Question Type: Open Ended

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• When to use Open-Ended questions
• Creating an Open-Ended question
• Question settings
  • Show your work
  • Evaluate responses with AI
• Choosing a rubric
  • Option 1 — State rubrics library
  • Option 2 — Generate with AI
  • Option 3 — Create your own
  • Option 4 — Upload a rubric
• Testing your rubric before saving
• Tips for writing effective Open-Ended questions

The Open-Ended question type lets students respond in their own words by typing a free-text answer. It’s well suited for short-answer prompts, constructed responses, and extended writing tasks. With Evaluate responses with AI enabled, Wayground can automatically score each response against a rubric and deliver individualized feedback in reports — saving you hours of manual grading.

The Open-Ended question type is available on all Wayground plans. Certain features within this question type — such as audio/video media and select rubric options — require a Wayground Individual (Super) or School & District Plan.

When to use Open-Ended questions

Open-Ended questions are a good fit when you want students to explain a concept, construct a written argument, or demonstrate understanding that a selected-response question can’t fully capture. Because this question type supports AI-powered rubric evaluation, it works especially well for assessments where you need to grade written responses at scale without sacrificing the quality of feedback.

Creating an Open-Ended question

1. Step 1. Select Open-Ended from the available question types when adding a new question to your activity.

2. Step 2. Type your question prompt in the left panel. You can add an image, audio clip, or video to the question using the media icons at the top of the panel (audio and video require an Individual or School & District Plan). A formatting toolbar is also available for text styling and inserting equations.

3. Step 3. The right panel previews what students will see — a text box with a 3,000-character limit for their response.

4. Step 4. Adjust the point value and time limit using the dropdowns in the top-right corner. The defaults are 1 point and 3 minutes.

5. Step 5. Optionally, click Tag standards to align the question to learning standards, or click Add answer explanation to provide a model answer students can review after submitting.

6. Step 6. Click Save question.

Question settings

The Question settings panel on the right side of the editor includes two settings specific to Open-Ended questions.

Show your work

Toggle this on to let students upload images alongside their typed answer. This is useful for subjects like math or science where students may need to show handwritten work, diagrams, or photos of physical models.

Evaluate responses with AI

Toggle this on to enable automatic, rubric-based scoring of student responses. When enabled, Wayground’s AI evaluates each student’s answer against your chosen rubric and generates a score along with individualized written feedback that appears in your reports.

Once enabled, a Choose a rubric section appears with four options: State rubrics library, Generate with AI, Create your own, and Upload a rubric.

Choosing a rubric

After you enable Evaluate responses with AI, you need to attach a rubric for the AI to score against. Wayground gives you four ways to do this.

Option 1 — State rubrics library

Browse a curated collection of standards-aligned rubrics organized by state, subject, and grade level. This is the fastest option if your school or district follows a state-mandated scoring rubric.

How it works:

• Click State rubrics library from the Choose a rubric panel.

• A dialog opens with a two-step flow: Choose a rubric → Test your rubric.

• Use the State, Subject, and Grade dropdown filters to narrow the list.

• Each rubric includes an external link icon so you can preview the original source document.

• Select the rubric you want by clicking on it, then click Next to proceed to Step 2 where you can test the rubric with a sample response.
  
  

Option 2 — Generate with AI

Have Wayground automatically create a custom rubric tailored to your question.

How it works:

• Click Generate with AI from the Choose a rubric panel.

• A dialog opens with three dropdown menus: Subject (e.g., Science), Grade (e.g., 3rd Grade), and point value (e.g., 1 point). Set these to match your question.

• Your Question prompt is automatically pulled in from the question you typed.

• Optionally, type Additional instructions to guide the rubric generation — for example, specific criteria you want the AI to evaluate such as accuracy, use of vocabulary, or logical organization.

• The Support partial grading toggle is on by default, allowing the AI to award partial credit rather than an all-or-nothing score.

• Click Generate. Wayground produces a rubric table with multiple criteria rows and scoring levels (e.g., Excellent, Good, Developing, Needs Improvement), each with its own point value and description.

• Review the generated rubric. You can click Edit to modify criteria, scoring levels, point values, or descriptions before proceeding.

• Click Next to proceed to Step 2 where you can test the rubric with a sample response.
  
  

Option 3 — Create your own

Select Create your own to write a rubric from scratch, either as free text or using the built-in rubric table builder.

Free-text rubric: Type your scoring criteria directly into the text area. For example, you could define a simple four-point scale:

• 4 – Excellent: Response is clear, organized, and easy to understand.

• 3 – Good: Response is mostly clear and understandable.

• 2 – Developing: Response is somewhat unclear or disorganized.

• 1 – Beginning: Response is very unclear or difficult to follow.

Click Next when you’re ready to test it.

Rubric table builder: Click Edit next to Rubric table builder to open a structured table editor. This builder starts with a default layout of one criteria row with Correct (1 pt) and Incorrect (0 pt) columns. From there, you can:

• Rename the rubric using the pencil icon next to the title

• Click + Add Column to add more scoring levels and set custom point values

• Click + Add Row to add additional criteria

• Type descriptions into each cell to define what each score level looks like for each criterion

Click Save when you’ve finished building the rubric, then proceed to the test step.

Option 4 — Upload a rubric

Select Upload a rubric to use a rubric you’ve already created outside of Wayground.

How it works:

• Click Upload a rubric from the Choose a rubric panel.

• A dialog appears with two options: click Upload to select a file from your computer, or click Google Drive to import directly from your Drive. Supported file types include PDF, DOCX, Excel sheets, and more.

• Once uploaded, Wayground will parse the document and convert it into a usable rubric. You can review and edit it before saving.

Testing your rubric before saving

Regardless of which method you use to choose your rubric, Wayground lets you test it before committing — so you can verify it scores the way you expect.

After selecting or creating a rubric, you’ll see the Test your rubric screen (Step 2 of the two-step flow). This screen shows your question prompt at the top and the selected rubric (with an Edit button if you need to make changes), and a Sample response text area.

To test the rubric, type or paste a sample student response into the text area, then click Evaluate response. Wayground’s AI will score the sample against your rubric and display the result, which includes a correctness label (e.g., “Correct”), a numeric score (e.g., 1 point), and a written Analysis explaining how the response was evaluated across the rubric criteria.

You can test as many sample responses as you like to verify the rubric behaves as expected. Try entering responses at different quality levels — a strong response, a partial response, and a weak response — to make sure the rubric differentiates appropriately.

Once you’re satisfied with the results, click Save to attach the rubric to your question. The rubric will then appear in the Question settings panel under Evaluation rubric, where you can edit or delete it at any time.

Tips for writing effective Open-Ended questions

• Be specific in your prompt. Clear expectations help both students and the AI. Instead of a broad prompt, include the specific elements you want students to address — the number of points to cover, the depth of explanation, or the format to follow.

• Match your rubric to your prompt. The AI evaluation is only as good as the rubric it’s scoring against. Make sure your rubric criteria align directly with what your question is asking students to demonstrate.

• Test before you assign. Enter two or three sample responses of varying quality on the Test your rubric screen. This is the fastest way to catch scoring issues before the assessment goes live.

• Use the additional instructions field. When generating a rubric with AI, the optional additional instructions field can significantly improve rubric quality. Be specific about what you want evaluated — for example, accuracy, completeness, use of vocabulary, or organization.

• Consider partial grading. Keep the Support partial grading toggle on (the default) when generating rubrics with AI. This ensures students receive credit for what they know, rather than an all-or-nothing score.

• Pair with Show your work for STEM questions. For math and science questions, toggling on Show your work lets students upload images of their handwritten solutions alongside their typed response, giving you a more complete picture of their thinking.