a focus on structuring learning in moodle
DESCRIPTION
Presentation from one of the keynote presentations from the iMoot2013. I Moodle, they Moodle, we all Moodle together! A focus on Learning with Moodle. Those of us at the iMoot know Moodle. We are probably already sold on what it can do and the benefits to education. However, for everyday teachers who use Moodle because their organisation provides it, the term Moodle is often used as a noun - a title for a system that can be used to store content and has a wide range of features to support learning (but are not necessarily used). This keynote looks at Moodle as a verb instead of a noun. Not the verb to ‘meander or tinker away with something’ but as a ‘doing word’ to use in the same context as the term ‘to learn’. We will look at how we can structure Moodle activities for learning rather than content and look at how we promote it to others so that it does get used for learning. The presentation will show practical examples to illustrate some good (and not so good) practice.TRANSCRIPT
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I Moodle, they Moodle, we all
Moodle together! .
A focus on the L in Moodle
Becky Barrington
Learning by doing…
It’s all about learning
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I would like to know how YOU use Moodle
I would like to know whether you use Moodle, or support
the use of Moodle, in a traditionally taught environment
(such as in school, college, university etc) or if you use
Moodle as a delivery platform and never physically see your
students.
Please pick the option below that best summarises your
main use of Moodle.
• Answer ‘blended’ if you use Moodle as a teaching tool but
also meet your students face to face
• Answer ‘distance’ if all your delivery and learning takes
place completely online
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Hello!
About me and our Moodle!
• Work at South Devon College (since 2000)
• Using Moodle since 2005
• Managed in-house
• Over 800 courses
• My role is support, develop and promote Moodle
and technology to support learning
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Moodle
• A title for a system that can be used to store content
and has a wide range of features to support learning
(noun)
• “To dawdle aimlessly, to idle time away; the process of
lazily meandering through something, doing things as
it occurs; an enjoyable tinkering that may
lead to insight and creativity” (verb) http://www.allwords.com/word-moodle.html
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Moodle
• Should learning be about ‘wandering aimlessly’
through an online system or the internet?
• Certainly, we hope learning will lead to insight and
creativity
How can we make this happen?
• Will a student wander aimlessly through a Moodle
course and come out the other end with a
qualification?
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Moodle and Learning
This presentation will look at:
• How we can develop and structure online
courses and content to ensure that learning can
occur (focusing on distance / online learning initially before applying to
blended learning approaches)
• How Moodle supports learning and the benefits
of certain Moodle activities
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Moodle Use
• A sad fact but probably
true of many Moodle
courses
• Not unsurprising
– Moodle has SO
much to offer
– But teachers have
SO much to do
Sorry about the terrible blurry image
Martin Dougiamas
MoodleMoot Ireland 2013
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Getting Started with Moodle
• Learning all the things that Moodle can do can
take time;
• CPD often focuses on function rather than
learning
• Starting point is often adding content to Moodle
– Usually documents that already exist.
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Does this look familiar?
This isn’t a bad
thing in itself How did we share
electronic resources
before Moodle?
But we know
Moodle can do
more..
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Moodle can do SO much more!
Upload files
Assignments Lessons
Feedback and
surveys
Forums Quiz
Workshop URLs /
weblinks
Glossaries
Pages Books
Wikis
Grades
Activity and course
completion
Conditional
activities
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Moodle supports the social constructivist
learning model and Martin uses 5 key areas
to link Moodle to learning
Moodle was made for learning,
not just content storage.
When supporting teachers and
promoting Moodle we should
focus on learning
rather than the functions
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From http://docs.moodle.org/23/en/Pedagogy
• All of us are potential teachers as well as learners - in
a true collaborative environment we are both.
• We learn particularly well from the act of creating or
expressing something for others to see.
• We learn a lot by just observing the activity of our
peers.
• By understanding the contexts of others, we can teach
in a more transformational way (constructivism).
• A learning environment needs to be flexible and
adaptable, so that it can quickly respond to the needs of
the participants within it.
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Moodle and Social Constructivism
Sharing information
• Files, forums, databases, lessons, weblinks, blogs
• Students should share information to ‘construct’ knowledge rather than just access files
Collaboration and shared development of content
• Forums, wikis, chatrooms, workshops, glossaries
Adapting to individuals needs
• Easy for teacher to add extra information
• Set up conditions to release content based on student individual progress
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It’s not just content
• MOOCs are one of the current ‘hot topics’;
• A MOOC is not just content: It is online,
distance learning;
• Structure is key; How should we structure online learning?
Use the same principles as delivered lessons?
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Structuring Learning: Take 1
• Introduction
– Aims / objectives of learning unit
• Developing understanding
– Information and activities
• Checking understanding
– Applying skills
– Testing knowledge
• Completing tasks
– Linking to course goals
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De
ve
lop
ing
Un
de
rsta
nd
ing
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Ch
ec
kin
g L
ea
rnin
g
Also important for students to be able to check
progress
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Checking Progress
Some tools used, utilising activity completion
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Structuring Learning: Take 1a
• Developed online training that also encouraged
collaboration and reflection
• Distance learning from many organisations
Structure needed
more opportunities
for collaboration and
sharing of ideas
rather than just
checking
understanding
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Structuring Learning: Take 1a
• Activities developed to enable personalised
progress through course.
– Students working at own pace
– Activity completion
– Conditional activities
– Course completion
• Collaboration and reflection built in to enable the
sharing of ideas at all stages
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Le
arn
ing
by
Do
ing
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Application following
collaboration and reflection
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Structuring Learning
• This simple structure, alongside good practice
guidelines, is used to develop some of our ‘blended’
learning courses.
• However, for fully online courses, a more
detailed structure is required.
• This is especially important when supporting teaching
staff who are developing the content but are used to
‘controlling’ the content through taught delivery.
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Structuring Learning: Take 2
• Introduction and outcomes of unit
• Initial / diagnostic assessment to signpost to activities
• Learning content
– Range of information
– Guided learning activities
– Interaction and collaboration to ensure learning and
engagement
• Checking understanding activities; Opportunities to apply
skills
• Assessment of achievement
• Reflection and target setting
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Introduction and outcomes of unit
• May only be a little information but it sets the
scene
– Section description
– Labels
– Pages
– Audio files and video trailers
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Initial / diagnostic assessment to
signpost to activities
• For online courses with differentiation built in, or
different levels of achievement, this is important
• Could be a simple quiz or lesson
• Could be a whole section of activities
– Conditional activities to make it games based
– Release content of course based on outcome
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Learning Content
• Core content
– Range of information
– Guided learning activities
– Interaction and collaboration to ensure learning and
engagement
• Easy to add based on information that may
already exist (PowerPoints, documents etc) but
this is an area that really needs to be ‘designed’
to be beneficial.
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Learning Content
• In the classroom:
– The teacher can control the pace of the
learning content based on student
understanding;
– A teacher can use body language to check
understanding;
– Ask questions at pertinent times;
– Adapt the content as required.
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Learning Content
• In Moodle:
– Content is delivered for students to complete at
their own pace;
– Ideally needs to build in questions and adapt to
understanding.
Great Moodle tools for this:
– Lessons: Provides content, adapts to input.
– Books and glossaries also provide interactive
and / or media rich content
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Checking Understanding
• Check learning and understanding
– Quizzes (release further content based on results)
– Glossaries
– Forum
– Wikis
– Reflective journals
– Guided learning activities (such as webquests)
– Mahara
• Opportunities to apply skills
• Collaboration activities work well here
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• In practice, these two elements may appear
together through the core delivery of learning
content.
• Similarly, some of these activities may be ‘guided
learning’ where the task and support is online but
the activities take place away from the computer
(books are still important!)
Learning Content
Checking Understanding
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Assessment of Achievement
• Formative or summative assessment
• Teacher graded, self-assessment or peer
assessment
– Assignments
– Quizzes
– Lessons (model answers for self-assessment)
– Workshop
– Wikis
– Forums
– Certificates and badges for recognition
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Reflection and Target Setting
• Enabling students to identify their own progress
and improve themselves.
• Enabling students to become independent
learners.
– Blogs
– Assignments for personal reflection
– Forums for collaborative reflection
– Feedback surveys
– Checklists
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Structure
• Using this structure we can support students to
develop their understanding in a constructive
way.
• However, the Moodle course is more than just
activities.
– All these activities can be added to a course
and still there could be no structure.
• Structure supports the learning – it has to make
sense!
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Structure
• Think about:
– Course layout and labels as sub-headings;
– Guidance on use. (Do the students even know
how to navigate Moodle?);
– Tracking so that students know where they are
and where they are going;
– Communication to get support when required.
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Not too distant…
Other considerations for
distance learners
• Friendly face
• Communication tools:
– Be online at a set
time or set
response times
• Encourage student
communication and
collaboration
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Distance vs Blended Learning
• Works distance learning and would certainly
help for blended learning.
• However, how many teachers will develop that
much content when they are also teaching face
to face?
What value does this have in a blended
learning situation?
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And how do we go from
this…
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Step 1
• Ask teachers to add their resources for delivery onto Moodle.
• List in the order they will be used.
• Present FROM Moodle.
Benefits
• Links the taught course to the Moodle course.
• Students see the structure from the lesson and can easily
refer back to it.
• Teachers start to think about how the structure they apply to
the classroom can help in Moodle.
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Step 2
• Instead of making PowerPoints for the session,
create books.
• Selling point: Easier to update and edit.
• Present straight from Moodle.
• Can easily integrate media.
From here we can start to utilise and ‘sell’ other
features of Moodle to support the learning
For example….
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Glossaries
• By adding a glossary, any terminology listed will
auto-link into the book (and pages etc) enabling
students to develop understanding when the
teacher is unavailable.
• Creating the glossary takes time, why not ask
your students to create it….
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Group Work activities
• Instead of group creating a PowerPoint, create a
wiki.
• Recording group work discussions - have a
forum. Send students other places to collect
information and collate centrally on the forum.
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Course tracker
• Ditch the spreadsheet - put onto Moodle!
– Keeps all in one place.
– Student know what to do next.
– All grades stored in gradebook and can be
exported.
– And / or use course completion for a simpler
tracking interface for teachers and students.
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Develop Over Time
• Always sell the benefits before the function
• If you are lucky to have a support team, get them
to do as much as possible:
– Let the teachers be the experts in their field;
– Let support staff be the experts in theirs.
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Develop a Bit a Time
MOOCs may not be your goal…
…but how about the flipped classroom?
• We can apply the same concepts to a
specific piece of work or topic.
• Similarly with homework activities.
Even one structured section helps learning
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If I Moodle…
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Then the students can
Moodle
If I Moodle…
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Then the students can
Moodle
If I Moodle…
And we can all Moodle
together!
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Any
questions?
In the spirit of the open theme...
you can learn by doing!
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