Introduction
The process of creating the introduction module for my Moodle course is best described as a maze. When I began developing the introduction module the path seemed straightforward. Then, I faced a series of turns and I found myself lost and confused, but eventually I found my way, only to get lost and confused again. Finally, through a lot trial and error, I found the exit and finished the introduction module. I know that the maze analogy is cliche, but it is the only way to describe how I navigated this challenge. It turns out that my reflection is like a maze too, because the rationale behind the decisions I made about my Moodle course inform one another—they are connected and confusing to keep straight.
To begin, here is the context I used when making decisions for the Moodle course.:
Student Profile
- Grade 10 students at a Sunday-Friday boarding school attending classes for approximately 12 hours a day.
- All EAL (English as an additional language) learners with varying levels of proficiency.
- Students have completed 1 term an IT course taught face-to-face
Moodle Course Context
- A mandatory course.
- Online delivery*.
*Except for the actual delivery of the summative assessment presentation. At this time, I haven’t discovered an effective way to accomplish this via Moodle when taking my students’ current situation (boarding school, limited time, etc) into consideration.
The Approach
My approach to developing this course followed Nel, Dreyer and Carstens’ (2010) five stages in the instructional design process: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (p. 240). However, I only made it through analysis, design, development, and a tiny fraction of implementation because real students have not enrolled or completed my Moodle course.
In the analysis stage, I began by thinking about the offline version of the unit I used as the foundation for my Moodle course. I thought about its strengths and weaknesses and came to the conclusion that I wanted to make the Moodle course more learner-centred and shift the assessment focus from summative to formative. I used this my guide when making course design decisions.
Anderson (2008a) states that a learner-centred approach involves the teacher making “efforts to gain an understanding of students’ prerequisite knowledge, including any misconceptions that the learner starts with in their construction of new knowledge” (p. 47). With this in mind, I decided that, in the introduction module, I needed to determine what the students already knew and what preconceptions they were bringing with them to the course. I developed two activities for the introduction module to discover more about what my students: the introduction post on the discussion forum and the word cloud activity. However, Anderson (2008a) goes on to say that, in a learner-centred approach “learner-centred activities make extensive use of diagnostic tools and activities to make visible these pre-existing knowledge structures to both the teacher and the students themselves” (p. 47). So, in order to make the pre-existing knowledge structures visible, I decided to rely on an assessment (the discussion forum post). Why? Because the students would have to submit work, then I could evaluate what their pre-existing knowledge. Did I design a truly learner-centred introduction module? No. I don’t think it’s learner-centred in a traditional sense, but what I learn from the student responses in the introduction module will inform my decisions regarding the rest of the course.
If you check the course schedule, you will see a lot of assessment—10 discussion posts, 7 assignments, a midterm quiz and a summative assessment—thus the course as is rather assessment-focused. While most of the assessment does not occur in the introduction module, I do want to briefly comment on this as I did choose to include information about the assessments in the introduction module. The course is, admittedly, assessment heavy, but I tried to use a lot of formative assessment in the form of coursework. I made this decision because Gibbs and Simpson (2005) make several points in favour of coursework vs examinations, including “coursework marks are a better of long term learning of course content than are exams” (p.7) and “the quality of learning has been shown to be higher in assignment-based courses” (p.7). With this in mind, I made the decision to add a lot of formative assessment coursework assignments in the hopes that my students would learn more effectively and to satisfy my desire to move away from summative assessment as the main focus.
When it came time to design the layout of the course, I relied heavily on the ease of use section from Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS model. When I was making the visual and navigational layout decisions I took Bates’ (2014) suggestion that “a useful standard or criterion for the selection of course media or software is that ‘novice students’ […] should be studying within 20 minutes of logging on”. While I was not choosing the software, I was choosing how it would be set up, so I made the course page as uncluttered as possible with clear labels for each item appearing on the page. That way, students could quickly navigate the page. These decisions were deliberate and inspired by Bates’ (2014) interface design suggestion of “an educational program, or indeed any web site should be well structured, intuitive for the user to use, and easy to navigate”. In case the site was not as intuitive as I imagined, I also created three screencast videos—navigating Moodle, posting to the discussion forum, and participating in a poll. I made these so students could quickly learn how to complete all of the tasks that were required in the introduction module. The videos serve a second purpose–visuals are great for EAL learners who may have difficulty with written instructions.
My decision to create a course introduction book was partly common sense—students need to know what to expect, and partly inspired by Anderson’s (2008a) discussion of student-content interactions; I saw the course introduction book as a way to “provide an online help facility, or an intelligent help, if the user is modeled and their path is traced through the information space” (Anderson, 2008a, p.58). I did choose to provide translations of some of the course introduction pages. The reason is best explained by Bates (2014) when he says, “it is important to be clear about the needs of the target group”. For the students to be able to use the course introduction as an online help facility, the information needed to be easily accessible, and to me, that meant using their first language as a bridge.
As you can see, the process of developing the introduction module for my Moodle unit was, indeed, best described as a maze. There was no linear progression in the development of my introduction module because each part informed another part. Each time I thought of an idea or approach for, let’s say assessment, I would have to make a small change somewhere else–for example, the course introduction booklet. I imagine the content module development task will unfold in a similar way.
Looking Ahead
When I thought about how the offline version of this course was traditionally assessed, I knew that I wanted to shift the focus to more formative assessment rather than the typical summative assessment strategies I had typically used. This decision has a huge impact on how I would communicate and, of course, how I would assess the students.
The communication and assessment strategies I plan to use with my students further in the course centre around formative assessment and feedback. For instance, I have included discussion forum posts as required assessments. I chose this as an assessment because I wanted the students to respond to a prompt that would require them to apply what they learned in an authentic context. The discussion forum serves as a place for students to think about and communicate what they have learned, demonstrate how they would apply it, then allow for students to give feedback to each other via comments. As the instructor, reviewing the discussion posts will allow me to identify misconceptions or weaknesses in application and address it with the student before it is too late. I drew on several of Gibbs and Simpson’s (2005) conditions from their influences of assessment on the volume, focus and quality of studying section when developing my assessment strategy. Specifically, I drew on condition 3 “tackling the assessed task engages students in productive learning activity of an appropriate kind” (Gibbs and Simpon, 2005, p. 14), condition 5 “the feedback focuses on students’ performance, on their learning and on actions under the students’ control, rather than on the students themselves and on their characteristics” (Gibbs and Simpon, 2005, p. 18) and condition 6, “the feedback is timely in that it is received by students while it still matters to them and in time for them to pay attention to further learning or receive further assistance” (Gibbs and Simpon, 2005, p.18)
The midterm quiz is also a formative assessment and it provides timely feedback via the automated feedback provided to each student upon completion of the quiz, as per Gibbs and Simpson’s (2005) condition 6 “the feedback is timely in that it is received by students while it still matters to them and in time for them to pay attention to further learning or receive further assistance (p.18) and it requires the students to act upon the feedback by means of a required discussion post. The decision to have a required discussion post based on the automated feedback from the quiz was inspired by Gibbs and Simpon’s (2005) condition 10, “feedback is acted upon by the student” (p. 24).
Communication further in this course will be challenging. I indicated in the course outline that students can email me directly and participate in optional live chats via WeChat, in addition to posting in the Questions? Comments? forum. I am concerned that, in addition to all of the feedback I will be providing because I chose to use a significant amount of formative assessment, there is a huge risk that I would become overwhelmed if this course went live. However, I can’t be sure until it is implemented.
Conclusion
Without getting to the implementation and evaluation stages of the instructional design process outlined by Nel, Dreyer, and Carsterns (2010), it is difficult to ascertain if I made decisions that will work for my students and the course. I think that, even if the current version of the course went well, future success really depends on the students in the course. I believe that, in every iteration, I would have to make some changes—whether it is changes to the layout, content, or assessments.
References
Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Bates, T. (2014) Teaching in a digital age. (Chapter 8) Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage
Gibbs, G., Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf
Nel, C., Dreyer, C., Carstens, W.A.M. (2010). Educational technologies: A classification and evaluation. Tydskrif vir letterkund, 35(4), 238-258. Retrieved from http://www.ajol.info/index.php/tvl/article/download/53794/42346