I have to say I loved this assignment. Making quizzes and/or exams can be onerous, but this made the process fun again. It was suggested to sit down and sketch out some of the actual questions prior to diving into Moodle. At first I didn’t heed those warnings and found myself adding and deleting many of them. After several tries at the many different question types, I decided to make a list of potential questions that would fit each category. This made the process more enjoyable and things went along a lot more efficiently.
As I was putting the exam together, I was beginning to realize that an exam doesn’t have to be just a Q & A for marks. Gibbs & Simpson (2005) wrote that assessment can be expensive, disliked by students and teachers, and doesn’t to appear to support learning. These thoughts resonated as I was putting my exam together and I did attempt to add some feedback that wasn’t just, “way to go”, “try again”. I know I could’ve done a lot more and will do so when I start looking at my plan for my school library assignments/modules.
I agree with Gibson & Simpsons (2005) Condition 6 on timely feedback when it matters. It is true that if students don’t receive feedback quickly, they will have moved on to something else or other content. Hence practice exams with instant feedback has many benefits and gives students the time to focus on material that is more challenging. The concept of pre-exams or practice tests might fall under Condition 2, engaging students and orienting their study time to the most important aspects of the course. I would also find a pre-exam another opportunity to engage students in a learning environment without the fear of failure. The Quiz function on Moodle would be extremely beneficial in adding extra information in the feedback section for students as they take the test. For example, when a student completes a question, correct or not, information about the topic could be added that may be necessary for the final assignment. It would be a way to get information to students that is sometimes missed in a series of texts.
If interested take a look at my first attempt at a Moodle Quiz.
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