Moodle Quiz Reflection
Can anyone relate? Frustrating, patience testing, time-consuming, tedious, and yet somehow rewarding: this is how I would describe my assessment assignment within Moodle.
My quiz is designed to be one of the weekly quizzes that my grade 3 students will take. These weekly quizzes are formative assessment and build each week by reviewing previous lessons. This particular quiz is sitting in lesson six and reviews lessons one to six. I have decided to offer the test only once because some of the questions will be recycled again as the students move through the course. The final grade will be an average of all the weekly quiz scores and count for 20% of the course mark.
The Learning Curve
Any discussion of this activity must start with the learning curve. As a newbie to Moodle, everything I do takes far longer than I expect. This assignment was no exception. First I had to learn how to go about creating a quiz in Moodle. I spent a great deal of time hunting for resources that were useful and succinct (and matched version 2.0). Then I had to try out the process. As I began to build the quiz I continually had to resort to finding more resources, usually about specific questions and issues I was encountering. The longer I spent in Moodle creating, recreating, and tinkering though, the more comfortable I became. Sometimes I learned things through explicit online instruction, other times it was through repeatedly reworking something, and at times there were even the aha moments of, “Oh that’s what this does!” While I certainly haven’t figured everything out yet, I do feel like I have a much better handle on creating a quiz in Moodle and my confidence had definitely increased.
The Community
Part of my frustration at times came from not being able to get Moodle quiz to do something that I had conceived of it doing. There were things too that it did that I didn’t want it to do and I sought ways to change those things. I have never thought much about open source software before this experience. I can see that frustration could drive those who are capable, to program new or improved fixes to Moodle. The community that has contributed to Moodle is sizeable whether through fixes, new add-ons, instructional videos or other “how-to” documents. In the midst of my frustration, I was able to appreciate the benefit that this community has given me, and ultimately my students.
A Surprise
I am no newcomer to quizzes. I have been creating them on a computer to be delivered on paper, for years. I found however, that creating a quiz online and being able to preview how it shows up for the students is extremely valuable. Somehow the act of actually taking the test foregrounds issues with wording and answers that is not possible by just reading a paper test. The “edit question” button right next to each question in preview is an excellent tool, allowing an immediate edit of a question as the problem is encountered rather than having to exit first.
Issues
I found myself consumed by the technology sometimes to the detriment of pedagogy. I had to constantly bring myself back to the content of the questions, making sure they were valid for the unit of study and not just meeting a requirement of so many questions of X type.
It was more difficult to put an associated test together when the content had not been created yet. I have a 13 week unit plan, but am only creating the three required lessons for this course as I am not teaching right now and don’t know if I will ever be able to use it. Since my quiz is cumulative, I needed to have an idea of what content I would be presenting had the lessons already been prepared. This process is backwards to how a normal test would be prepared.
Time was the biggest issue. Our previous case study scenarios became a reality as I began to realize personally just how much time and effort is needed to create a quiz, never mind an online course. The beauty of an online quiz though is that once the questions are created, they can be used on an ongoing basis. Additionally, they will free up time for me in the area of grading and even review. Time taken to input feedback at the beginning, is well spent. It scaffolds students in the review process, but allows them to take ownership of their own learning.
Connecting to My Flight Path
Although there is still much to learn, this assignment has allowed me to meet many of the goals in my Flight Path. In fact I would say that it has touched on most of my goals in some way.
- Continue to reshape my thinking (formative and summative assessment and feedback)
- Help me learn how to assess the feasibility of various online tools in relation to specific cultural situations (in this case, grade 3 age)
- Increase my comfort level using multimedia
- Learn/discover how to create assessments for education 2.0 learning
- Be scaffolded in the learning process through online help and course community of practice
- Learn how to set up a Moodle shell for learning purposes
Conclusion
All in all this was an excellent learning experience. I was pushed outside my comfort zone to learn and create. I am confident that I can and will use the quiz activity in Moodle in the future.