Assessment

I like to think of myself as an open-minded teacher, a teacher that is willing to try new methods and decide for myself if they are worth pursuing.  Now this attitude does not always endear me to those that like a technology that I choose not to use.  When this course began, I was very interested in Moodle and how I could use it because our District is trying to get as many teachers on board as possible.  The District is saying it is user friendly and easy to navigate.  I can honestly say that this activity was more about frustration than it was about assessment.   Frustration in the amount of time it takes to make a ten question quiz and frustration with learning Moodle on my own.  Here are two of my complaints.  I can’t copy and paste an image from a word document.  I also spent an hour creating feedback for the grades and when I went back a few days later they were all gone!!  Still trying to figure this out.

What I did like about creating a quiz on Moodle was the ability to give feedback after the quiz.  I also liked the option of providing feedback during the test, with multiple choice and matching questions, but I couldn’t figure out how to use it.  Moodle does provide all types of questions, which allows the teacher to make a test they feel comfortable about.   If you are taking the quiz, I think Moodle is very easy to use and navigate.   The benefits of using Moodle are all benefits to the student, which is the point of the quiz and learning.  The feedback it can provide to a student really does outweigh the drawbacks.  Another aspect that I found to be beneficial was the ability to move the questions around much in the same way you can do it with a word document.

The way the quiz is presented when completed is easy to use.  As a teacher, I try to give the students as many different opportunities for assessment that I can in a Science class.  I use chapter tests, quizzes, homework checks, worksheets, and labs.  I even assess the students on their dissection skills in my class.  I also try to be as interactive with the students as possible. I ask questions when I am teaching and wait for answers.  I give the students feedback when I go over tests and quizzes and homework.  I also have students give me their labs so I can look at them before they hand them in, so I can tell them what is missing and they can correct it to improve their marks.

The drawbacks with Moodle are all about the creation of the test from the teacher’s perspective. I found the process of making a quiz with Moodle to be slow.  I have no trouble making a quiz or a test.  I try every year to make new versions of chapter tests.  If I had to use Moodle every time then I would not be adding too many new tests.  I love the idea of an online quiz that can provide feedback to the students.   The feedback idea was what I was really looking forward to when using Moodle.  Students receiving instant feedback from a quiz about how they did and what they need to improve on will only help them in the course.   What I did not like was how slow it was to write the test.  I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be for someone who is not a teacher to write a quiz for the first time that way.

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