10 points each; this can be adjusted in the points field. (Note, this question score takes precedence over the number of answer blanks for credit in your source code. So, if your doenetML source has 2 equally weighted answer blanks, LEAP will assign 5 points to each.)

A screenshot of the MAT tool illustrating the Add Question drawer. At the top there is a text input field for entering the name of the question. Below that is a numerical input field for entering the points value, and then below that is a text input field for entering the problem's source code. At the bottom right corner there is a button for submitting the question.

LEAP questions are written with doenetML source code, a free and open-source xml language for writing interactive mathematical content. Examples of questions written in doenetML can be found at doenet.org.
For more information on authoring new questions in doenetML, see the doenet documentation.
To transfer a question from doenet.org to LEAP, simply click the "See Inside" button while viewing any content on the doenet website, copy the text in the editor that opens up, and paste it into the Code field in LEAP. Here is an example of what the source code for a question looks like:

A screenshot of the external authoring website doenet.org. There are two views shown: In the upper left view, an example of a problem is shown with the button to "See Inside" circled in red in the upper right corner. Below and to the right there is a view of the page that opens when the "See Inside" button is clicked. This is a two-panel view of the same problem, with the source code visible on the right panel. This region is circled, with the caption "Select All with Cntrl+A or Cmd+A then copy source code into MAT"

Once you have copied the doenetML for your question, return "Add Question" tab in LEAP and paste it into the Code field. Then, click the blue Submit button in the lower right hand corner.

A screenshot of the MAT tool illustrating the "Add question" drawer with the copied source-code pasted into the "code" field. This region is circled in red with the text caption "Copy source code into Code field in MAT, then click Submit".

Your question will now be rendered in the Assignment Builder preview.
- Note, your assignment's settings may affect how the question is rendered. In this example, we have "Hide Solutions" selected in LEAP (recommended for formative assignments), therefore the solution does not show up in this preview (although it is visible on the Doenet website).

A screenshot of the MAT tool showing the Assignment Builder page. There is a question rendered in the body of the page

Add questions from an item bank to an assignment

Coming soon! Item banks are currently only available to LEAP administrators.

Previewing assignments

The best way to preview assignments is to use the direct link provided in the Assignments table. When you open this link, the tool behaves as if you were a student, and you can test-take the assignment, submit it, and obtain results the same way a student would see them. However, since you are enrolled in the database as an instructor, the results will not appear when you download course grades, and the assignment will not become locked for editing (as it would after a student accesses the assignment).

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