While I had struggled a great deal with the first Moodle assignment, after receiving some instruction on Moodle at Friday’s Computer-Using Educators of BC (CUEBC) conference as a part of the Provincial Specialist Association (PSA) Day I believed that this assignment would take less time than it did.
I struggled between the Quiz Administration and the Quiz Editing Settings. This could have been a result of my inexperience with Moodle as a learning management system (LMS). After some time, and trial and error, I slowly began to resolve my issues. I found that some of my struggles came from the necessity for my grading categories to be edited first. It would have been nice if Moodle had tool for beginning administrators to walk through the administration process and the editing process. While I was able to find more YouTube videos, such as How to Make a Quiz in Moodle 2.6, to introduce the editing process, I was unable to find any videos that were able to explain all of the options available in the administering process.
Throughout the past three years of teaching Science 10, I have developed hundreds of quizzes and dozens of tests. While, I had initially thought that I could take one of those quizzes and transfer it directly over to Moodle, it was not the case. The fashion in which the questions are generated and delivered had to be taken into account. Gibbs & Simpson (2005) had provided me with insight into the evaluation process, and using the quiz as a tool that will allow the students to focus on their learning. For this reason, wanted to provide immediate feedback during the quiz. Not only will this decrease the amount of work I have as a teacher marking, it will also provide the students with the opportunity to take their incorrect answers and learn from them; using their new found knowledge throughout the remainder of the quiz. Furthermore, if I made the quiz with more essay questions the students would have to wait longer for their feedback and marks.
Providing the students with immediate feedback is important to me. As the quiz is not required to be completed until the end of the week, I want to ensure the students are able to receive the feedback as quickly as possible to know what they know and don’t know allowing for them to focus on their learning before commencing the next lesson (Chickering & Gamson, 1987, p.3). The immediate feedback during the quiz is a method that will allow the quiz assessment more relevant and useful to the students; therefore, I decided to utilize Moodle in assessing all of the questions with the exception of the paragraph questions. When the student inputs an incorrect answer in the multiple choice section the feedback is designed to be quite specific and useful, explaining the definition of the incorrect response and guiding them towards the correct response (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005). With the exception of the paragraph questions, students were required to reflect on their own knowledge indicated hot confident they were in providing their answer, using Moodle’s (2013) Immediate Feedback with Certainty-Based marking (CBM). The introduction to the quiz, I also stated that their paragraph questions would be marked within 24 weekday-hours, to ensure I was not required to work over the weekend; but to again assure the students were receiving prompt feedback before continuing in their learning.
Once the student’s paragraphs are marked they will receive an automated overall feedback based on their mark. The automated overall feedback is based on categories generated by the Provincial Letter Grades Order. In this feedback I informed the students of how they should proceed; to move on to the next lesson, or to review areas of difficulty independently, to review areas of difficulty with their peers or myself, or to contact me for a live chat for greater support and explanation regarding the concepts taught. This will provide the students with the opportunity to receive more feedback, and to receive the appropriate level of support required to proceed in the course.
The quiz is available throughout the week in which the students are introduced to the content. They have until the end of the week, Sunday at 23:59 to complete it. I wanted to ensure that the students do not feel rushed in taking the quiz, making sure to recognize that individuals learn at different rates. With the 10-question quiz I have designed, the students have been given a 30-minute time limit. This decision was made to help the students learn to manage their time efficiently; as the provincial exam they will be required to take has 60 questions within a 3-hour time limit.
I have once again, learned more about Moodle as an LMS. However, the greatest piece of knowledge I have taken away is to spend time reflecting on the assessment and feedback I use in my regular classes. While we go over quizzes as a class after everyone has completed it, I do not go into as much detail on every question, I am sure leaving some students still wondering about the correct answer or the explanation on how the answer was determined. With the completion of this activity, I am now contemplating creating my quizzes and tests on an online platform which will allow me to provide instantaneous feedback to individual students to help guide them in their learning. Creating this quiz on Moodle has served me as a reminder on how to create an effective quiz.
Quizzes and tests are not just to receive marks, they are to serve as a process in learning too.
References
BC Education. (2014, August 1). Provincial letter grades order. [Document]. Retrieved from http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/DownloadAsset?assetId=8CE36B223FE640A6A6DF748388381677
Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39(7), 3-7. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm
Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf
japaneric. (2014, February 5). How to make a quiz in Moodle 2.6. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/x1nkpv8yHbs
Moodle. (2013, October 16). Question behaviors. [Web log message]. Retrieved from https://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Question_behaviours