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Worked methods, and letting Smarty Pants draft them

The short explanation a pupil sees when they get a question wrong — how to write one, how to have Smarty Pants draft them for a whole topic, and why nothing reaches a child until you have read it.

The short version A worked method is the explanation a pupil is shown when they get a question wrong — never before. Open Library, pick a topic, and use Add a worked method on any question. Or press ✦ Draft worked methods and Smarty Pants will write one for every question in that topic that hasn't got one. They come back for you to read. Nothing a machine wrote reaches a child until you have accepted it.

What a worked method is for

A pupil answers, gets it wrong, and is told so. That is the moment a worked method appears: a few short steps showing how the question works and why the right answer is right. It is the difference between "no, it was B" and understanding what to do next time.

It is also what Smarty Pants builds on. If a pupil goes on to ask about the same question, the helper is given your method and told to elaborate on that approach rather than invent a different one — because a child being taught one way and shown another is worse off than before they asked.

A worked method can never make a question wrong It never touches the options or the answer. That is why adding one is quick and safe, where writing a question of your own asks you to answer it yourself first. The worst a poor method can do is fail to help — which is exactly why you read them before they go out, and not more than that.

Writing one yourself

  1. Open the topic

    Library in the top bar, then click any topic. You will see every question in it, with the correct answer marked.

  2. Press Add a worked method

    A box opens under that question. Up to 600 characters — a counter tells you where you are. Write it the way you would say it to the pupil in front of you.

  3. Publish when you are ready

    Methods reach your students the next time they open the app, after you press Publish to my students. Until then a banner reminds you they haven't had them yet.

Having Smarty Pants draft them

Most tutors have neither the time nor the inclination to write a hundred of these. So ✦ Draft worked methods writes one for every question in the topic that does not already have one — in the same voice your students already hear from the helper.

There are two of that button. One on the Library screen itself, which takes the topic with the most questions still missing a method and names it before it starts — the quickest way in if you are working through the library. And one on each topic screen, for when you already know which topic you want.

  1. Press it, and read what it says first

    It tells you how many it will write and what it will not touch: nothing that already has a method, and nothing you have hidden. It does 40 at a time; run it again for a bigger topic.

  2. Read them

    They appear in Worked methods to check, above the questions. Each one sits in an editable box. Change anything you would say differently — what you leave in the box is what a pupil reads.

  3. Keep or bin each one

    Use this accepts it. Bin it refuses it, and it will not be redrafted the next time you run it. Then publish as usual.

Read them. Genuinely read them. These are written by a machine that is good at this and occasionally wrong about it. It has your question and its correct answer, so it rarely contradicts the answer key — but it can explain a method you would not teach, or reach for a shortcut a Primary 7 pupil has not met. You are the one who knows your pupils. Ten seconds a method is enough; skipping it is not.

What it costs

A fraction of a penny per question, from the same monthly Smarty Pants allowance the helper uses — a whole topic of thirty is well under 2p. You can see what is left on your Plan screen.

If the allowance is spent, drafting is refused with a message saying so. That is deliberate and it is the one place a limit says no out loud: it is refusing you, at a keyboard, with an obvious remedy. A limit is never allowed to refuse a child mid-question.

Questions people ask

Does the pupil know a machine wrote it?
No, and it does not read like one — it is written in the same warm voice as the helper, with no greeting or sign-off. But the app itself keeps a record of whether a method was written by a person or drafted, and Smarty Pants is told which it is: it will not treat its own earlier wording as your considered method, and if a pupil is still stuck it takes a different angle rather than repeating itself.
If I edit a draft, whose method is it?
Yours. Editing before accepting stores your text and records it as a person's work, not the machine's.
Can I draft methods for questions I wrote myself?
Not yet — the button covers the common library. Your own questions have a Worked method box in the question editor, which you fill in as you write the question.
What if a question already has a method from Strivli?
Yours wins for your students. The common library's method is the fallback; anything you write or accept replaces it in your own pupils' app and nowhere else.
Does a pupil see it if they get the question right?
No. It appears only on a wrong answer. A pupil who got it right is not made to read an explanation of something they already knew.
Can I get rid of one?
Yes — Remove method on the question, then publish. The question goes back to whatever the common library provides.

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