If your district has adopted the Texas OER Math curriculum, you'll be delighted to know that Classwork.com offers a question bank that will let you instantly create interactive activities aligned to every one of the OER lessons in Grades 3 through Algebra. It's part of the "TEKS Star" feature and your organization must subscribe to Classwork.com's OER companion content to see this option. If you instead want to build activities based on the TEKS, see this article: How To Create an Activity from the TEKS Star Question Banks

The Big Picture

You're going to tell the system which lessons you want to find questions for, preview them, and add them to an activity. If it's a new activity, each question will be added to a slide. If you're editing an existing activity, the questions will be added after the slide you're currently viewing.

How To Start?

You'll see the "TEKS Star" in a few places. Any time you create a new activity, you'll be given the chance to build it from the TEKS Star Question Bank.

And any time you're editing an activity, you can add TEKS Star questions by clicking this button in the editor:

Both of those buttons will take you to the same place -- the TEKS Star Wizard.

Using the TEKS Star Wizard

Let's look at each step of the Wizard.

Select Your Grade Level

The first step of the wizard is to choose your grade level. 

Click a grade level button to continue to the next step.

Select Your Bank (Optional)

If you see this screen, you have access to both the TEKS and the Texas OER Math question banks.

Since this article covers the Texas OER Math bank, click "OER."

Choose a Module

Select the Module from which you'd like to choose questions.

Choose Lessons

Click the Lessons to include when searching for questions.

Use the convenient checkbox for each Topic to select or de-select all the lessons for that Topic.

Click "Next" when you're ready to proceed.

Choose the Question Types to Include

Depending on which TEKS you have selected, you'll see a selection of question types. Check the ones you'd like to add to your activity.

Exclude Already Used Questions

If you'd like to only see questions that you have not used before, select "In any of my activities." If you already have added questions to this activity, and want to make sure you don't see those in this search, choose "In current activity."

Choose How To Generate the Questions

You can decide whether to choose a number of questions at random, or whether you want to browse through all the questions that met your criteria.

Click the "Go!" button next to your choice.

If You Chose Random Questions...

If you chose to see a number of random questions, the next step in the Wizard will show you the questions selected for you, and allow you to request new ones or to discard the question altogether.

The "refresh" icon next to each question will allow you to get a new question that matches the question type and Lesson for that question. The trashcan icon will remove the question from the list, leaving you with one fewer question than you asked for. You can always go back and add more in the editor! 

Once you've got the questions you prefer, click the "Add Selected Items" button to go to the last step.

If You Chose to See All Questions

If you chose to all all questions that matched your selected Lessons, you can browse through them and check which ones you'd like to add to your activity.

Use the controls at the bottom to move from page to page.

When you're done, click the "Add Selected Items" button to go to the last step.

Choose Layout Options

Select the font size of the questions and whether you want them all on one slide, or one question per slide.

Add the Questions to Your Activity

Click the "Add Items" button and the items will be added to your activity.

Preview the Activity

Once the questions have been added to your activity, preview the activity using the "eyeball" icon to see an approximation of what your students will see. 

Looking good? Then assign it to your students and take a breath. You'll soon have a detailed digital view of their understanding of the OER lessons!