Reflections on Developing an Exam for my Moodle course on Linear Functions.
Over the last several decades I have built countless assignments and tests for my students. As a math teacher I believe that being able to show your work is an essential element of understanding and application. Building assessment tools, both formative and summative, require a strong pedagogical base, some creativity, and usually a fair amount of time and hard work. Good tests must allow all students an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts covered, in a format that is suitable for the learning environment.
This was my first real attempt at building an “on-line test”, and I have somewhat mixed feelings regarding both the process and the final product. My first concern is centered around the unique nature of math, especially the symbols used on an everyday basis. Using Moodle to build static questions and answers involving exponents, fractions, and other math symbols created some challenges to be sure. The DragMath Equation Editor did not work for me causing me to change some of the question formatting. I am sure with additional time and support, this will not be a substantial issue in the future. The matching and the multiple choice questions served me the best, as I use them in my “offline” assessment and they were intuitive to use. Both types of questions allow a wide range of learning taxonomy to be easily built in, and are very useful for formative assessment because of the ease and immediacy of feedback.
The fill in the blank questions were entertaining because of spelling, and opportunities for multiple answers. Answers like “perpendicular” and “at right angles to” have to be accommodated into common correct answers, but Moodle seems to offer less flexibility for incorrect spelling and less common answers. The fill in the blank format holds little application in future online assessment.
What causes me the most concern as I move forward in my quest towards online learning is the opportunity for students to show work to support a solution online. While it may be easy to write a 5-paragraph essay for English, or to debate the cause and effect of global warming in Social Studies, the same cannot be said for Math. Currently, students use pencil and paper to support math solutions, creating the necessary symbols as needed. This same support is extremely difficult to reproduce using the Moodle online environment. I do understand that my current expertise is very limited, but my Moodle exam is lacking because students do not have the tools to easily submit multiple step solutions to their instructor online, within the noted time allotment.
Having said that, the BC Ministry of Education has used Multiple Choice questions on their Final Exams for years. Well designed MC questions are very effective for both formative and summative assessment, and work extremely well in Moodle. They may form the backbone of my online assessment until my skills develop further.