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Adding a Choice/Poll to Your Course

The choice activity module enables a teacher to ask a single question and offer a selection of possible responses.

Choice results may be published after students have answered, after a certain date, or not at all. Results may be published with student names or anonymously.

A choice activity may be used

  • As a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic
  • To quickly test students’ understanding
  • To facilitate student decision-making, for example allowing students to vote on a direction for the course
A choice activity as seen in a course site

General

  • Name of this choice/poll
      • Whatever you type here will form the link that students click on to enter the choice or poll. It is helpful to give it a name that suggests its purpose.
  • Description
      • Type the description of the choice here. Include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the chat. Click the icon on the left to expand the toolbar and drag the bottom right of the text box out to expand it.
  • Display description on course page
      • If this box is ticked, the description will appear on the course page just below the name of the Choice.
  • Display mode for the options
      • This relates to the display of the results. If you have only a few choices, choose to display the results horizontally; if you have a large number, choose to display them vertically.
Choice: General settings

Options

  • Allow choice to be updated
      • Setting ‘Allow choice to be updated’ will allow students to change their mind after they have voted. The default No means they cannot change their first selection.
  • Allow more than one choice to be selected
      • If you allow more than one choice to be selected, the checkboxes will display differently to alert students that they can make more than one selection:
  • Limit the number of responses allowed
      • If you unintentionally check this box but do not add a number, then your students will not be able to select any choices and will get confused.
      • If learners are free to choose any option, leave ‘Limit’ at the default 0. If you want to restrict them to selecting a number, enter that number in the ‘Limit’ box.
      • If you use the choice in group mode, then any limit set is per group. For example, if the limit is set to 5, then 5 members of each group can select the option. If there are 3 groups, this would mean that up to 5 x 3 = 15 participants could select the option.
  • Options
      • Type the selections you wish to appear next to the radio buttons in the options fields.
Choice: Options settings

Availability

Here you can set a start and/or end date for the Choice.

Ticking the Show preview will mean that students can view the choices before the time when they can make their selection.

Choice: Availability settings

Results

Think carefully about whether (and how) you wish student to see the responses. ‘Publish’ simply means ‘display to students’.

Showing a column for unanswered may be useful if you need to quickly check who has not entered a choice.

Choice: Results settings

Other settings

Choose the ‘Common module’, ‘Restrict access’, ‘Activity Completion’, and ‘Tags’ settings as you would when you set up any resource or activity. These general settings are further discussed in Activities and Resources: General Settings.