List Comments

What are List Comments?

List comments are one of the two types of comments that can be used in a comment bank. A list comment is an easy way to provide detailed feedback in point form.

Features of a List Comment

Title

The title is displayed on The Comment Generator when you are creating your reports to help you identify which comment you are working on. Titles are not displayed on the students' reports.

Size on Generator

The size of a comment doesn't determine how it will appear on the generated report. Rather, the size affects how big the input appears on The Comment Generator. A size of 100% will take up the whole width of the screen. If you want to put two inputs next to each other, you would set the size of each to 50%.

How to Write List Comments

List comments need a collection of levels followed by a collection of items. Each level and item goes on its own line.

What's an Item? What's a Level?

An item is a comment that will be sorted into a level. For example, a level may be "$Student demonstrated that $they are able to:" while an item may be something like "Recall basic multiplication facts up to 12 x 12 "

Defining a New Level

Before you write any comments, you need to define a level. To define a new level, start the line with a !. Place the ! before anything else on the level. You can also click the button to insert this text into your comment. The Comment Generator will underline the level with a thick black line to indicate that it has been recognized. For example, if I want my first level to be "$Student demonstrated that $they are able to:" I would write that level on its own line, starting with a ! like this:

Insert: Tools:

!$Student demonstrated that $they are able to:

Labelling a Level

When generating reports, there will be a button for each level. By default, the button will contain the first three letters of the level. However, the first three letters for the level "$Student demonstrated that $they are able to:" will be $ST, which is not very helpful. If you want to change the label, add up to three levels for the label inside a <> symbol after the !. So, if I wanted the button to be labelled "ABL" instead, I would write this to define the level:

Insert: Tools:

!<ABL>$Student demonstrated that $they are able to:

The Comment Generator will recognize a label by highlighting it in purple.

Adding Items to a Level

After we define (and optionally label a level), we need to add items (comments that we can select) to that level. Here are some items I could add to the level "$Student demonstrated that $they are able to:":

Insert: Tools:

!<ABL>$Student demonstrated that $they are able to:
Recall $his basic facts up to 12 x 12
Perform multi-digit multiplication accurately and efficiently
Use long division in order to divide multi-digit numbers with and without remainder
Solve equations where letter variables are used to represent a missing number
Find the area and perimeter of rectangles and irregular shapes
Determine the likelihood of a simple event happening (such as rolling an even number on a six-sided die)
Solve word problems by extracting the key information from the problem
Complete open-ended problems by applying $his knowledge and understanding to new situations

Adding more Levels and Items

We can now add additional levels and items to each of those levels. When we add additional levels, we need to make sure that the number of items is the same, as well each item talks about the same skill. For example:

Insert: Tools:

!<ABL>$Student demonstrated that $they are able to:
Recall $his basic facts up to 12 x 12
Perform multi-digit multiplication accurately and efficiently
Use long division in order to divide multi-digit numbers with and without remainder
Solve equations where letter variables are used to represent a missing number
Find the area and perimeter of rectangles and irregular shapes
Determine the likelihood of a simple event happening (such as rolling an even number on a six-sided die)
Solve word problems by extracting the key information from the problem
Complete open-ended problems by applying $his knowledge and understanding to new situations
X

!<NS>$Student's next steps for learning are:
Recalling $his basic facts up to 12 x 12
Practising $his ability to perform multi-digit multiplication accurately and efficiently
Continuing to work on using long division in order to divide multi-digit numbers with and without remainders
Solving equations where letter variables are used to represent a missing number
Finding the area and perimeter of rectangles and irregular shapes
Determining the likelihood of a simple event happening (such as rolling an even number on a six-sided die)
Solving word problems by extracting the key information from the problem
Completing open-ended problems by applying $his knowledge and understanding to new situations

Skipping an Item for a Level

Sometimes, a level may have more items than another, or an item may only apply to one level. If you want to skip an item in a level, place a capital X to indicate that there is no comment for this level. Looking at the example above, we can see the first level.

Placeholders and Fields

Placeholders are a way to easily change the content of your comment. Placeholders always begin with a dollar sign ($).

Name and Pronoun Placeholders

$Student will be replaced with the student's name
$He / $She / $They will be replaced with the correct pronoun
He / She / They are not placeholders and will not be replaced
Adding a $ before any pronoun indicates that it is a placeholder
Student / Name are not placeholders and will not be replaced

You can click the button to insert a name placeholder, or the button to insert a pronoun placeholder. The Comment Generator will recognize students' name placeholders by highlighting them in blue, and pronoun placeholders by highlighting them in green. Pronouns that are not proceeded by a $ will be underlined in green. This is to let you know that they will not be replaced - if you want them to be, add the $ before the pronoun. Likewise, the words "student" and "name" are underlined in blue. This is just incase you meant to use the placeholder $Student.

Fields

$text will be replaced with a text-input
$number will be replaced with a number-input
$quality will be replaced with a select list containing a few quality words such as excellent, good, basic and insufficient
$extended will be replaced with a select list containing many more quality words
$date will be replaced with a date-input
$today will be replaced with today's date

You can click the button to insert a field. The Comment Generator will recognize field placeholders by highlighting them in red.

You can learn more about placeholders and fields in this article.

How to Use List Comments

Let's look at the example we created in the previous section. For each level we defined, there will be a button. Clicking that button will put that item under that level.

Sample List Input

The input we will see for the comment in the previous section will look like this:

Sample List Output

Depending on the buttons we click on above, the report generated from this comment might look like this:

Try it Out

Want to see what the reports generated from this comment look like? Try it out yourself.

Parallel Lists

If you want to create multiple levels that share the same comments, you will want to create a parallel list.

What are Parallel Lists?

Parallel lists are where you define multiple levels, but only one set of items for all the levels.

How do I Create Parallel Lists?

To create a parallel list, you will need to define all your levels together. For example, if I want to use the levels "$Student demonstrated strengths in:" and "$Student's next steps for learning are:" I would start my comment by writing both levels, each on their own line:

Insert: Tools:

!<STR>$Student demonstrated strengths in:
!<NS>$Student's next steps for learning are:

I can then add my items below both levels:

Insert: Tools:

!<STR>$Student demonstrated strengths in:
!<NS>$Student's next steps for learning are:
Providing a clear claim that answered the research question
Explaining what $his hypothesis was and if it was supported by the data gained during the experiment
Giving detailed information about how the experiment was conducted
Including both qualitative (observations) and quantitative (numbers) data in $his conclusion
Connecting $his observations to scientific principles
Communicating in a clear and well-informed manner
Organizing writing into effective paragraphs
Identifying a future experiment that could be performed
Writing in detail to show depth of understanding

Parallel List Input

The parallel list created in the above section will look like this:

Try It Out

Want to see what the reports generated from this comment look like? Try it out yourself.