Task Cards: students choose a card, read it, record their answer in the correct box of a paper recording sheet, and then replace the card before choosing another. Some people refer to these cards as “Scoot” and, rather than giving groups of students entire sets of cards, pass out one card to each student. The students then pass the cards from person to person until every student has seen every card. I’ve also used the cards as a student scoot. I hang them around the room, or set them on various flat surfaces, and give each student a recording sheet and clipboard. The students then walk around the room, reading cards and recording their answers, until they’ve completed all of the tasks.

Board Game: use the sentence cards as the game cards. Students draw a card, verbally complete the sentence, and (if correct) roll/move their piece on the game board. I give groups an answer card they can use to check who is correct if a dispute occurs.

Slap: this is a fun whole class game. I use strong magnets to attach large answer signs to the whiteboard. The class is divided into two teams and each team is given a fly swatter. One student from each team comes to the front. I read a sentence and students use the fly swatter to slap the correct word to complete the sentence. The first person to correctly slap the word wins a point for his/her team.

Response Cards: give each student a set of small cards with a single answer on each. Read a single sentence aloud. Students hold up the card with the correct word to complete the sentence. This is a great way to quickly judge which students understand the material and which do not.

The How To:

In the original post I gave you step-by-step directions for creating these cards in Google Sheets. This time I’ll give you the directions for using Microsoft Excel to create the cards. The process is similar, but there are slight differences, so I’ll include Sheets-specific directions for creating the drop down menu. The good news is the files transfer well, so it is possible to create in one program and up or download it into the other with minimal effort.

1. Set up your directions tab.
   • Right click on the first tab at the bottom of your sheet.
   • Click rename and type “directions.” Hit enter.
   • Type directions for the students into the first cell at the top of the page. You can always type a list by placing each subsequent direction in the next cell/row down.
2. Add more tabs (sheets) to your document.
   • Add a new tab by clicking the + at the bottom of the screen.
   • Rename the tab “1”
   • Add another tab by clicking the +
   • Rename the tab “Answers”
   • Add a third tab by clicking the +
   • Rename the third tab “Grade”
3. Create your first task card.
   • Click on tab 1.
   • Add pictures and arrange them as you see fit by clicking Insert, Pictures before resizing and dragging/dropping them into position.
   • Choose a cell to be your answer cell
     • Change the color of it by clicking Home and the Paint Can.
     • Also on the Home menu, set the justification for the cell to “center” and adjust the font and font size.
   • The cell directly to the left of the answer cell will become the first half of your sentence/task (everything before the blank on the paper version).
     • Be sure this cell is set to right justification.
     • Adjust the font and size.
     • Type the first half of your sentence.
   • The cell directly to the right of the answer cell will become the second half of your sentence/task (everything after the blank on the paper version).
     • Be sure this cell is set to left justification (should be automatically set to this).
     • Adjust the font and size.
     • Type the second half of your sentence.
4. Click on the answer cell on your first card (tab 1) and set up the drop down menu.
   • Excel directions for a short list:
     • Click on Data.
     • Click Data Validation
     • Click Data Validation again (in the drop down menu)
     • Under Settings and Allow choose List.
     • Under Settings and Source type your answer options, separate them with commas (in my case I typed: there, their, they’re)
     • Click OK
   • Excel directions for a long list:
     • If you have a long list of answer options you’ll want to create a hidden sheet/tab and type each option into a different cell in a single column.
     • Then, on the sheet where you want to add the drop down menu, click on the cell where the menu will appear.
     • Click on Data
     • Click on Data Validation
     • Click on Data Validation again
     • On the Settings tab under Allow choose List
     • Click the up arrow (source icon) at the end of the Source box.
     • Select your list of items on the hidden sheet.
     • Click OK.
   • Sheets directions:
     • Click on Data
     • Click on Data Validation
     • Under Criteria choose List of Items
     • Enter the items, separated by commas, in the next box.
     • Be sure to click the “Reject input” option for On invalid data
     • Click save
   • If you prefer to see these directions as a video, you can check out these two videos (not mine) on YouTube:
     • How to Create a Drop-Down List in Excel
     • How to Create Drop Down Lists in Google Sheets
5. Create more task cards
   • Create enough task cards so you will have one card per sentence/task.
     • Right click on tab 1.
     • Select move or copy
     • Click Create Copy
     • Click on “Answers” in the Before Sheet box (if you forget this step you can always drag and drop the tab later)
     • Click OK
   • Rename each card with ascending numbers.
     • Right click on the new tab.
     • Click Rename
     • Type the appropriate number
     • Hit enter
   • Go to each card and change the image(s) (if desired) and type in the sentence halves for each number.
6. It’s now time to set up the Answer tab. This is one of the longer parts.
   • In the top row type the words Question, Answer, Points in adjacent columns.
   • Enter numbers in the question tab
     • Click on the first cell under Question
     • Type 1
     • Highlight all the cells 1 to the final answer (I highlighted cells 2-25 for 24 questions total).
     • On the Home menu click Fill, Series (column, linear, step value 1), OK
   • Set up the answers column
     • Click on the first cell under Answer
     • Type =
     • Click on the corresponding question tab at the bottom of the screen
     • Click the answer (colored) cell
     • Click enter
     • Repeat these steps for each of the cells in the answer column
   • Set up the points column
     • Click on the first cell under Points
     • Type =(
     • Click on the corresponding answer cell (should be the cell just to the left)
     • Type = “answer“1,0) **Do not type the word answer though–type the correct answer for the sentence. On my cards I typed either =”their”1,0) or =”they’re”1,0) or =”there”1,0).
     • Hit enter
     • Copy this down the column by grabbing the bottom right corner of the cell (cursor will turn into a +) and dragging down to the last cell in the list.
     • Go back to each cell in the points column and be sure the answer (word in quotation marks) is correct for the given sentence.
   • Add a cell for total score.
     • At the bottom of the Question/Answer/Points column leave one row/cell empty.
     • In the next cell down of the Answer column type Score
     • Click the adjacent cell (Points column)
     • In the Home menu click AutoSum
     • Check that the correct cells are highlighted (only the Points column cells for the sentences/tasks).
     • Hit enter.
   • Add a cell for percentage score.
     • Skip a row after the score cells.
     • In the next cell down of the Answer column type Percent
     • Click the adjacent cell (Points column)
     • Type =
     • Click the cell with the total score (should be two cells above your current cell).
     • Type /# of questions **Do not type the words “# of questions”–type the actual number of questions. On my cards I typed 24 because I had 24 sentences.
     • Hit enter.
     • Click on the cell again.
     • Right click.
     • Click Format cells, Number, Percent, OK.
   • Conditionally format the Answer cells
     • Click on the first cell under the word Answer.
     • On the Home menu click Conditional Formatting
     • Click Highlight Cell Rules
     • Click Text that contains
     • Type the correct answer for that question/sentence
     • Choose the color you want the cell to turn (I chose green)
     • Click OK
   • You will likely want to hide this tab. This allows you to know exactly which questions the students missed, but keeps that information from the students. They will still be able to see their score on the grade tab, and go back to make corrections if they choose, but they will not know exactly which numbers were incorrect. This forces them to actually think about the answers, rather than just click through the options on the drop down menu until the answer registers as correct on the Answers tab.
     • To hide this tab:
       • Right click on Answers at the bottom.
       • Click Hide
     • To reveal this tab (when you are ready to look at it):
       • Right click on any tab at the bottom.
       • Click Unhide
       • Click the name of the tab you want to reveal
       • Click OK
7. Set up the Grade Tab.
   • Click on the tab Grade.
   • Add any pictures you’d like to have by clicking Insert-Image.
   • Add whatever text you’d like students to see.
   • Choose an empty cell and type the word Score.
   • Skip a row and type the word Percent.
   • Click the cell adjacent to Score
     • Type =
     • Click the Answer tab
     • Click the cell with the total score in it
     • Hit enter
   • Click the cell adjacent to Percent.
     • Type =
     • Click the Answer tab
     • Click the cell with the total percent in it
     • Hit enter

The Wrap Up:

As I shared in my post a little over a year ago, self-grading digital task cards are great. There’s no printing/laminating/cutting to do, students get a lot of good practice with various skills, and teachers still get the formative assessment data they need. Happy teaching, everyone!