Assess Online
Assess higher order thinking
Run online quizzes through Moodle
Create Moodle Assignments
Facilitate online discussions using a forum
1. Assess higher order thinking
Assessments that target lower order thinking such as recall, understanding, and application can be great for providing unambiguous marks, quick assessments for gaps in understanding, and fast turnaround for grades and feedback. These can be great tools for quick comprehension checks and low stake assessments. However, in an online course you may have concerns about academic honesty as the stakes increase. In an online course you may want to think about your high stakes assessments and push them towards creation and performance style tasks. Some approaches you might consider for this task is a longitudinal assessment that requires multiple check-ins or submissions throughout a course (e.g. a research proposal that requires a research question, then an article list, then a literature review, then a methodology), or leveraging a tool like the Moodle Workshop activity to have students peer evaluate for feedback or assessment.
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2. Run online quizzes and exams through Moodle
The Moodle Quiz activity allows instructors to run timed online quizzes, midterms, and exams. Moodle allows for a variety of question types including multiple choice, true false, numerical entry, essay, matching, and more. Individual student settings can be applied to the quiz on an individual basis, for example requirements around time zones, additional time accommodations, or additional attempts.
If you have concerns about academic integrity in regards to quizzes, some strategies you may want to employ are using a bank of random questions, ensuring that your questions aren't immediately "google-able", or lowering the stakes of lower order assessments.
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Considerations for Online Quizzes
3. Create Moodle Assignments
Moodle Assignments are ways to have students, or groups of students upload files, or submit online text for you to review, evaluate, or provide feedback on. Much like quizzes, individual accommodations, such as deadline extensions, can be applied to students on an individual basis.
Moodle Assignments have four grading modes: None (feedback only); Simple direct grading (1 grade for the activity); Marking Guide (a criterion based grade that sums for the final grade); and Rubric (a clickable rubric that highlights the achieved level for students).
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Considerations for Online Assignments
Marking Guides and Rubrics
4. Facilitate online discussions using a forum
Moodle discussion forums are activities where students and instructors can make posts visible to the entire class, or small groups. In a large class you may wish to cluster students into small groups for activities like a student facilitator discussion, or you may wish to set up separate groups of 1 to run individual learning reflections.
There are two main styles of discussion forum: standard forums for general use, and Q&A forums. Q&A forums require students to submit a post and let editing time pass (15 minutes for UPEI's Moodle) before they'll be able to see other student contributions. Standard forums for general use do not have such a restriction and can be create ways for students to publicly ask questions about the course, share related information they've found online, or to introduce themselves.