It was a really interesting experience making the Moodle quiz, this activity was one of the more interesting so far. (It has also been the activity that spurred on a mass attack on my Moodle page.) I can see how using quizzes in Moodle really do play a major role in assessment/ feedback when it comes to online learning. At the same time it would be dangerous to rely solely on the quizzes for that purpose. They are great for immediate feedback, review and for the instructor to get a snapshot of where their students are with the material, but I think it is important to incorporate other assignments and projects as well. One of the most important aspects of assessment is making sure the student is being assessed on the right information and having various opportunities to show their skill and understanding.

Some of the main pro’s that I believe would come through by using Moodle quizzes is the ability to immediatley give students an idea of what they know and what they need to focus on. With each passing year, with every technological advance, students are going to be expected to be more self motivated in their learning. It also allows students to move at their own learning pace, and gives the teacher an opportunity to give focused , extra help to those who need it. Another pro is the teacher can design their course in such a way that each Module builds on the previous. This would ensure that students are applying the feedback that they were given in the previous Module, deepening their learning of a particular skill.

I did not find too many frustrations. I understand that long answers responces could not get immediate feedback and grading. These are the questions where students personalities, perceptions and theories are going to come out. Especially if it is an opinion question. I am sure there are programs that can match or recognize key words or phrases, but  this seems like a challenging task.

I chose to make the purpose of my first quiz for review for my students. To motivate my students to complete the quiz at the end of module 1, they will receive full marks for completion, but no marks if it is not done or left incomplete. Since it would be their first quiz, I wanted it to be low pressure and enable them to get used to taking a quiz in this environment. I also made a really high attempt number to encourage students to take the quiz multiple times if they received a low score on the first attempt.

Assessment in a F2F classroom can be challenging. To ensure that it is authentic, fair, given promptly, incorporated by students in future assignments, and addressing the learning goals of the course can at times be very time consuming on the teachers end. I think my main concern with online assessment is that my students would be self motivated enough to utilize the feedback. My Moodle is for students ages 12-13, and I think my challenge will be getting them to understand that sometimes it does take reading a passage more than once, or taking a review quiz more than once for the information to really sink in. I will be building a few other quizzes in my other modules, and this is going to be my main focus: How can I motivate students to take the quiz again if the scored under a certain percent? I have a few ideas kicking around, I will be interested to see what reality does to them.

The experience of making my first quiz has been one of the most rewarding so far in this course. I felt like I really ” built ” something, which in all honesty was not something I could have done a few months prior.  It also made me see Moodle in a slightly different light and motivated me to tackle it head on.

Here is my quiz if anyone wants to test their skills in remembering Macbeth: Act I Quiz

Cheers

Tracy