Skip to main content

Practice and Assessments

Learn to create assessments, add interactive practice tiles, set grading options, and track learner progress with analytics.

K
Written by Katie McMurray
Updated over a week ago

Assessments in Mindsmith help learners practice what they’ve learned, reinforce key concepts, and give instructors a way to measure progress. You can add assessments inside a lesson as interactive tiles, or you can create a standalone assessment lesson that functions like an exam. Each approach has unique advantages depending on your training goals.

Jump to Section

  • Which Tiles Can Be Graded?

  • Methods of Creating Assessments

    • Adding Assessments Within a Lesson

    • Creating Assessments with the AI Assistant

    • Creating a Standalone Assessment

  • Grading Settings

    • Lesson-Level Grading Settings

    • Tile-Level Question Settings

  • Accessing Grading Analytics


Which Tiles Can Be Graded?

Mindsmith offers a variety of interactive tiles, but only certain ones are graded. These tiles produce measurable results that appear in your grading analytics:

  • Multiple Choice
    Learners select one correct answer from a list. Useful for testing recall and checking comprehension of key facts.

  • Select Multiple
    Learners select all correct options from a list. This works best for scenarios where several answers could be right — for example, identifying all steps in a process or all items that apply to a policy.

  • Short Answer
    Learners type their response into a text field. AI-assisted grading can evaluate answers against key concepts, making this tile useful for open-ended reflection or demonstrating understanding in the learner’s own words.

  • Ranking
    Learners arrange items in the correct order. Ranking is ideal for workflows, step-by-step procedures, or prioritization exercises.

  • Matching
    Learners pair items from two lists. Matching is commonly used for definitions, terminology, or pairing concepts with examples.


Methods of Creating Assessments

There are three core ways to create assessments within Mindsmith.

  • Adding Assessments Within a Lesson

  • Creating Assessments with the AI Assistant

  • Creating a Standalone Assessment

Let's explore these in more detail:

Adding Assessments Within a Lesson

The first way to build assessments in Mindsmith is by embedding them directly into a lesson. This approach places practice or graded questions alongside the instructional content so learners can check their understanding as they move through the material.

To add an assessment tile to a lesson:

  1. Open your lesson in the Editor.

  2. Add a new page or click the + icon within an existing page.

  3. Choose one of the graded tile types (multiple choice, select multiple, short answer, ranking, or matching).

  4. Write your question and add answer options.

  5. Configure feedback, scoring, or retry options as needed.

Embedded assessments are especially useful for reinforcing concepts as they are introduced. For example, after explaining a new policy, you can include a quick multiple choice or ranking question to help learners process the information immediately.

Creating Assessments with the 🟣AI Assistant

Mindsmith’s AI Assistant gives you another way to add assessments without building each tile manually. From the bottom toolbar, you can prompt the assistant to generate questions directly inside your lesson.

For example, you might type:

  • “Create a five-question multiple-choice and ranking assessment based on the information on this page.”

  • “Add a short assessment to reinforce the concept of workplace safety introduced here.”

The AI Assistant will then generate question tiles in real time, aligned to the content already in your lesson. You can edit, reorder, or remove any of the generated questions to fit your needs.

This approach is especially useful when you want to quickly reinforce a single page or concept without planning a full exam. It also helps speed up lesson creation by turning your instructional text into immediate practice opportunities.

Creating a Standalone Assessment

Mindsmith also supports assessments that exist as their own lessons. A standalone assessment functions as a quiz or exam that can be assigned separately from instructional content. This option works best for compliance checks, certification exams, or end-of-course evaluations.

To create a standalone assessment:

  1. From the Dashboard, click the Create button.

  2. Select More Options.

  3. Click Create Assessment.

  4. Enter instructions for the type of assessment you want to build. You can write a simple prompt, and Mindsmith will expand it into a detailed request that the AI can use.

  5. Mindsmith generates a draft assessment with questions and tiles based on your input.

  6. Open the draft in the Editor to review, reorder, or refine the questions.

This workflow allows you to generate full exams in minutes. For example, you can enter “Build a 10-question assessment on workplace cybersecurity basics,” and Mindsmith will create a structured assessment that you can immediately edit and deploy.


Grading Settings

Mindsmith gives you two layers of control over how assessments are scored and how learners receive feedback: lesson-level grading settings and tile-level question settings.

Lesson-Level Grading Settings

You can configure these in the Lesson Settings (⚙️) panel. These settings apply across the entire lesson or standalone assessment:

  • Passing Percentage – Define the minimum score required to pass.

  • Question Retries – Decide whether learners can attempt a question again, and how many times.

  • Completion Criteria – Choose what must be done for the lesson to count as complete:

    • Pass the assessment

    • View all lesson pages and complete the assessment (default)

    • Complete all interactive elements

  • Certificates – Automatically issue a certificate of completion when learners pass the assessment.

These controls are ideal when you need to set clear standards for an entire lesson or exam, such as requiring learners to pass with an 80% minimum and complete every interactive tile before they finish.

Tile-Level Question Settings

You can also customize how each individual question behaves. To access these options:

  1. Click on the question tile in the Editor.

  2. Open the Options menu.

  3. Toggle between Form and Assessment settings.

[INSERT SCREENSHOTS: Form settings vs. Assessment settings]

Tile-level settings include:

  • Feedback Mode – Choose what learners see after answering:

    • Correct / Incorrect (basic right/wrong feedback)

    • By Option (custom feedback for each answer choice)

  • Final Feedback Mode – Decide how much feedback learners get at the end of the question:

    • Silent (no feedback)

    • Wrong Only (feedback only on incorrect answers)

    • Full (feedback on both correct and incorrect answers)

  • Contributing to Score – Choose whether the question counts toward the learner’s overall grade. This is useful if you want to include practice questions in the flow without penalizing learners.

  • Correct/Incorrect Answers – Mark which responses are correct, and add feedback messages that explain why. This helps reinforce the concept behind the answer, not just whether it was right or wrong.

Tile-level controls are valuable when you want to adjust the learner experience question by question. For instance, you might want one question to give detailed feedback by option, while another question simply marks correct or incorrect and moves on.

Tip: Use lesson-level settings to establish the overall rules of the assessment, and tile-level settings to fine-tune the experience on a case-by-case basis. The combination gives you flexibility to design assessments that fit both high-stakes testing and low-stakes practice.


Accessing Assessment Analytics

Once learners complete an assessment, you can track performance through the Analytics panel in the Editor. Analytics help you measure how well learners are understanding content, identify where they struggle, and evaluate the overall effectiveness of your training.

How to Open Analytics

  1. From the Editor, navigate to the top-right menu bar.

  2. Click the bar chart icon labeled Analytics.

  3. A new panel will open showing two tabs:

    • Results – Learner progress, completions, average scores, and question performance.

    • Engagement – Data on how learners interacted with the lesson, including starts, completions, and unique viewers.

  4. If you are on a supported plan, you can also select Export PDF in the top-right corner to download a report.

Plan Tiers and Analytics Access

Analytics availability depends on your subscription:

  • Free Plan – Assessments can be created, but analytics are not available.

  • Professional Plan ($39/month) – Access lesson-level Analytics, including completions and average scores.

  • Business Plan ($75/month) – Unlock Analytics by Learner for individual performance tracking, plus PDF export of results.

  • Enterprise Plan (custom pricing) – Includes all Business features with additional customization for reporting.

👉 For more detail on interpreting data and tracking learner progress, see our full Analytics Guide.

Tip: Even if you’re on the Free Plan and don’t have access to Analytics, you can still provide learners with rich feedback inside each question tile. Use the Feedback Modes in the tile settings to explain why an answer is right or wrong, helping reinforce learning in real time.

Did this answer your question?