--- title: 'Setting up a check for understanding session for HPE and Digital Technologies' description: 'Two worked examples — The Body and Physical Activity, and Data Representation — and what makes a hinge question effective.' canonical: 'https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/example-sessions/check-for-understanding-session-for-hpe-and-digital-technologies' siteGuide: 'https://www.gonurture.com/llms.txt' --- ![Setting up a check for understanding session for HPE and Digital Technologies](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3JEigLNrPfU/hqdefault.jpg) Watch tutorial TeacherHPEDigital Technologies Two worked examples — The Body and Physical Activity, and Data Representation — and what makes a hinge question effective. Updated 20 August 2026 Two worked examples of setting up a check for understanding: one Health and Physical Education, one Digital Technologies. **When to use it:** When you are writing the prompt for an HPE or Digital Technologies lesson and want a model to work from. This page covers **setting the session up**. For running it in class and reading the results, see [how to create and run a Live Quiz session](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/getting-started/create-and-run-a-live-quiz-session.md). ## Framing Both examples use the **Live Quiz** session type, run live in class, with a handful of checks across a lesson rather than a comprehensive assessment. For something more thorough that students complete outside class, switch to an [Assessment session](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/getting-started/create-and-run-an-assessment-session.md), which supports more questions and more question types. Signal works the same way in your browser, in Microsoft Teams and in Canvas, so nothing here changes with the platform you teach on. ## The prompt structure - Year group - Subject - Topic - Approximate class size and ability range - The learning intention for the lesson - The subtopics you plan to cover ## Getting better questions out of generation Generation works well, but only when the prompt is specific. Name a topic and nothing else and you get generic questions; describe the lesson and you get questions you can use. Too vague Copy Year 7 HPE quiz on the body. Compare that with the two prompts below: they name the subtopics, the ability range and the learning intention, and that is the whole difference. The more of the checklist above you fill in — the specific skill or misconception you’re checking, the number and type of questions, and the difficulty — the less editing you do afterwards. Whatever comes back still needs a read-through before it reaches a class, and the keyed answer is the thing to check first. There’s also a limit on how much one generation produces — see [generate a whole session with AI](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/creating-sessions/generate-a-session-with-ai.md) for how that works. ## The two prompts Year 7 HPE — The Body and Physical Activity Copy Year 7 HPE - The Body and Physical Activity 7C, 26 students, mixed ability. Learning intention: explain how the heart and lungs respond to exercise and why those changes happen. Topics that will be covered: - Why the body responds at all. Working muscles need more oxygen and produce more carbon dioxide, so the body has to deliver oxygen faster and clear carbon dioxide faster. - The heart and lungs during exercise. Heart rate rises, and the heart also pumps more blood with each beat rather than only beating more often. Breathing becomes both faster and deeper. Breathing hard is the body meeting demand correctly, not a sign that something is wrong or that a person is unfit. - Recovery after exercise. Heart rate and breathing return towards resting levels once exercise stops. A person who is fitter returns to their resting heart rate more quickly, and their resting heart rate is usually lower to begin with. Year 7 Digital Technologies — Data Representation Copy Year 7 Digital Technologies - Data Representation 7C, 26 students, mixed ability. Learning intention: explain how computers represent numbers using binary, and convert between binary and decimal. Topics that will be covered: - Why binary. A computer circuit is either on or off, so every piece of data has to be built from two states, written as 0 and 1. Each of these is called a bit. - Binary as a place value system. Reading right to left the columns are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128, each one double the last. The binary number 1011 is 8 plus 2 plus 1, which is 11 in decimal. Binary is not a secret code to be memorised, it works the same way as the ones, tens and hundreds columns students already use. - Bits and bytes. Eight bits make one byte, and a single byte can represent 256 different values from 0 to 255. A bit and a byte are not the same thing, and file sizes are measured in bytes. ## What makes a hinge question effective A hinge question is multiple choice, with one or more correct answers, where the incorrect options surface specific misconceptions. They are not designed to catch students out. When a student selects a wrong answer, that choice tells you something about their thinking — which is the whole point of asking. This draws on Professor Dylan Wiliam’s work, covered in depth in Course 3 on [Nurture Learn](https://www.gonurture.com/learn.md). The explanation attached to each generated question covers why the correct answer is correct and why each incorrect answer is misconceived. It is not shown to students unless you choose to reveal it. ## Adjusting questions You can ask Signal to rewrite a question that is too difficult, or to increase the difficulty of one that is too easy. Quick options are available for simplifying the wording, shortening the question, and improving the answer choices, with more behind the overflow menu. Switching a question to **multiple answer** works as differentiation: most students find the obvious correct answer, and the ones who also spot the second correct option tend to be the higher achievers. ## A note on Digital Technologies Where questions involve numeric values, Signal applies number formatting automatically. The same notation tooling covered in the [Maths and Science tutorial](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/example-sessions/check-for-understanding-session-for-maths-and-science.md) is available if you need to edit those questions. ## Open answer questions Open answer questions are available in both subjects, but they do not lend themselves to checking for understanding, because there is no clear correct or incorrect response to read. They require success criteria, and benefit from a model answer. They are covered separately in [creating open answer questions](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/creating-sessions/creating-open-answer-questions.md). [Previous Setting up a check for understanding session for Maths and Science](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/example-sessions/check-for-understanding-session-for-maths-and-science.md) [Next Generate a whole session with AI](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/creating-sessions/generate-a-session-with-ai.md) Related articles - [How to create and run a Live Quiz session](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/getting-started/create-and-run-a-live-quiz-session.md) - [Setting up a check for understanding session for Maths and Science](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/example-sessions/check-for-understanding-session-for-maths-and-science.md) Still stuck? We're happy to help you directly. [Get in touch with the Nurture team](https://www.gonurture.com/contact-us.md).