Table Of ContentMoodle 3.x Teaching Techniques
Third Edition
Creative ways to build powerful and effective online courses
with Moodle 3.0
Susan Smith Nash
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Moodle 3.x Teaching Techniques
Third Edition
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First published: September 2007
Second edition: January 2010
Third edition: May 2016
Production reference: 1200516
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ISBN 978-1-78646-229-9
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Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Susan Smith Nash Bijal Patel
Commissioning Editor Proofreader
Wilson D'souza
Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor Indexer
Larissa Pinto Monica Ajmera Mehta
Content Development Editor Production Coordinator
Anish Dhurat Manu Joseph
Technical Editor Cover Work
Murtaza Tinwala Manu Joseph
Copy Editor
Charlotte Carneiro
About the Author
Susan Smith Nash has been designing and developing online courses and programs for
more than 15 years for education, training, and personal development.
In addition to Moodle 3.x Teaching Techniques, she is the author of a number of Moodle
books and training videos, including Moodle Course Design Best Practices and Moodle for
Training and Professional Development. She has also authored Video-Assisted Mobile Learning
for Writing Courses.
I would like to thank my online students and a very special thanks and appreciation to Lic.
Miguel Hermosillo and Dr. Jeff Kissinger, director of the Rollins College, Instructional
Design Certificate Program.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Developing an Effective Online Course 6
The Moodle advantage 7
What will we accomplish with this book 8
Some Moodle requisites 8
Standard modules 9
Instructional principles and activities 9
What are we trying to do in an online course? 9
How does learning take place in an online course? 11
How people learn 12
Categories, classifications, and schemata 12
Social learning 13
Emulatory learning 13
Communities of practice 14
Social practices 15
Experiential learning 15
Conditions of learning 16
Behaviorism 17
Course-building components in Moodle 17
Resources 18
Book 18
Link to a file or website 18
Activities 19
Assignment 19
Choice 19
Database 19
Forum 20
Glossary 20
Quizzes 20
Journal 20
Lessons 20
Wiki 20
Course Timetable 20
Instructional principles and activities mapped to Moodle features 21
Access for everyone 21
Summary 22
Chapter 2: Instructional Material 23
Selecting and organizing the material 23
Matching the material to the learning objectives 24
Using Forums to present your material 24
Incorporating social media and cloud-based resources 28
Creating a separate group for each student 28
Enrolling students 31
Creating a group for each student 34
Guiding and motivating students 35
Creating the learning environment 35
Asking permission and setting a policy 36
Types of forums 36
Single simple discussion forum 37
Standard forum 37
Keeping discussions on track 40
Using a custom scale to rate relevance 40
Splitting discussions 42
Will splitting move replies you want to keep in place? 42
Monitoring student participation in a forum 43
Determining who has posted to a forum 43
What postings has a student made 44
Summary 45
Chapter 3: Collaborative Activities 46
Interaction involves collaboration 46
Uses of Chat 48
Test preparation and online study groups 48
Creating study groups 49
Groups carried over to other activities 49
Key settings for study groups in Chat 49
Assigning review topics 50
Kinds of questions 50
Reviewing papers and other assignments 51
Creating a one-on-one chat 51
Workaround 1 – Using groups 52
Workaround 2 – Restricting access 53
Guest speakers 54
Including chats from previous classes 54
[ ii ]
Copying a transcript 54
Foreign language practice 56
Preparing for foreign language chat 57
Compiling and reviewing chat transcripts 60
Copying chat transcripts 60
Assigning a chat transcript as an editing exercise 61
Tips for a successful chat 61
Basic chat etiquette 61
Prepare for a definite starting and ending time 63
Limit the number of participants 64
Prepare a greeting for latecomers 64
Focus 64
Insert HTML 65
Summary 65
Chapter 4: Assessment 67
The purpose of assessment 67
Assessment and your learning objectives 68
Types of assessments 68
Keys to successful assessment 68
Taking the fear out of assessment 69
Assessment with quizzes and distributed practice 71
Advantages and limitations of distributed practice 71
Opening and closing quizzes at predetermined times 73
Indicating that a quiz is closed 73
Using quizzes for frequent self-assessment 74
Making a quiz – a learning tool 76
Questions must be specific 76
Adding feedback to quiz questions 77
Feedback for a multiple choice question 77
Feedback for a numeric question 79
Reinforcing expertise with timed quizzes 81
Assessment and motivation 83
Frequent self-assessment 84
Self-generating certificates upon successful completion of assessment
activities 84
Setting up the Gradebook 85
Badges 87
Summary 90
Chapter 5: Lesson Solutions 91
[ iii ]
Selecting and sequencing content for Lessons 92
Create conditions for learning 92
Employ scaffolding 93
Use chunking to help build concepts 93
Get students involved early 94
Keep it lively 95
Keep focused 95
Use media strategically 95
Diagnostic and developmental/remedial content 95
Reward practice 96
Build confidence for final graded performance 96
Getting started – a simple example 97
Moodling through a course 100
The need for sequential activities 102
Lesson settings 104
General settings 104
Grade options 105
Flow control 106
Lesson formatting 107
Access control 108
Other Lesson settings 109
Controlling the flow through a Lesson 109
Use a Lesson to create a deck of flash cards 110
Keep it moving 110
Lesson settings that help create a flash card experience 111
Use an ungraded Lesson to generate materials and strategies for real-
world applications 112
A workaround 114
Summary 117
Chapter 6: Wiki Solutions 118
Using wikis to achieve learning objectives 118
Why a wiki? 119
Wiki versus forum 119
Wiki versus blog 120
An assignment 121
Let's agree to disagree 121
Individual student wikis 122
Creating individual wikis 123
Active reading strategies with individual student wikis 124
Creating a text file for the wiki's starting page 125
[ iv ]
