Cerego Create – Content Authoring Guide

 

NOTE: this authoring guide pertains to our "Version 3" of Cerego's Create mode. As of May 9th, 2019, if you started a free trial, you are on our new Version 4! Documentation for that is coming soon. In the meantime, use our Chat feature or support@cerego.com for questions. Thank you!

Content

• Navigation
• Content Creation Flow
• Inform (Instructional Items)
• Upload PDF
• Build a Page
• Embed Media
• Retain (Foundational Items)
• Question & Answer
• Flashcards
• Vocabulary
• Passages
• Regions
• Apply (Application Items)
• Scenarios
• Sequences
• Patterns

Introduction

With Cerego’s content authoring tool, you are able to turn facts, vocabulary, concepts, principles, passages, and diagrams into vibrant pieces of knowledge. This guide will walk you through the ins and outs of this tool, and demonstrate how to build compelling, engaging content for your learners. By the end, we hope that you will feel comfortable creating a rich learning path, composed of items that deliver instruction, present key concepts, and offer a range of engaging quizzing experiences to help your learners retain and apply knowledge

What is Cerego Content?

Cerego is a tool to help learners master concepts through a personalized practice schedule. Today, we’ve broadened our tools for learning designers, but this core scheduling technology remains the same. Our goal is to help students distribute their practice over time, which is the most effective way to build knowledge that lasts!

So what does Cerego Content look like? In the most basic sense, you’ll be creating a set, which you can think of as a chapter in a book, or a section of a manual. Each set contains items. We recommend 10-50 items per set, and the order you place them in will be the order your learners first engage with the content. This is your learning path.

What does it look like for your learners? Each of the items you’ve created contains important information that your learners need to know, called concepts, and your learners will engage with these concepts through quizzes. Let’s take a look:

 

 

  

---

Your palette: Item template selection screen

The first thing you’ll notice once you create a set is the option to select an item type. There are three categories of item, with different purposes: Inform (deliver primary instruction), Retain (build lasting knowledge for core concepts), and Apply (practice applying knowledge). Depending on your learning objectives, you have the freedom to select from this palette to create your learning path. We’ll take a deeper dive into each of these shortly!

 

 

 

Navigation

Before we dive into the details of each item type, let’s walk through the navigation components of the content authoring tool.

 

Side Nav: Learning Path View

Once you are in the content authoring tool, no matter what you are doing, you will always have the option to see your learning path in the new side nav to give you context around what you are building.

 

Real time updates

In this view you can see your changes update and save in real time, giving you an up-to-date view of your learning path - and what your learners will see. This tight feedback loop will make it easier to create content with the confidence that you are affecting your overall learning plan.

 

Quick Quality Assurance (QA)

You can now QA your content as you make it by scrolling through the side nav. With a single click you can expand each item card. In the expanded state, you can get an instant overview of your item and its quizzes. For example: are there going to be a lot of quizzes in this set? How many concepts will my learners see? Which of my items have images and sound?

 

Create your learning path with ease

With the new side nav, you can easily reorder your content to fit your desired learning path.

 

Side nav states

There are three different ways you can look at the side nav. The first default view allows you to look at all the cards in a row. The second expanded view allows you to open all the cards. The third grid state takes over the entire screen, allowing you to see and arrange all your content at once.

 

Top bar navigation

The top bar navigation allows you to preview your set, see how long it will take a learner to start all the content, view autosaving status, and exit the content authoring tool.

 

Previewing content and time estimate

After you create your content, we recommend that you preview it to see how it will appear for your learners. You can easily do this using the preview button. Additionally, you will get an estimate of the time it will take your learners to study all of the items in your set for the first time. Note that the actual time to complete an set will vary when instructors assign goals, which require practice over time and help the learner build lasting knowledge.

 

Autosaving status

As you work on your content, you can rest assured that your progress is saved! The autosaving status will update to let you know when each edit is saved.

Now that you are familiar with the navigation and of the content authoring tool, we'll jump right into the core tools you'll be using: the item templates.

 

---

Content Creation Flow

Let’s take a quick step back and recap what we’ve covered so far: once you’ve created a set, you have the option to select from a wide variety of item templates. The side nav view provides you real time feedback as you add, remove, and edit items. The top nav allows you to preview your content.

Before beginning, try to plan what you want your learners to know. We recommend keeping sets small, and focused on 1 or 2 learning objectives (10-50 items is a great size). Keep in mind that many item types will be scheduled for learners to review over time. Therefore, it is important that they only include “essential” knowledge, so that learners see the the value of the practice.

Once you’ve identified the learning objectives for your set, follow these steps:

 

How do I decide which item type to use?

Broadly speaking, you will pick and arrange item types based on your desired learning path. Do you want to inform your learners using a PDF, video, other media? What fundamental knowledge do you want your learners to retain using Cerego’s learning algorithm? Do you want to present your learners with an opportunity to apply knowledge they’ve already mastered? Based on these questions, you’ll pick a range of item types from the three following categories:

 

Inform (Instructional Items)

If you’d like information to be presented but not practiced, add it as an Instructional Item. This is a special type of item that is shown to learners once, and is then available for them to view whenever they need it. Instructional Items are never scheduled for practice over time, aren't graded, and don't show up in the learner's Knowledge Bank.

Instructional Items act as a flexible page for presenting background information, instruction, or added context for the material being learned. To add an Instructional Item, select it from the menu.

You will need to add a title, and then your options are endless. For example, you can add custom text or images, upload a pdf, or embed media such as a lecture, video, or presentation.

 

Upload PDF

Upload a PDF into an Instructional Item and place it where you'd like in the learning path. This can be useful to give your learners convenient access to manuals, guides, or required readings in the same place as the rest of their course.

 

Build a Page

Build a page lets you quickly and easily create your own custom resources for learners, and make them available in the same place as everything else they are learning. For example, you can provide an overview of the learning objectives, or interesting context for the rest of your set. A page can include any combination of text, images, and embedded media.

 

Embed Media

You can also directly embed media such as videos or slide presentations as a separate Instructional Item. Just give your media a title and use the following guidelines to insert an embed link for one of the formats we support:

 

 

  

---

Retain (Foundational Items)

Retain Items are the crucial, foundational principles and concepts that all your learners should know well. Learners each have a personalized study schedule to help them review each item over time, building stronger retention for each concept along the way. The goal is to help each learner distribute their practice over time, which is the most effective way to build knowledge that lasts! Keep in mind: each item you add will require repeated practice from learners - up to 3 or 4 reviews during the first week when they are most intensely building up retention. Use Retain for concepts that are essential, and include optional context as Instruction instead.

 

Question & Answer

The Question & Answer (Q&A) template is the simplest: write a question and answer(s). It includes just one type of quiz, whereas with other item types you can generate several different quizzes for a single concept (which will be covered later).

The Q&A template is flexible enough to author True/False, “Select All That Apply” and classic multiple choice quiz items. Writing Q&A items should be familiar territory: Most of the quizzes, tests, and exams we’ve taken in our lives use this format. Whether you’re writing unique content for the first time or leveraging an existing bank of items, the Q&A template is designed to make Cerego easy, fast, and friendly for the content you’re already using.

To provide remediation and feedback for your learners after they answer the question, you can add an Explanation, or even link directly to a relevant Instructional Item. These are available under the Additional Options settings.

After you’ve entered your Question, Answers, and optional Explanations, click Finish to save your progress. If you’d like to add audio or visual media to your item, simply upload those files alongside your Question text. Once your new Q&A items are in action, learners will continue to benefit from Cerego’s personalized review schedule.

Like all Cerego item templates, the new Q&A item template is optimized for mobile use, making your learners’ favorite study spot an ideal location for developing mastery.

 

 

 

Flashcard

Flashcards allow you to establish a relationship between images, sound clips, and key words. You can create a Front and Back to define a key term, or add multiple Backs to establish a conceptual foundation on which further learning can develop. Let’s walk through an example.

Suppose that we want our learners to understand the concept of a "Dependent Variable". A Dependent Variable is the outcome of interest in a experiment. We start by defining the Front of the Flashcard and then define the Back of the flashcard. We can then add an optional Label, in this case “Meaning”:

 

Quizzes

Now that this Flashcard has been created, we’ll have the ability to choose what quizzes we’d like learners to see for this concept. Checking the box for a quiz means that the quiz is active, and learners will receiving the quiz when it is time to review the concept. So, for example, if we check the boxes for all four quizzes on this one concept, then the learner will see this concept in four different ways.

 

Editing quizzes

All multiple quizzes in Cerego have the same structure:

1. Question – write the question you want your learners to see before they have to select the right answer from a set of choices. The default question is “Do you know this?”
2. Correct Answer (which is the Concept)
3. Distractors – write some incorrect answer choices. If you’d like, you can also auto-generate these distractors instead of manually writing them out, which will pull answer choices from other items in your set

 

 

In the quiz editor, you’ll also see a preview of what your learners see as you edit the quiz. Hit done when you are complete

 

 

Vocabulary

With Vocabulary items, you can create a Term and Definition and have a wide selection of quiz options to choose from based on what kind of content you create. You can also use Vocabulary items to teach foreign concepts - if your set language is something other than english you will see Foreign Term and Native Term instead. Let’s work with that example:

 

In this example, we are teaching the Chinese word ‘de’, which means ‘of, function word indicating possession. We can then also add an example sentence, and highlight the word by using asterisk

 

 

You’ll see that you have many quiz options for your Vocabulary items based on whether you have the Reading, Sentences fields filled out.

 

 

 

 

Passages

Items built around passages of text are great for learning keywords or phrases in context, and also serve as a variation of vocabulary assessment. Mimicking a fill-in-the-blank, creating Passages items allows you to highlight key words or phrases in a passage and use context clues to drive learning. Let’s get started by selecting Passages from the Create menu.

For this example, let's use a Passage item to teach the Human Resources Management concept of KSAOs:

 

The passage I am using contains three terms, or clozes, that I want my learner to know.  Each cloze i select becomes a quizzable concept.  These quizzes show the original passage with the cloze deleted.  To build the item,  simply highlight a word, and click ‘Add Cloze.’ We’ll see the term populate on the right hand side, where we can then select quizzes like we have  with other item types. Clozes can contain  multiple words, but we recommend that you limit them to 1 or 2 words (or fill in the blank quizzes become too difficult).

 

 

 

Regions

Have some anatomical images, diagrams, or charts to teach?  Regions are a great tool for teaching visual identification and part-to-whole relationships. Upload any base image, and simply  draw a shape around an area of image you’d like your learners to identify.   To do this, connect the dots around the target region (you can also drag them once they have been placed).  If the target area on the image is small, you may also place one dot and double click (this shows learners a dot instead of a highlighted shape).  For each region you draw over your image, you will have a set of quizzes that you can select from.

 

 

 

Apply (Application Items)

After your learners have received instruction and built foundational knowledge, a great next step for them is to apply that knowledge using our Application Items. 

 

 

Scenarios 

The Scenarios template is optimized for questions that pose a scenario, example problem, or case study. These are items that require deeper analysis from your learners, requiring them  them to leverage the foundational content they’ve already learned . Unlike traditional Cerego items, Scenarios do not reveal a correct answer to the student if they answer the question incorrectly. Instead, Creators are encouraged to provide an explanation (for individual distractors, or for the item as a whole) to guide the learner toward the appropriate answer without sacrificing rigor.

If you’ve already created Instructional Content for your set, you can also easily link these materials to your Application Questions in case students students need a quick review of prior lessons.

To summarize, Scenarios behave differently from practice items in several ways:

• Nothing is taught within the item, this is a multiple choice quiz only
• All answers are custom (we never auto-generate distractors)
• You have the option to add multiselect, or ‘check-all-that-apply’ questions
• You may to add explanations (per question or per answer / distractor) to correct reasoning
• You can link relevant instructional items as an optional resource to review

Most importantly for the learner:

• The correct answer will not be revealed to the learner unless they answer correctly.  This is a big difference from practice items, which achieve the goal of memorizing the correct answer.  Application questions help learners practice reasoning with knowledge, and you may correcting wrong reasoning with well crafted explanations.
• These items do not appear in your learners' study schedules with the same frequency of other items, encouraging active engagement as they are presented with the material. 

The first step is to add a question. Some elements that make a good application questions are that it:

• Provides a rich context
• Raises a thought - provoking issue
• Has elements of conflict
• Lacks an obvious or clear-cut right answer
• Encourages learners to take a position or make a decision

 

In our first example, we are going to use question from a nursing exam.  This question requires prior knowledge about a drug and its effects on patients, and presents a real life scenario that a nurse might face on the job.

We also added an image to illustrate the situation.  For other question types, a diagram or image may be a more central component of the question.

Next we are going to add answer choices. You can make this a single select or multi-select type of question

 

Finally, we can add an explanation to the Scenario, which the learner will see whether they get the question right or wrong. We can also add explanations per answer, in which case, the learner would only see the explanations for the answers that were selected

You can also link a relevant Instructional Item under the Additional Options tab, which will be available for the learner to review once they’ve answers the question

 

Sequences

Teach a process, order, or timeline using Sequence items. Let’s imagine that we are training an HR rep on employee on the appropriate sequence of events for employee discipline. We can first title the sequence, and then add the following steps: Verbal counseling, a written warning, suspension, and then termination. You can drag and drop to rearrange the items to make sure they are in the correct order.

 

Quizzes are very simple for Sequence items – there is only one option available, the drag and  drop quiz. Learners are given a part of the sequence to drag into the correct position.

 

 

 

Patterns

A common challenge for instructional designers is to teach learners to recognize something when it can visually appear very differently.  Take the example of “learn to identify a melanoma”.   Since no two melanomas look the same, simply seeing one exemplar image won’t be enough to teach a learner how to recognize it. The formula for building a pattern item is straight forward – provide a set of examples that exemplifies what you’re trying to teach, and provide a set of distractors that do not. Your learners will be quizzed by showing one correct answer among the incorrect answers, thereby learning the pattern.

 

In this example, we are trying to teach learners how to identify ways of writing the basic definition of profit. We’ve provided examples that are correct ways to write the basic definition of profit:

 

 

Below that, we then write some similar, but incorrect distractors

 

As your learner goes through the quizzes, they will have to identify the correct answer by using pattern recognition