Activities | Fill the gaps

Modified on: Thu, 21 Dec 2023 4:10 PM

Activities with "Fill the gaps" allow students to complete texts filling blank fields.
This type of activity is divided in three areas:

A. Wording area. It includes a sample text by default, but other components like images, audios, and videos can be added as well.

B. Answer area. This field is used to write a text including gaps for words that students must insert to complete them.

C. Feedback. It is possible to configure some positive feedback and negative feedback related to questions. Apart from text, feedback can also include an image.

Setup process

Step 1. Set up activity properties
Step 2. Set up the wording
Step 3. Set up the answer area
Step 4. Advanced layout design: how to add columns
Step 5. Configure feedback

Step 1. Set up activity properties

After adding the activity, go to the "Properties" tab and configure them:

PROPERTY	DESCRIPTION
*Title*	Activity title.
*Mastery*	Score required to mark activities as complete and get a positive feedback. Getting a 100% score is required by default. The following formula is used to calculate scores for Fill the gap activities: number of correct options / total number of options. For example, if an activity has 5 options or gaps and students choose 3 correct options: 3/5= 0,6 = 60%.
*Weight*	This property is only avaliable with a quiz with a "Quiz" view. All the questions have the same weight by default, but we can modify how much a question counts towards the final score. See here to know how to calculate quiz scores depending on the weight of each question included in the quiz.
*Attempts*	This is only applied when we add questions within a quiz with an "Activity block" view (see here). This property allows indicating the number of attempts available to complete the activity.If you want unlimited attempts, write "0" attempts. (It will only be finished after overcoming the activity).
*Distinguish upper case/lower case*	This property allows us to determine if students should distinguish between upper case and lower case when writing. The options are: *No:* With this option, it does not matter whether students use upper case or lower case. So, they can write "house", "HOUSE", hOUSE", "House", etc. For example, for proper names these types of spellings are accepted: "New York", "new york", "new York", "NEW YORK"... This makes completing activities easier for students, as they do not need to pay attention to spelling rules. *Yes:* With this option, students must write words with an exact spelling (the same spelling used when editing). For example, if we want students to write "New York", they should spell it that way; no variations will be admitted ("new york", "new York", etc). This option is useful when spelling accuracy is important for student assessment.
*Distinguish accents*	This property allows choosing if it is required to write word(s) using correct accent marks. *No:* With this option, presence or absence of accent marks will not be penalised. So, the word "canción" (which means "song" in Spanish) will also be admitted without its accent mark "cancion". *Yes:* With this option, students must write words exactly as described in wordings. So, the word "canción" will only be admitted if written with accent mark.
*Ignore special characters*	This field allows us to indicate the special characters that are not considered when marking an answer as valid. So, we could ignore full stops, commas and similar characters. If students wrote "I want this, but can't have it.", we could consider that there is no need to include a full stop or a comma. So, the option "I want this but can't have it" would be admitted.

Step 2. Set up the wording

1. Write a text for the wording of the question (see here setup options available for texts).

2. Optionally, you can add more components within the wording. Make sure you select the wording (you will easily find it with the breadcrumb trail) before going to the "Add" tab and include the components you need.

Step 3. Set up the answer area

3. There is a text field below the wording. You should write the phrase or content that we want to include. Then, put the cursor over the text area where you want to add a gap. Go to the text editor, click on the "Components" menu and add an "Option". A gap is automatically added inside the text.

4. We can configure options clicking on each gap and going to the "Properties" tab to adjust the following fields:

PROPERTY	DESCRIPTION
*Correct*	We should use this property to indicate the right word that students must use to fill the gap. It is important to say that students must write exactly what is written inside this field; otherwise, their answer will not be marked as correct. However, this rule will not be applied if we have decided the lack of accent marks is not penalised. If we want to offer more than one correct option, we should write options separated by two characters \|\| (key combination for this is Ctrl+Alt+1). For example:
*View*	By default, all blank spaces appear with a *"Normal"* view, that is, each gap has the same size of the word replaced by it. If we want to edit this size, we select the *"Editable width"* view. So, if we leave gaps as they are shown by default (*"Normal"* view), we will be giving hints about the size of word(s) that students need to use. However, we could avoid this using the *"Editable width"* view to leave the same blank space for every gap.
*Size (number of letters)*	This property is enabled if we choose the *"Editable width"* "View". We will adjust the gap size. This is measured according to the number of letters. So, for the word "team", its minimum width would be 4.

PROPERTY

DESCRIPTION

Correct

We should use this property to indicate the right word that students must use to fill the gap. It is important to say that students must write exactly what is written inside this field; otherwise, their answer will not be marked as correct. However, this rule will not be applied if we have decided the lack of accent marks is not penalised.
If we want to offer more than one correct option, we should write options separated by two characters || (key combination for this is Ctrl+Alt+1). For example:

View

By default, all blank spaces appear with a "Normal" view, that is, each gap has the same size of the word replaced by it. If we want to edit this size, we select the "Editable width" view.

So, if we leave gaps as they are shown by default ("Normal" view), we will be giving hints about the size of word(s) that students need to use. However, we could avoid this using the "Editable width" view to leave the same blank space for every gap.

Size (number of letters)

This property is enabled if we choose the "Editable width" "View". We will adjust the gap size. This is measured according to the number of letters. So, for the word "team", its minimum width would be 4.

Step 4. Advanced layout design: how to add columns

Normally wordings and texts are enough to configure activities correctly, but sometimes we want to add especial elements (images, audios, etc.) and create more complex layout designs. We can add "Columns" to create these layouts.Columns can be inserted anywhere: after wordings, after answer options, etc.

Within a column, we can add different elements: images audios, videos, texts, etc. From the "Properties" tab, we can configure properties like "Size", "Offset" and "It's the last column".

PROPERTY	DESCRIPTION
*Size*	Columns occupy 12 spaces inside screens by default (100% of available space). We can modify the number of spaces occupied by columns (1-12) to create different layouts: 2 columns (6 spaces each), 3 columns (4 spaces each), etc.
*Offset*	This option allows creating a breaking space on the left of the column (1-12 spaces). This way we can insert spaces between columns.
*It's the last column*	This property allows marking an option as the last one within a row. This means that the second column will be placed below the first column, so that the third column appears as the last one within the row. This example shows that more options could have been included in the first row, but we have decided to insert them in the next row.

PROPERTY

DESCRIPTION

Size

Columns occupy 12 spaces inside screens by default (100% of available space). We can modify the number of spaces occupied by columns (1-12) to create different layouts: 2 columns (6 spaces each), 3 columns (4 spaces each), etc.

Offset

This option allows creating a breaking space on the left of the column (1-12 spaces). This way we can insert spaces between columns.

It's the last column

This property allows marking an option as the last one within a row. This means that the second column will be placed below the first column, so that the third column appears as the last one within the row. This example shows that more options could have been included in the first row, but we have decided to insert them in the next row.

Use of columns allows creating complex layouts. For example, we could add various audios and texts to complete. The example below shows two columns. Each column occupies 5 spaces and includes an audio file and a text where students need to fill the blanks. Furthermore, offset for the second column is "1", which allows leaving some space between both columns.

Step 5. Configure feedback
Finally, we write the texts of positive and negative feedback to finish the setup.As you can see, the text can be replaced by an image.If you do not want to include any feedback, you can delete it.

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