AI Integrated Assignments are a family of Packback activity types where students work directly with an AI to build and demonstrate specific skills. In Teach the AI, for example, students explain a concept to an AI that pushes back with questions; in Argument Lab, they develop and defend an argument. Additional types, including Claim-Source Verification and Co-Authored Essay, are coming soon.
This article explains how AI Integrated Assignments are organized, so you can build activities once and reuse them across your courses. For step-by-step setup and grading of a specific type, see that type's own article, such as Creating and Grading a Teach the AI Assignment.
- How Activities and Assignments Work Together
- The Activity Library
- Reusing an Existing Activity
- Editing an Activity
- The Gradebook
How Activities and Assignments Work Together
AI Integrated Assignments are built from two connected pieces:
- An Activity is the reusable definition of the work: its topic, learning objectives, supporting materials, and rubric. Activities live in your Activity Library and aren't tied to any one course or date.
- An Assignment is a scheduled instance of an activity, tied to a course and given start and due dates. An assignment is where your students actually complete the activity.
Separating the two means you can design an activity once and assign it many times, across sections, courses, and terms, without rebuilding it each time.
The Activity Library
The Activity Library is where all of your reusable activities are stored. From here you can:
- Create a new activity by clicking Add, choosing New Activity, and selecting an assignment type.
- Open and edit an existing activity.
- Reuse an activity by adding it to a new assignment.
Building or saving an activity in the Library does not schedule it for students. It simply keeps the definition ready to use whenever you want to assign it.
Reusing an Existing Activity
You don't have to rebuild an activity every time you want to assign it. When creating a new assignment, choose Existing Activity to pull an already-built activity from your Library and add it straight to the assignment, skipping the builder.
This is the fastest way to run the same activity in another section or course, or to reuse a well-tested activity in a new term.
Editing an Activity
If you edit an activity that has already been published, you'll see this notice:
This is a read-only version of the activity. Editing will create a new version of this activity. It will not impact any existing assignments that are live.
Editing a published activity is safe. Packback creates a new version rather than changing the one your students are currently working in, so live assignments are never disrupted. Your edits apply to future assignments that use the new version.
The Gradebook
Within AI Integrated Assignments, the Gradebook sub-tab gives you a single rollup view across all of your AI assignments in the community. It shows a matrix of every student against every AI assignment type, with each student's score in each assignment (or a dash, "—", where work is ungraded).
To jump into a specific assignment, click its column header to go straight to that assignment's Submissions list, where you can grade individual student work.
Have questions?
If you need technical assistance or have questions about managing your AI Integrated Assignments, please reach out to our Support Team at help@packback.co.