Administer a Synchronous Group Assessment
After your assessment is created and you are ready for students to participate, follow the steps below:
1. Take Attendance
Ensure that every student has at least one partner by taking attendance before students begin the assessment.
Click the View Rooms button for the desired assessment.
Students appear with a green dot when they are signed in to Extempore.
Students who are offline appear with a gray dot. Toggle off absent students, then click Continue to Room Assignment.
You can activate absent students later by marking them present. This is helpful when a student returns to class and needs to make up the assessment.
2. Assign rooms
Extempore assigns students to a room when you create a group assessment; however, you can adjust those assignments if needed.
To move a student, drag and drop their name into the desired room or click Shuffle to randomize all assignments.
If you need to add more rooms, click Add Room.
Click Continue to Waiting Room.
Be sure to check room assignments before the assessment begins. All students must have a partner assigned to them to participate. Click Save to confirm your changes. Click Continue to Monitor to continue.
During the Assessment
3. Monitor Students
In the Monitor tab, you’ll see each student with real-time status updates, whether they are online, in the waiting room, recording, etc.
When you are ready for students to begin, click the Open Rooms button. Students cannot enter a closed room.
Student statuses update as they move from the Waiting Room to Recording.
When a room ends, you will see the students’ status change to Participated while the room updates to Processing, indicating the video will be available in your gradebook soon. When the students’ status updates to Recorded, the video is available for you to review.
Join a Room
Teachers may drop in on students as they participate in the task by clicking Join, then decide whether to remain invisible or visible to students.
Some teachers prefer to drop in on multiple rooms during the assessment, while others prefer to remain on this screen in case a student raises their hand to request help.
Reset Student Submissions
Teachers can reset a room (e.g., when a student enters the room too early or is paired with an absent student) to give the student another opportunity. You can reset a room directly from the Monitor screen by clicking Reset, or reset the submission from the Gradebook.
Frequently Asked Questions
If a student accidentally closes the tab or their device dies during an Extempore Live! assessment, can they rejoin?
Yes! Students can rejoin the room as long as the room is open and there is time left on the clock.
Can my class of 30+ students really do this together in one room? How will I hear them clearly in the recording?
Yes! Chrome does a really good job of filtering out background noise. We also encourage you to have students wear headphones, but a working student device and a normal speaking volume should be sufficient to capture. Give it a try!
Can I add more than one question to an Extempore Live! assessment?
You can add as many questions as you'd like to the prompt, but they will all appear in the same window.
What if I have a student who needs to make up an Extempore Live! assessment?
You will find directions here.
Can I keep the same groupings for an Extempore Live! assessment?
Yes, by copying the synchronous group assessment, you will see the option to retain groupings, which you can repeat as many times as you like.