Process and Product
As I began to reflect on the task of creating an assessment, which is itself an assessment of my understanding, and which will sit within a larger assessment of my understanding – in the form of an as-yet-to-be-fully-built Moodle course site – I started to feel a bit dizzy. So, being a visual-spatial learner, I made a concept map.
Click on the image for a larger view.
The Process
Nothing about the quiz building process seemed intuitive to me. At different points in the process of preparing my Moodle quiz, I felt the desire to take a big step back and get a better look at the task in front of me, but it was almost impossible to really “see” it; it was a jumble of interconnected pieces. But I couldn’t locate any examples of a completed quiz product; in order to “see” a Moodle quiz, it seemed I would have to find a course, enrol in it, and work my way up to at least the first quiz; I wasn’t prepared to go this far to see an example. However, this feeling led me to create a PDF version of my quiz so that other visual-spatial learners might benefit from my experience.
In the non-digital world, I like to look at a thing in order to figure out how it works; I’m not big on reading guides or instructional manuals. In the early days of this activity, I applied my usual approach; get in there and try things out! But each time, I would get so far and realize that I was missing a big piece of information, like how the gradebook gets connected to the quiz, or how the quiz gets questions in it, and what the heck is a question bank all about – I just want to create a quiz. Ultimately, I think my biggest problem as I began to work more closely with Moodle was simply that Martin Dougiamas is much more of a methodical thinker than I.
So, I began reading information and watching instructional videos, which all seemed like a big distraction when I had so much work to do. But after a while, I started to build my own understanding of what the quiz would look like, and how all of the parts were connected. I could put it together in my head, and that was the turning point. Once I had built enough of a foundation of understanding, it all started to feel a bit more straightforward, and now I’m quite pleased with how the Moodle course is all coming together.
As shown in my concept map, reflecting on this task as a learning activity prompted me to revisit the work of Gibbs and Simpson (2004), who list ten conditions under which assessment supports learning. Seven of those conditions refer to feedback, which I haven’t yet received for this activity. But I feel strongly that the remaining three conditions, pertaining to the learning activity itself, are clearly met by this activity.
Condition: Must Cause Concentrated Study
This learning activity lead me to a significant amount of concentrated study. I dove into the world of Moodle forums, Lynda.com training videos, and Moodle documentation. I took notes, which I carried with me wherever I went just in case I found myself with time to watch the next training video. I relied on input from classmates to a much lesser degree simply because I was hesitant to take up their time; I knew how much time this was taking me, and I didn’t want to take time from anyone else. Which leads to the next condition.
Condition: Must Cause Time on Task
In my own experience, the activity of creating a quiz in Moodle required a great deal of time on task. I haven’t gone into great detail to review my user log, but I know the time has been substantial. Creating a question of a new type, entering the question, answer, and score information, selecting from the plethora of settings options, saving and previewing the question, revising the settings, and repeating. Many times. And then repeating again when you come up with a way to improve the question. This assessment activity has resulted in a significant amount of time on task for me.
Condition: Must Be a Productive Learning Activity
The end result of this learning activity is a quiz, which is a real and relevant product. But I’ve also gained a detailed familiarity with the Moodle platform, which is extremely relevant to me as an aspiring educational technology professional. Looking back on the time that I spent constructing knowledge and applying it to the assessment task, I feel strongly that the learning activity was highly productive and valuable.
Based on the criteria set forth by Gibbs and Simpson (2004), the assessment activity of building a quiz in Moodle clearly supports student learning.
The Product
The Moodle course I am designing is an online course designed to help undergraduate students improve their cultural and linguistic fluency. The course includes lessons on Canadian historical figures, inventors, and innovators; entertainers and athletes; topical and timely issues; and related cultural and linguistic content, such as cultural conventions and the idiomatic usage of words. Through a wider lens, however, the course is intended as the first in an online program of study that would provide international students with increased support by way of a consistent cohort of peers. Through that lens, the importance of including engaging materials that will be received as valuable but not incredibly taxing becomes key; if students don’t buy into the program, they will not benefit from the longer-term program goal.
The quiz I have prepared for my Moodle course is largely as prescribed in the assignment guidelines; it includes the assigned number and types of questions with the requisite features and elements. But beyond that, it also meets certain conditions set forth by Gibbs and Simpson (2004).
Condition: Must Cause Concentrated Study
As an assessed component in a required course, the quiz will provide a certain degree of extrinsic motivation to students and encourage their engagement with the learning materials (Jenkins, 2005). However, international students are academic students as well as culture and language learners (Spurling, 2007 as cited in Liu, 2011). As such, they are also intrinsically motivated; their success in their studies and in their day-to-day lives depends on their development of cultural and language knowledge.
Condition: Must Provide Timely Feedback
The quiz activity includes auto-graded questions, the results of which are available to students as soon as they complete the quiz. These results include whether or not full grades were earned for each question, as well as encouraging feedback. It is anticipated that the manually-graded short-answer and essay questions would be returned to students within 5 business days.
Condition: Must Provide Sufficient Feedback
The quiz activity includes programmed responses for most questions, whether a correct, partially correct, or incorrect response is entered. Students know at quiz completion if their understanding was complete and what grade they earned on auto-graded portions. In the case of partially correct or incorrect responses, the feedback includes encouragement and specific details about how the student might improve their understanding of the question content.
Initially, I was chagrined that this quiz component would be a part of my Moodle course for international students; I intended to follow the advice of Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) and include only activities that were interactive, problem-oriented, relevant, and motivating to students. However, after becoming more familiar with the Moodle quiz activity, the variety of question types, and the feedback abilities, I am envisioning frequent, brief quizzes in my Moodle future. When carefully planned, the Moodle quiz activity can include interactivity, problem-solving, relevance and motivation.
References
Chickering, A.W. & Ehrmann, S.C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Accessed online 2 Oct 2012 http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm
Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Accessed online 29 Sept 2012 http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf
Jenkins, M. (2004). Unfulfilled promise: Formative assessment using computer-aided assessment. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, i, 67-80. Accessed online 29 Sept 2012 http://www2.glos.ac.uk/offload/tli/lets/lathe/issue1/articles/jenkins.pdf
Liu, L. (2011). An international graduate student’s ESL learning experience beyond the classroom. TESL Canada Journal, 29(1), 77-92. Retrieved from http://www.teslcanadajournal.ca/index.php/tesl/article/view/1090/909