Lesson settings
Note for Contributors This page should explain what can be seen on the moodlesite.com/course/mod/lesson.php page (the page where you add a lesson to a course)
On the lesson page, you can choose from a number of settings,which will make your lesson run smoothly.
Below you can see all the settings available and the description of their functions:
First of all, you decide about the name of your lesson.
Timed
This puts a time limit on the lesson. Students are shown a JavaScript counter and the time is recorded in the database. Due to the inconsistent nature of JavaScript, the timer does not evict a student from the lesson when the time is up, however a question answered after the time limit is not counted. The time in the database is checked each time a student submits a question.
The Maximum Number of Answers / Branches in a Lesson
This value determines the maximum number of answers the teacher can use. The default value is 4. If the lesson uses only, say, TRUE or FALSE questions throughout then it is sensible to set this value to 2.
This parameter also sets the maximum number of Branches that can be used in a Branch Table.
It is safe to change the value of this parameter in a lesson with existing content. In fact if you want to add a question with many choices or a long Branch table changing this parameter will be necessary. After the (unusual) question or BranchTable has been added this parameter can be reduced to a more "standard" value.
Practice Lesson
A practice lesson will not show up in the Gradebook.
Custom Scoring
This will allow you to put a numerical point value on each answer. Answers may have negative values or positive values. Imported questions will automatically be assigned 1 point for correct answers and 0 for incorrect, though you may change this after the import.
Maximum Grade
This value determines the maximum grade which can be awarded in the lesson. The range is 0 to 100%. This value can be changed at any time during the lesson. Any change has an immediate effect in the Grades page and on the grades shown to the students in various lists. If the grade is set to 0 the Lesson does not appear in any of the Grades pages.
User can re-take
This setting determines whether the students can take the lesson more than once or only once. The teacher may decide that the lesson contains material which the students ought to know thoroughly. In which case repeated viewing of the lesson should be allowed. If, however, the material is used more like an exam then the students should not be allowed to re-take the lesson.
When the students are allowed to re-take the lesson, the grades shown in the Grades page are either their average grade over the re-takes or their best grade for the lesson. The next parameter determines which of these two grading alternatives is used.
Note that the Question Analysis always uses the answers from the first tries of the lesson, subsequent re-takes by students are ignored.
By default this option is Yes, meaning that students are allowed to re-take the lesson. It is expected that only in exceptional circumstances will this option be set to No.
Handling of Re-takes
When students are allowed to re-take the lesson, this option allows the teacher to show the grade for the lesson in, for example, the Grades page, as either the mean, this is average, of the grades over the first and subsequent tries or as the grade from the students' best tries.
This option can be changed at any time.
Display ongoing score
under construction
Allow Student Review
This will let the student navigate back through the lesson to change their answers.
Display Review Button
This will display a button after an incorrectly answered question, allowing a student to re-attempt it. It is not compatible with essay questions, so leave this off if you are using essay questions.
The Maximum Number of Attempts (by a Student)
This value determines the maximum number of attempts a Student has in answering any of the questions in the lesson. In the case of questions which do not provide the answer, for example Short Answer and Numerical questions, this value provides a necessary escape routine to the next page in the lesson.
The default value is 5. Smaller values may discourage the student from thinking about the questions. Larger values may lead to more frustration.
Setting this value to one gives the students just one chance to answer each question. This gives a similar type of assignment to the Quiz module except that the questions are presented on individual pages.
Note that this value is global parameter and that it applies to all the questions in the lesson regardless of their type.
Note that this parameter does not apply to teachers checking of questions or navigating through the lesson. Checking the number of attempts relies on values stored in the database and question attempts by teachers are not recorded. The teacher should after all know the answers!
Action after a Correct Answer
The usual action is to follow the jump as specified in the answer. In most cases this will probably show the Next Page of the lesson. The student is taken through the lesson in a logical way, beginning at the start and ending at the end.
However, the lesson module can also be used as a type of Flash Card assignment. The student is shown some information (optional) and a question in basically a random order. There is no set beginning and no set end. Just a set of Cards shown one after another in no particular order.
This option allows two very similar variants of Flash Card behaviour. The option "Show an unseen page" never shows the same page twice (even if the student did not answer the question associated with the Card/Page correctly). The other non-default option "Show an unanswered page" allows the student to see pages that may have appeared before but only if they answered the associated question wrongly.
In either of these Flash Card-type lessons the teacher can decide to use either all the Cards/Pages in the lesson or just a (random) sub-set. This is done through the "Number of Pages (Cards) to show" parameter.
The Minimum Number of Questions in a Lesson
When a lesson contains one or more Branch Tables the teacher should normally set this parameter. Its value sets a lower limit on the number of questions seen when a grade is calculated. It does not force students to answer that many questions in the lesson
For example, setting this parameter to, say, 20, will ensure that grades are given as though the students have seen at least this number of questions. Take the case of a student who only looks at a single branch in a lesson with, say, 5 pages and answers all the associated questions correctly. They then choose to end the lesson (assuming there is that option in the "top level"Branch Table, a reasonable enough assumption). If this parameter were left unset their grade would be 5 out of 5, that is 100%. However, with it set to 20 their grade would be reduced to 5 out of 20, that is 25%. In the case of another student who goes through all the branches and sees, say, 25 pages and answers all but two of the questions correctly, then their grade would be 23 out of 25, that is 92%.
If this parameter is used, then the opening page of the lesson should say something like:
In this lesson you are expected to attempt at least n questions. You can attempt more if you wish. However, if you attempt less than n questions your grade will be calculated as though you attempted n.
Where obviously "n" is replaced by the actual value this parameter has been given.
When this parameter is set students are told how many questions they have attempted and how many they are expected to attempt.
Number of Pages (Cards) to Show
This parameter is only used in Flash Card type lessons. The default value is zero which means that all the Pages/Cards are shown in a lesson. Setting this parameter to a non-zero value shows that number of pages. After that number of Page/Cards have been shown the end of lesson is reached and the student is shown their grade.
If this parameter is set to a number greater than the number of pages in the lesson then the end of the lesson is reached when all the pages have been shown.
Slide Show
This enables the display of the lesson as a slide show, with a fixed width, height, and custom background color. A CSS based scroll bar will be displayed if the width or height of the slide is exceeded by the content of a page. Questions will 'break out' of the slide show mode, only pages (branch tables) will be shown in a slide by default. Buttons labeled with the lang default for "Next" and "Back" will be shown at the far right and left of the slide if that option is chosen on the page. Other buttons will be centered below the slide. You can also decide on the width, height and the background colour of the slide show.
Display Left Menu
This will show a list of the pages (Branch Tables) in the lesson. Question pages, cluster pages, etc. will not be shown by default (you may choose to show question pages by checking that option on the question).
Password Protected Lesson
This will not allow a student to access the lesson unless they type the password.
Available from / Deadline
Here you can decide on the dates for the opening and deadline of the lesson.
Tree View
This will show a list of the pages and questions in the lesson as links. Pages will be in blue and questions in red. This is handy for navigating lessons with many pages.
Display High Scores
A list of the high scores for the lesson will be shown. Students who get a high score can choose a custom name to list their score by. There is a 'badwords' filter which checks for naughty names.
High scores do not display if the "Practice lesson" option is turned On.
Number of High Scores Displayed
Type a number to limit how many of the top scores are displayed.
Use this lesson's settings as defaults
Select yes before Saving the lesson, and the settings you have chosen for this lesson will be the default settings for the next time you create a lesson for this course.
Visible to users
Allows you to show to, or to hide the lesson from students.
After you decide on the settings (above), you are taken to the lesson and you are asked which of the following you want to do now: import questions, add a Branch Table or add a Question Page (to read on, go to: Viewing the lesson).
