Lesson module/Draft2

The lesson module presents pages to the student, who is usually asked to make some sort of choice underneath the content area. The choice will send them to another page in the Lesson. The Lesson module was designed to be adaptive and to use a student's choices to create a self directed lesson.

The student will see two types of pages: question pages and branch table pages. There are also hidden navigational pages for the teacher to use that will create some special effects. The teacher can also score and give a custom response for any answer.

One lesson might present the same pages in the same order to every student. Another lesson could vary both the number of pages and their order depending upon how a student answers each question. Thus Lesson can deliver content in interesting and flexible ways to each student, with no direct or time sensitive action required by the teacher once the lesson has been created.

Overview of the lesson activity

For a student, a lesson is a series of interactive pages that require a choice on their part before the next page appears.

The choice determines the way the lesson appears to the student. The lesson can be a series of pages presented in a linear fashion, like a slide show, or presented in a non-linear, branching manner, or a combination of the two. The teacher can use the Lesson settings to create a different student experience for each lesson. There are also special navigation pages that the teacher may use to change the way parts of the lesson are viewed by students.

The student choice generally drives the lesson, which has been thought out by the teacher. For example, a particular answer might send the student back in the lesson for a review, while another answer will advance the student to a new page. Sometimes the student will only be given the choice to "continue". The lesson can be scored with the use of questions for a grade, or used simply as a resource of non-graded pages or a combination of both.

There are two basic modes: presentation and flash card. Most of the descriptions of a lesson in this document are about the presentation mode and the use of questions and branch pages. The Flash Card section describes how to make lesson pages appear randomly.

Lesson functions

A lesson is made up of pages. For the teacher there are two basic types of Lesson pages: choice and navigation. Each page has functions that impact the student. For the teacher, each page has a title, content, and something for the student to select that will determine the next page the student will see. Some pages can be scored.

Standard Moodle tools

The Lesson activity uses the standard Moodle HTML editor tool to make any page's content interesting.

Teachers can preview or edit the entire lesson or a specific page.

Pages with choices

The student sees choice pages called "Branch Tables" or Question pages.

An important page feature is called jumps. Jumps are the primary tool the teacher will use to determine what a student will see next.

• Branch tables deliver content and can provide links to one or more other pages in the lesson.
• Question page can do the same but also can give an individual response and an individual score for each choice (the student's answer).

Examples of use of page links to

Navigation pages

Navigation pages are only seen by the teacher but will effect the order of the pages the student views. For example, a cluster is a series of pages bracketed by a navigational pages called a "start cluster" and a "end of cluster" page. Navigation pages are an advanced feature and are best added after the teacher has laid out their lesson with the pages that will be seen by the student.

not sure Edit order and navigation order

Some useful terms. The teacher sees the pages in what is called the edit order when they edit a lesson. The students see the lesson pages in the navigation order, which can also be seen by the teacher in preview mode. Most of the time we will be talking about the edit order from the teacher's perspective, rather than navigation order of the student.

Shorten this down, put concepts in a New page

Jumps are easy to make links

Jumps are the primary tool the teacher will use to determine a student's navigation through the lesson. For example, each different answer to a question, might send the student to a different page. Jumps have a pull down menu with pages to select.

There are two types of jumps, relative and absolute. "Next page" and "This page" are the two most common relative pages. Each lesson page's title also shows up on the pulldown menu.

The use of jumps creates the adaptive nature of a lesson. This can be simple or it can be complex.

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Scoring and grading a lesson

A students answers to questions can be graded. The lesson scores and grades can be viewed on the "Reports" tab in edit mode and become part of the gradebook. A relatively simple formula is used to score the lesson. It is the number of correct answers divided by the number of question pages seen. This number score can be use by the grade scale.

The report tab provides both an overview of each student's attempt of a lesson, and a detailed summary of the class's answers to each question. It is also possible to see the same report via gradebook in the course administration block.

Allowing a student to re take a lesson is the default lesson setting under grade options. Each attempt at a lesson is normally recorded and the student can see a record of their performance by viewing their activity page.

Building lessons NEEDS WORK

Think some of this is important. Just to give some clues about how a Lesson might fit into the teachers plan for the class. Adding content to the first page so things can move around is .... not about building a lesson.

• As with any classroom lesson, it is a good idea to have a plan before starting the presentation. Simple lessons that basically go from the start to the end in a straight line path, one page after the other, can be created from an outline. More complicated lessons require more planning. The good news is that a teacher can create a simple lesson and then based upon feedback and performance, can add refinements or complexity.

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Question types in lesson

Here are the basic Lesson questions. They are similar to Quiz questions in form but have different functions. Lesson questions are adaptive due to the jumps that are associated with every choice. All questions are automatically scored, except the Essay question.

• Multiple choice New page - Has several answers listed, student picks one for credit.
• Multianswer New page - Has several answers listed, student picks one or more for credit..
• True False New page - Has two answers.
• Short Answer New page - A phrase answer is progressively evaluated by strings
• Numeric New page - A number answer is progressively evaluated
• Essay New page - The student submits and the teacher evaluates. Essay question type page has more information.

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Branch tables and branches

Branch tables New page are similar to a multiple choice question page, but they are not scored and there is no response. A Branch table can present content and also offer labeled button links to other pages in the lesson.

• Choice pages gives detailed help about editing a branch table. Adding a branch table reviews process.

Moodlers also use the word "branch" to describe a series of pages.

• A simple branch is like a chapter, a series of pages that is defined more by form and use than by any function. For example, a Branch table at the start of a lesson might have buttons that jump to a page in the lesson that the teacher thinks of a the start of a "branch" or chapter.
• The classic branch contains advanced navigational functions. It introduces random movement within a series of pages that the teacher determines.

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Completely random Lesson

There are several ways to present all the lesson in a random order by changing some lesson setting in Flow Control. The teacher can flash random unseen or unanswered pages for the student, showing them one or more pages at a time. Or the teacher can turn the Lesson into a slide show, which will hide any question page.

• Moodle also has a standalone [Flash card module]

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Dependency or conditions

A teacher can make a lesson dependent New page upon taking another lesson. This feature was added in 1.9 and can be found in Lesson settings. There are 3 criterion to select: time spent, completed or receive a better than grade one specific lesson. Any combination of the conditions can be used. Please note, a Lessson must include one question for the dependent "completed" condition to be met.

• A typical use of this feature is to "daisy chain" a series of Lessons to make sure the students take the lessons in order. This might be useful in a training type of course which has no open or close dates because it can be started and finished at any time.

Advanced topics

• visible popup page link, will create a small HTML window the student can view while in the lesson.

• More advanced Moodlers can figure out how to place HTML links on a lesson page. Thus it is possible to create a link to another lesson/activity, a lesson/activity in another course, or even to a specific page in a lesson. While this method can be useful, the student may not be able to find their way back to the page with the link. In general, the links can be created by copying the location of the desired link from the browser's address bar, then pasting it as a link.

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See also

• Lesson samples down loadable and on line demonstrations of the Lesson module.
• Using Moodle book Chapter 9: Lessons
• Grades See how individuals and the class answered the questions (must not be a practice lesson)
• Creating a Decision-Making exercise (role play) using a Lesson
• Creating a Lesson video tutorial
• moodle.tokem.fi Go to teacher's manual and select lesson. For versions 1.5.4 and 1.6.4, a good supplement or alternative to MoodleDocs. Very hands on for specific type of teacher.