This article talks about a BETA version of the tool. If you're not a part of an institution that participates in the testing, please refer to the other article.

Introduction

In this article we will walk you through how to set up Comprehension from the perspective of a teacher. With Comprehension, students actively engage with study material by making annotations and connecting them to topics you define.

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

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:

Build activity — get an overview of your activity and add or remove steps.
Edit steps — configure each step one at a time (instructions, feedback criteria, how students evaluate each other, anonymity, and visibility).
Setup activity — set what applies to the whole activity: deadlines, grade weighting, and group settings.

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 can see the learning steps in your activity and adjust the activity structure before configuring each step.

1.OverviewComprehension.png — *Fig. 1: Build activity overview: Comprehension*

A default Comprehension activity contains:

Instructions
Comprehension

Use the learning-steps panel to add any additional steps you want to include in the activity. You can click a step to add it or drag it into the activity.

Once your activity structure is ready, continue to Edit steps.

Stage 2 — Edit steps

Here you configure each learning step individually. A Student preview is shown alongside the settings so you can see how the activity will appear to students.

Step 1: Instructions

Add the instructions students will see when they open the activity.

Type directly into the instructions field. You can also add additional items, such as a file or audio/video recording, if needed.

2.instructions_comprehension.png — *Fig. 2: Instructions step*

Step 2: Comprehension

This is where you add the study material students will annotate and configure how they interact with it.

3.comprehensionstep_comprehension.png — *Fig. 3: Comprehension step*

Study material (Document)

On the right side, you can add the material you want students to work with. Depending on the material, you can upload a file from your computer or add content from an online source. You can replace the material later if needed.

Topics

Topics help guide students toward the concepts or areas you want them to focus on while annotating the material. Click Edit next to Topics to manage the topics in your activity.

For each topic, you can configure:

A short title and optional description
The minimum number of annotations students are required to make
Whether students are required to write a summary of their annotations

To add another topic, click Add topic at the bottom of the Topics window. Once you're finished, click Done.

Screenshot 2026-09-14 at 11.40.30.png — *Fig. 4: Add topic*

Release annotations and summaries

Choose when students can see the annotations and summaries made by other students.

You can release them:

Immediately
On a specific date
After the deadline
Manually

This allows you to control when students are exposed to their peers' contributions.

Copyright protection

Add Copyright protection if you don't want students to be able to download the study material.

Screenshot 2026-09-14 at 11.34.14.png — *Fig. 5: Copyright protection option*

Stage 3 — Finalize activity

In Finalize activity, you can configure settings that apply across the activity, including deadlines and grade weighting.

4.finalizeactivity_comprehension.png — *Fig. 6: Finalize activity*

Deadlines

Turn on Deadlines to add end dates to the learning steps in your activity. Once enabled, you can set an end date for each applicable step directly from the activity overview.

Grade weighting

Turn on Grade weighting to assign a percentage to each graded component of the activity.

For Comprehension, you can distribute the grade across:

Has opened the document
Has completed annotating
Has annotated every topic

The total grade weighting must add up to 100%.

Advanced grading settings

Click Advanced settings under Grade weighting to configure additional grading options.

You can choose the Grade type:

Percentage
Pass/fail

You can also configure:

Require participation to receive a grade — only students who open the learning activity receive a grade.
Schedule grade publish — automatically publish grades on a selected date.
Auto-publish after completing graded steps — automatically publish a student's overall grade once they have completed all graded learning steps.

Once your activity is ready, click Done in the upper-right corner.

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Comprehension: For Teachers (Setting Up) - NEW UI