Section 10.3. Effective Lesson Practices


10.3. Effective Lesson Practices

Lessons can be an interesting change of pace for your students. They may require more upfront development time than many other types of tools, but they do provide some benefits. The two basic lesson types, branching quizzes and flash-cards are relatively easy to set up.

10.3.1. Branching Quizzes

The most basic lesson structure is branching quiz. You use branches to organize sets of questions around different topics or concepts in your course. Each branch of the quiz leads to a linear series of pages and test questions and then returns to the main branch. The main-branch page acts as a table of contents for the lesson, as shown in Figure 10-4.

Figure 10-4. Branching quiz schematic


If you decide to build this type of lesson, be sure to include a link to the end of the lesson on the main page. If not, the students will have no way of ending the lesson and recording their score.

If you create a lesson with a branch table and strings of questions, be sure to set a reasonable minimum number of questions. Otherwise, students will be able to visit one branch and receive a maximum score for the lesson, even though they didn't look at any other branches.

To create a branching quiz:

  1. Create the lesson and the first question page by following the instructions.

  2. Create a question page for the first question in each branch.

  3. Create a branch table with a branch for each of the questions you just created.

  4. Be sure to make the last branch a link to the end of the lesson.

  5. After you've saved the branching table, move it to the top of the pages list.

  6. Under the first question for the first branch, create the second question page for the next step in the branch.

  7. Fill in the question page for the second question. Put the correct answer in the first answer slot if you are creating a true/false or multiple-choice question.

  8. Continue adding questions to the branch until you are finished.

  9. Add an end-of-branch after the last question in the branch.

  10. Below the first question for the each of the remaining branches, repeat steps 6 through 9.

  11. When you have added all your pages, review your lesson by clicking the Check Navigation link.

10.3.2. Flash Cards

Flash cards can be a useful way to practice recalling basic facts and definitions. As we discussed in Chapter 9, learning vocabulary can be one of the most difficult tasks for novices in any field of study. Flash cards allow students to practice rapidly recalling definitions as an initial step toward learning how to communicate in a new field.

The lessons module can act like a deck of flash cards, presenting either the whole deck or a subset of cards to students when they want to study the new terms. Each question page is a separate card, and students can rapidly react to each one in turn. This is a very different structure than the branching quizzes.

Setting up a flash-cards lesson requires specifying options when you first create the lesson. To create a flash-cards lesson:

  1. Follow steps 1 through 4 for creating a lesson in the "Creating a Lesson" section.

  2. Consider setting a low value for the maximum grade. You want to reward students for using the flash cards but also make them a valuable learning tool.

  3. Use the following options:


    Action after Correct Answer

    Set to unseen or unanswered. This tells the lesson module you don't want it to present the next page in order.


    Minimum number of questions

    Keep this at 0. The students shouldn't have a choice about the number of cards they see.


    Maximum number of cards

    If you want to limit the number of questions students see each time they practice with the cards, set this to a nonzero number. Make it large enough to give students enough practice, but not so large they become fatigued by the sheer volume of questions.


    Student can Re-Take

    Unless you have a very specific reason for limiting retakes, I recommend setting this to yes. Flash cards are used to practice recalling information rapidly. Save the assessment of students' recall skills for a quiz.


    Handling of Re-Takes

    I recommend setting this to the maximum to encourage students to reuse the flash cards to attempt to get the maximum score.

  4. Once you save the lesson options, simply create question pages. The order doesn't matter. You're basically creating a deck of questions to draw from.

Once you've created the deck of flash cards, you can release it to your students so they can practice answering the questions you've created.

10.3.3. Creative Lesson Uses

While branching quizzes and flash cards are interesting applications, there is a hidden potential in the lessons module that makes it much more interesting than it at first appears. If we take advantage of the ability of each answer in a question page to link to any other page, we can create branching Choose Your Own Adventure -style simulations or case studies.

10.3.3.1. Simulations and case studies

A branching simulation can be a great learning tool. On each page, the student reads some information or looks at a picture (or both) and makes a decision about what to do next. For example, a medical simulation may start out by presenting a patient's complaint and then asking what should be done next. Possible choices could be to order a test or to do nothing. If the student orders a test, each branch would present the results of the test and asks the student what should be done next. Each page could include an option to switch from diagnosis to treatment, which would branch the student to a different set of options.

To successfully create a branching simulation, you will definitely have to map out each page in advance. The first page should introduce the situation. You'll need to include enough details in the first page to get the students started. If you have other materials you want them to use in the simulation, you may want to create a resource link the students can access before they start the lesson.

If you just want students to engage in the decision-making process and not receive a grade, simply create a series of branch tables. Otherwise, you can create a combination of branching tables and questions.

To create a simulation:

  1. Create a lesson as you would a branching quiz lesson. If you're just using branch tables, assign a point value of 0 to the lesson.

  2. Create the first question page. If the first question page will be the first page in the simulation, be sure to provide enough details about the case so the students can start making decisions.

  3. Create the first set of decision-result pages from the first page.

  4. Go back and edit the first page and assign each answer a link to a resulting page. Be sure the first answer is the best choice since students will receive a point it.

  5. Create the decision-result pages for each of the other decision pages.

  6. You'll need to create all of the pages in advance or, after you create each iteration of decision-result pages, go back and add the links to those pages in the decision page.

  7. After you've completed adding all of the pages and links, test your simulation with the Check Navigation link.



Using Moodle
Using Moodle: Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System
ISBN: 059652918X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 113

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