Teaching with Moodle for total beginners

This page is intended to offer a really easy way to start teaching using Moodle. The idea is twofold: first, transfer simple paper-based tasks onto Moodle, then explore more advanced teaching methods that don't have such an exact paper equivalent.

This will be enough to give anyone a taste of what Moodle can do and will hopefully set you up to start learning more on your own. It's also a lot easier than the full-blown Moodle teacher certificate and has instant rewards in terms of:

• saving time and money on photocopying course materials
• less paperwork (or paper marking) to carry with you
• less correcting (marking) overall
• richer and more interactive homework and/or assignments
• formal evaluation of discussion skills and contributions (some students excel here whilst performing poorly elsewhere)
• a wider range of deep-learning activities to stretch more able students
• having all your detailed feedback about the targets you have set stored in the Gradebook automatically, not lost on the one paper copy of the essay, which you handed back to the student.

Starting ideas for existing practice:

• Hand out worksheet = place word document onto a course and tell the students where it is
• In-class end-of-unit test = create a quiz with a single attempt, adaptive mode off, and have questions and answers randomly ordered with the feedback + scores hidden for a while. Stick to short answer and multiple choice items for an easy life smile
• Set essay homework = create assignment
• Show video with worksheet = embed a YouTube video in a quiz as a description, then show all the questions on one page

Starting ideas with more advanced features (social constructivism)

• Hold an online debate after preparing in class. Specify a minimum number of posts/replies per student, use a rating scale and have a choice afterwards for a final vote. Optionally assign some students as moderators after giving them appropriate permissions.
• Run a collaborative project in groups, using a separate groups discussion forum for the lead-in and a wiki for the final project output. Assess them on their forum contributions (sum of ratings), contribution using the history of edits as well as the overall quality.

See also

• The Good Teacher
• Teaching with Moodle

Using Moodle forum discussions:

• Social and organizational aspects of "How to" MoodleDocs
• Top 10 homework ideas for beginners