eP#4 Reflection:
Moodle Quiz Experience
Link to Quiz: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/mod/quiz/view.php?id=11797
I am becoming more comfortable with creating new assessments in Moodle and I have tried to push my own comfort boundaries with this quiz. I have been using simple multiple choice questions with my students for the last couple of years and have had great success. The practice allows for student to rapidly receive feedback and to easily reattempt a quiz. Moodle assessments save paper, increase organization, and allow for both formative and summative assessments.
In preparation for the final exam in Science 8, our classes experimented with formative assessments by using Moodle quizzes with ‘Adaptive Mode’ on. This feature allows students to submit each question immediately after they complete it and receive feedback, which they can then use to reattempt an incorrect answer. Even though the teacher is not directly in the loop, the student-content-feedback interaction allows the learner the opportunity to assess their strengths and weaknesses and self-regulate their behaviours accordingly. An example of such a dialogue may be “I am having trouble with questions that deal with pressure equations. I need to figure this stuff out. Can we review this once more?”
The part of the quiz that I am most happy with is the picture grid created using the Cloze question type. I was inspired by the work of Jen Deyenberg in her post where she used this feature to create a visually stunning quiz question. The html code gets ugly fast, and then it become compounded by the html code to create the table. I like to use excel to keep track of some of the repetition of html and created a excel template that helped with the process of setting one of these questions up. This template, and another built for multiple choice and matching questions, can be found throught the moodle site of linked to here: Cloze_Question_Table, Matching_Moodle_Quiz_Blank
The “Adaptive Mode” is a setting in the Moodle Quiz that can really change the feel of the assessment. When this feature is set to ‘Yes,’ students are able to see a submit button below every question and are able to submit each question individually to see if they answered correctly. If they did not get the question correct, they are allowed to reattempt and then resubmit. Each incorrect response brings a set penalty which defaults at 10%. This feature would allow the quiz to seem less threatening and reduce anxiety in some students. Using this feature would be great for formative assessments, allowing learning to continue during the process of the quiz, but it may give an inflated view of what the student knows. Summative assessments would likely not include this feature.
There are several features that Moodle makes exceptionally easy to use. The timing feature of the quiz is easy to setup and modify but its actual use may be frustrating for the test takers. The movement of the “countdown box” on the screen as the page scrolls has a Orwellian feel and may distract, annoy and agitate in its attempt to be informative. The Post-Exam feedback is intuitive to setup but may have limits to its usefulness. The essay-type questions are not auto-assessed and require instructor interaction. This process can be valuable as it allows insight into the thought processes of students. Marking long answer questions can be time intensive, but Moodle allows for the students’ responses to be organized in a way that allows for efficient reading and feedback.
In general, I am very satisfied with the assessment tools in Moodle.
One reply on “4. Assessment”
Good job here. I like the snap shots!