Overview Lesson Pages

Template:Moodle 1.6

The intent of this page is to give a slightly different context for teachers concerning lesson pages. There will be links in each section to other MoodleDoc pages that go into more details. This was written for Moodle 1.6 but it should be helpful for earlier versions.

There are two basic types of Lesson pages: Choice and Navigation. Most pages offer the student choices, "question pages" (related to Quizzes) are the most common. Moodle calls another type of choice page "branch tables". Navigation pages create additional robust features that impact a student's choices. "End of Branch", "Start Cluster" and "End Cluster" are the Navigational pages can use special relative jumps selected by the teacher but they have no content seen by the student.

In this section will cover the generic format for these types. We will focus upon the Choice pages format as seen by the teacher. A question page has all the elements of a Branch Table, plus the question pages has a few more features.

The number of choices editable by the teacher can be set under lesson settings, general, Maximum number of answers/branches. The default is 4 but it can be increased or decreased depending upon the current editing needs of the teacher.

Branch (Branch Table)- Choice Pages

Branch (we will simply call it Branch) pages have content and buttons at the bottom that students can select. Branch pages can serve as neutral content pages that don't count as a question page in grade or lesson completion calculations.

The basic parts of a Branch page are: Page Title, Page Content, Description(#) and Jump(#). In the edit mode there is an edit toolbar filled with icons directly below the Page Title. At the bottom of the edit mode screen are buttons to redisply, save or cancel. Small yellow buttons with question marks are help links.

Page Title

In general, the Page Title is used to located the page. For example, it can be used in jumps or seen in edit modes by the teacher. The title can also be seen by the student in any choice page.

Page Content

Page Content is where material is going to be presented to the student. Editing Page content will offer a more complete description for those not familiar with basic formating icons. Perhaps the simpliest form of content is text. Moodle also allows insertion of pictures of various types, links to documents or webpages. Not to mention blank tables, emoticons, and special text characters. And for the brave and HTML savy, there is a toggle that switches between HTML code and WYSIWYG (what you see it what you get) which allows the teacher to use tags to embed audio or quicktime video.

In other pages you will read that Branch pages serve as an initial Table of Contents. You will read more about that in Descriptions and Jumps below.

Descriptions

Descriptions are the choices the student must make. In a branch page these show up as buttons below the page. They can be arranged vertically or horizontally in any branch page.

Leaving description 1 blank, will automatically give the student one choice: "continue" with the flow set to next page. This is a Moodle default setting.

Jumps in General

Jumps determine what happens after a student makes a choice.

Jumps can be divided into two types - Relative Jumps and Absolute Jumps. The default navigation using the relative jumps is Next Page and Same Page. The destination of the Next Page jump is the next page in the logical order of the lesson. Absolute jumps specify the actual page to show next by specifying of the page's Title.

There is a pull down menu which lists the relative jumps like "next page", "this page" "previous page" and some special navigation pages we will discuss later. There will probably be many absolute page jumps listed in a nearly completed lesson. The teacher selects the page listed in the pull down menu that the student will jump to after their choice, and after seeing the responce. See Jumps for more details.

Questions - Choice Pages

Question pages have content and something for the student to answer or select. There can be a specific text responce for each specific answer. Question pages can be scored/graded (see lesson grading) in several ways. These last two features make them different from Branch pages.

There are many question types to select. Lesson#Types_of_questions_available_within_a_lesson goes into each type in more detail. The help button next to Question type gives a good description of each. In Version 1.6, the question types are on tabs. Be sure to select the question type before starting your question or you could lose your work when you try to change it later. TIP: Often you can start a question, save it, then change it's type without losing your content section.

Title & Content

The title and content sections are the same as for a branch page. Again, the page title can be important, don't give away the answer!

In some learning situtations, the teacher will put lesson material in the content. At the bottom of the content section, they put the question the student must answer. In other lessons, the question will be the content.

Answer

Answers are the choices the student must make. In a question, these can take different forms and show up below the content section page. Each of the question types has its own type of answer. The help button next to Answer offers a good description of each type. The most common is mutiple choice. We will use this type in our examples.

The order of the answers will appear to be random to the students. In other words, two students looking at the same question, will see the answers in a different order.

There is also the ability to use all the content editing tools in each of the responces. For example, one answer could be a picture, another text. Normally it is turned off, but checking the box and pressing the redisplay button at the bottom of the page in edit mode, will turn it on.

The default for a question with all blank answers is "continue". When form permits, a good practice is to always enter the correct answer(s) first. Moodle does not like skipped answers.

Jumps in Questions

Jumps determine what happens after a student makes a choice. See Jumps for more details. Their use is the same as a Branch page jump. Make sure you check lesson settings and flow control to see what will happen if you don't put in an answer or jump for a correct answer.

Usually the presentation mode default for a question with all blank answers is "Next Page". The default for Correct answer is "Next Page. For a wrong answer the default is "This Page." See Lesson Flash Card for lesson setting that create a different random navigational order for the student.

If you want a student to be taken directly from one question to the next irrespective of their answer being correct or incorrect: in the Lesson Settings, set Maximum number of attempts: to 1. Please note, however, that a message "correct / incorrect" will still be displayed to the student upon answering each question. If you do not want this (default) feedback message to be displayed then enter your own feedback message (i.e. "continue", "---", etc.) In case you want no visible message displayed then enter a non-breaking space as feeback, so you'll have to put a # after the answer which may be ~3 and write & n b s p ; after that.(without spaces between these characters) To find out how moodle works - you may export a sample of your questions with GIFT and check them out!

Score

The score is used with "custom scoring". It serves as the basis for grading each specific answer. It can be a positive or negative number. The default is 1 for a correct answer and 0 for a wrong answer. It is possible to use other scoring methods which ignore this value. See - link- for a better description of grading and scoring a lesson.

Other

There are several buttons at the bottom. Save and Cancel should explain themselves. Redisplay is used after the "use HTML Editor" box is checked on the answer.

Navigation Pages

There are 3 navigational pages which can be added by the teacher. These provide special special effects and are discussed elsewhere in MoodleDocs. They are not seen by the students and are only used by the teacher.

Cluster Pages - Start and End

Clusters are used by relative jumps for special effects. "A cluster" is defined by the pages that appear between the Start Cluster page and End Cluster page in the logical order. Typically, the pages in "a cluster" are question pages. The page content for a Start and End Cluster are not visible to the student. Using an End Cluster page by itself can act as a hidden redirect page from the students perspective.

End of Branch Page

An end of branch page actually defines a series of pages that are within "a branch". The series is located/defined in the logical order. The branch table page that immediately preceeds the end of branch page, is the first page in "a branch". The end of branch is the last page in the series. For example there might be a branch table page, followed by several question pages and then an end of branch page. Defined branches are used by relative jumps mentioned above.

End of Branch pages are not visible to students and if the teacher wants to have a concluding message at the end of a branch, then it is necessary to add a question page (with no answers) just before the End of Branch page. Essentially End of Branch pages are also redirection pages that are not visible to the student.

Branch Table pages do not require an End of Branch page. End of Branch pages are really only needed when special jumps are used in the lesson that refer to "a branch". See also adding branch pages

End of Lesson Page

This is virtual page (not seen by either student or teacher) used by the relative jump called "End of Lesson". It follows the last physical logical page and ends the lesson. Often a teacher will add a branch table page in this position with this title.

Tips & Suggestions

Planning is important, in presenting a classroom lesson or in Moodle lesson. We suggest to check your work from the students perspective available in Moodle. There are several ways to do this Viewing_a_lesson. For those new to Moodle, we strongly suggest to learn the way you teach. Start simple and build upon your successes.

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