Introduction

In this article we'll walk you through how to set up Self-Assessment of Skills from the perspective of a teacher.

If you'd like more information on how this tool works, check out these articles:

• Self-Assessment of Skills: For Teachers (Active Assignment)

• Self-Assessment of Skills: For Students

• Self-Assessment of Skills: Overview

   

Tool In Action

How this article is structured

Setting up an activity now follows three stages, shown in the bar at the top of the activity whenever you're in edit mode:

1. Build activity — get an overview of your activity and add or remove steps.

2. Edit steps — configure each step one at a time (instructions, the self-assessment criteria and mode, guidance options, and each step's advanced settings).

3. Setup activity — set what applies to the whole activity: deadlines, grade weighting, and groups.

This article follows that same order. Everything below describes what you can configure before the activity is published — students cannot access the activity at this stage. You can still edit some settings after publishing; however, once students start making progress, certain options lock to protect their work and data. Wherever that applies, we'll note it.

Note: When you open a published activity, you'll land on the Active Assignment view by default. To return to setup, click Edit in the upper-left corner. See the Active Assignment article.

Accessibility

We're devoted to making our tools as accessible as possible for all learners. To read more, see Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools.

Stage 1 — Build activity

This is your starting point. Here you see every step in the activity in order and can shape the activity before configuring the detail.

A default Self-Assessment of Skills activity contains:

1. Instructions

2. Review your own skills

3. Read received feedback

Adding steps. Use the learning-steps panel to add optional steps such as Reflections, Feedback-on-Feedback, or a Non-FeedbackFruits Step. Click a step to add it, or drag it into the activity.

When your steps are in place, move to Edit steps to configure each one.

Stage 2 — Edit steps

Here you set up the activity step by step. Each step shows its own settings and a Student preview so you can see what learners will see.

Step 1: Instructions

Write the instructions students see when they open the activity. Type directly into the instructions field; the student preview updates alongside. You can also add items — for example attaching a file or recording audio/video — if needed.

Step 2: Review your own skills

This is where students assess their own skills. Set how they self-assess and the criteria that guide them.

• Students self-assess — choose whether students assess Themselves or Their group. This is the tool's single collaboration choice (there is no peer review pool, because students assess their own work). This must be set before students participate — see the reminder in Setup activity.

• Criteria — the criteria that guide students as they assess their skills. Click Edit to add, edit, or delete criteria. See How to set up feedback criteria.

Advanced settings (Review your own skills):

• AI coach — students receive AI-powered, real-time feedback to improve their self-reviews.

• Feedback writing tips — tips shown at random while students review, to help them write higher-quality feedback.

• Review checklist — a checklist shown during reviewing to help students reflect on how they formulated their feedback.

• Optional instructions for this step — add specific guidance (e.g. desired detail, wording, or how to interpret the criteria).

About the self-assessment deadline. The deadline itself is set later, in Setup activity → Deadlines. Note the behaviour: once the deadline passes, reviewers can no longer view or edit their reviews. Leave the deadline blank to let them view and/or edit their self-assessment indefinitely.

Step 3: Read received feedback

Students read the feedback they received on their self-assessment.

The deadline for reading received feedback is set in Setup activity → Deadlines. Keep in mind that if a deadline was set on the previous step, this step becomes available only once that deadline has passed.

Stage 3 — Setup activity

The final stage gathers the settings that apply to the whole activity — the ones you'll most often revisit. On the left you keep the step overview; on the right you set activity-wide options: Activity settings, Deadlines, Grade weighting, and Advanced settings.

• Activity settings — title and description (the description is visible to teachers only).

Deadlines

Enable Steps have end dates, then set an end date per step in one place — the self-assessment deadline and the read-received-feedback deadline both live here. Leaving a deadline blank keeps that step open indefinitely.

Grade weighting

Enable Steps have grade weighting to assign a weight to each step (e.g. reviewing your own skills, reading received feedback). Weights must total 100% — if they don't, you'll see a prompt to adjust. In Advanced settings you can set the grade type (publish as a Percentage or Pass/fail), require participation to receive a grade (only students who open the activity receive a grade), and schedule grade publish / auto-publish after completing graded steps. See the configurable grading module guide.

Groups

Select the group set for this activity and choose which groups/sections participate. (Include only if this tool exposes group selection — see open questions.)

Reminder: the self-assessment mode (Themselves / Their group) must be set before students participate. Once a student makes progress, that configuration can't be changed.

When everything looks right, Save and publish.