Assessment
My Moodle Quiz can be found here.
My Reflections on Assessment and Moodle Quiz Creation
Designing a valid assessment tool in Moodle is no simple task. It requires an understanding of the pedagogy of assessment as well as the technical skill to navigate and troubleshoot in the LMS or other software being utilized. The major challenge that I see with online assessment tools is the need to design an assessment tool that “supports worthwhile learning” (Gibbs & Simpson, 2004). While reading Conditions Under Which Assessment Supports Students’ Learning, my feeling that traditional graded quizzes are not the strongest form of assessment was underlined. It seems, from the research in Gibbs & Simpson’s paper, that this form of assessment has arisen more out of convenience (including time, funding issues) than out of strong pedagogy – I know, sweeping unsupported statement… but this is a reflection and not a formal paper!
In order to create an assessment tool that supports learning, one needs to put great effort into not only the design of the quiz, but the selection of questions appropriate to subject matter and assessment goals and the provision of timely, meaningful feedback. To this end, I spent a number of hours working in Moodle and scouring Moodle docs and the Internet for support.
I had few technical issues beyond the slow speed of Moodle at times, but I did become frustrated with the presets in the short answer question tool. I read in a Moodle support page that it is recommended to ‘test out’ a question with a student audience in order to anticipate possible responses… I can’t even imagine the time this would take. As a primary school teacher, not a course designer, I don’t think it would be in my best interests to create this form of question in Moodle unless the response was strictly numerical. Too many possible answer variations – in particular spelling from phonetic to non-phonetic – that I would be able to make sense of on a paper quiz would be marked wrong. This would entail me editing and overriding each individual response and would be far too time consuming a task. As an exercise, however, I did try to think of a variety of spellings and variations and did include these in two of my short answer questions.
A second technical glitch I encountered did leave me in a bit of a panic. At approximately 9:30pm, I decided to test out my quiz as a student (rather than simply using the preview button). Following my attempt, I tried to make changes based on problems I encountered and errors I found. To my horror, once a student has made an attempt, you can no longer edit a quiz! Again, I scoured Moodle docs and again was pleased to find the answer to my problem – I was able to delete the attempt and continue editing.
While working on my quiz, I’ve struggled with the wording of questions and feedback and have referred to both Gibbs and Simpson (2004) frequently for support. I tried to develop a quiz that supports students making connections between the different concepts presented in the learning material in order to encourage and facilitate higher order thinking.
While the bulk of my multiple choice questions and matching questions are more content/memory focused, I’ve tried to group the questions in a way that builds to the essay question and provides some ‘key words’ to activate prior knowledge and support the students in writing a thoughtful paper.
Creating a quiz that ‘respects diverse talents and ways of learning’ (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996) is a challenging endeavour – particularly for someone who is both unused to assessment in this form and unfamiliar with the tools being used. (Not to mention unsold on the format!).
I rarely, as a process oriented primary teacher, assess students in this way. The bulk of my assessment is quite individualized – I use performance standards rubrics (both co-developed with students and curriculum focussed) and conferences most frequently. I can, however, see the efficacy of this form of assessment tool if properly designed! I think some students would even find it motivating – especially if they start to recognize the pattern in the content of the quiz. Students who see the connections between the material have truly grasped the content.
The quiz I created is working towards something that is on the “formative-summative continuum” (Jenkins, 2004) and that could help to motivate student learning on a deeper level.
NB: Once the course content is fully developed, the quiz will need revision to make it a more appropriate measure.
References:
Chickering, A.W. and Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), p. 3-7.http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm
Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2005). “Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning.” Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Accessed online 11 March 2009
Jenkins, M. (2004). Unfulfilled promise: formative assessment using computer-aided assessment. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education(1) Accessed online 13 March 2009.