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Use Tables on Advanced Assessments
Use Tables on Advanced Assessments

How to use tables in your Advanced Assessment items and questions.

Monica Burke avatar
Written by Monica Burke
Updated over a week ago

Have you started building an Advanced Assessment and want to incorporate tables? Maybe you need a table to enter information that students will need to answer a question. Or, maybe you want students to fill in missing information into a table. This article will outline how to accomplish both!

Add to Question Stem

  • Students use the table as a visual

Add to Response Area

  • Students fill in parts of the table.


Add to Question Stem

ALL question types (other than Desmos) can include a table in the stem, meaning, you can build a table into the content of the question, where students can use it as a visual. Navigate through the various options and choose a question type. The example we'll work with here is a standard multiple choice question.

  • Step 1: Once you click into the Compose Question field, the Rich Text Toolbar will appear. Select the Table icon.

  • Step 2: The default table properties will appear. To learn more about the table properties, check out the Table Properties section. Once you've set the properties, select OK. Note - you can edit the table properties later.

  • Step 3: The table will appear in the question, and you can begin adding content to the table. If the table's style does not work for your needs, make sure to check out the Table Properties section!


Add to the Response Area

These four questions allow you include tables where students fill in the information:

  • Students type answers into the cells. (Looking for math specific? Check out Cloze Math).

  • Students choose from a dropdown menu in cells.

  • Students drag and drop information into cells.

  • Students type math answers into cells.

⬆️ All four of the above question types follow the same process for adding tables. Use the steps below for any Cloze with Text, Cloze with Drop Down, Cloze with Drag and Drop, or Cloze Math question.

  • Step 1: After choosing one of the question types above, click into the Compose Question field; the toolbar will appear. Select the Table icon.

  • Step 2: The default table properties will appear. To learn more about the table properties, check out the Table Properties section. Once you've set the properties, select OK.

  • Step 3: Once the table looks the way you want it to, add response boxes where the students will need to fill in information. Click into any cell and then select the Insert Response button on the toolbar.

  • Step 4: As shown above, add the correct answer in the Set correct answer(s) section for any response boxes you add.

Looking for scoring information? Click on any of the links below to see scoring information for that question type.


Table Properties: Table Styles

There are endless ways to customize the tables you add into Advanced Assessment questions, including:

Recommended Table Styles

  • The default table styles typically do not fit the needs of the assessment question. For this reason, we have some recommended table properties to start with. To investigate even more customization, head to the next section.

All Table Styles

  • Read below to see a description of all available table styles. Compare each to the default as shown here to see how each style choice impacts the design of the table.

Headers (recommended):

  • The first row, column, or both become headers.

Condensed:

  • The height of the rows decreases. This will make the table more compact vertically.

Striped

  • All rows are shaded in alternate grey tones.

Hover

  • Enables a hover state on a row within the body of the table.

Border (recommended)

  • Adds borders around each cell.

Exclude All Borders

  • Removes the default borders between the rows.

Content Width (recommended)

  • The cell is only as wide as the text it contains.

Disable Style

  • Reverts all styles back to default.


Table Properties: Rows and Columns

This section will show you how to insert or delete rows and columns, as well as how to make a row or column a header.

Insert or Delete

  • Place your cursor in any cell of the table.

  • Right click, then choose Row or Column from the options.

  • You will then have the option to Insert before, insert after, or delete a row/column.

Header

  • Place your cursor in any cell of the table.

  • Right click, then choose Table Properties.

  • Under the Headers option, choose first row, first column, or both.


Table Properties: Cells

This section will show you how to insert, delete, merge, split, or change the size, alignment, background color, or border color of cells in the table.

Insert, Delete, Merge, or Split

  • Place your cursor in any cell of the table.

  • Right click, then choose Cell from the options.

  • From this menu, you can choose to insert, delete, merge, or split cells.

Change Size, Alignment, Background Color, or Border Color

  • Place your cursor in any cell of the table.

  • Right click, then choose Cell from the options.

  • Select Cell Properties

  • Here, you can make adjustments to any of the properties you see. The most common are:

    • Width and Height: this can be specified as pixels or a percentage.

    • Alignments: you can change the horizontal or vertical alignment of the text in the cells.

    • Background and Border Color: this can be named with an ordinary color such as "red", or you can use HTML color codes.


Table Properties: Response Boxes

This section will show you how to adjust the maximum characters allowed in a response box, as well as how to adjust the size of the response box and how to add placeholders.

Adjust Maximum Characters Allowed

  • The default max. character count is 15 characters. To increase this, expand the More Options menu and change the number from 15 to the desired character limit.

Adjust Size or Add Placeholder Text

  • If you want the response boxes to be bigger or smaller than their default, head to the Response Container section of the More Options menu.

  • To change the size or add a placeholder for ALL response boxes:

    • Make the changes under the Response container (global) section.

      • Adjust the width and height in their respective boxes.

      • Add placeholder text if desired.

  • To change the size or add a placeholder for INDIVIDUAL response boxes:

    • Select the blue +Add button under Response container (individual).

    • This will bring up a place to edit the settings for Response container 1 (if you need to change the settings for other response containers, use the +Add button to continue adding options for additional response containers)

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