This article covers the bar chart task type.
For a general overview of tasks and what they can do, see An introduction to tasks and for general instructions on how to add them to your course, see How to add a task to your course.
Overview of the bar chart task
The bar chart task lets learners create or modify a bar chart by dragging the bars up or down.
When to use a bar chart task
Bar chart tasks are useful to test maths or science concepts, but you still can use them in other areas. In the example above, the intent of the task is less about the actual figures and more about learners realising the relationship between orbital speed and distance from the sun (orbital speed decreases the further you get from the sun).
So, you could use bar charts wherever you've got relationships or statistics you'd like learners to know. Instead of just telling them the stats - get them to build them. Or... you could get them to take their best guess based on their prior knowledge or intuition. This can make learners engage with relevant figures more than just reading some stats.
Example 1: Making predictions
In the example below we ask learners to make a prediction.
Example 2: Open-ended bar chart
You can also use this task for learners to graph their own activities. Note you need nice short labels for the bars in the graph.
How to create a Bar chart task
All tasks load with an example task to give an idea of what each field is for. To add your own task details, you can type over the existing content in the fields or select Clear task content, to start completely fresh.
Standard fields
This task has the standard fields/options that all tasks have.
At the top:
Question - Where you set the main question/task which tells learners what to answer or do.
And at the bottom:
Hint - Add a hint to give pointers or clues to give learners extra guidance to complete the task. Learners can choose to See hint so it allows them to get this help “on demand”.
Feedback - Add feedback to give learners an automated response when they submit the task. See Writing feedback for tasks for pointers and ideas.
In between the top and bottom standard fields we have the following areas and fields.
How to set the graph and draggable bars
Add in the min, max, and label for the y-axis.
You can also set a Title for the chart which will display in bold above the car chart.
For each bar along the X axis, use Add to add a "point" (bar) and select whether you want the learners to be able to interact with these or not. To remove a bar use the bin icon to the right.
How to set the correct answer(s)
Under Correct, drag your bars to the correct value on the y axis to allow the task to be automarked.
If there are more correct answers, use the + to add alternative answers.