Is it possible to force a student to review course material before they take a quiz? Managers want to be able to see if the students are reviewing the material before they take the quiz. Managers are afraid that the students are enrolling in the class bypassing the material and taking the quiz only. Thanks for your help
Using Moodle 1.2
Chris
Well, Big Brother Bryan
..you also could use the lesson modul, content control questions after each paragraph
..Or ask them to collect words from these texts and deliver for each word the definition as described in that text. (earning bonus points for the later test?)
Managers want to be able to see....
Ger,
Perhaps you don't see that these are adults learners in a work environment, and not students in a school setting as you are very familiar with. Big difference in how learning is delivered between these populations.
Hmm... Big Brother (BB) OUCH! 
You write: "Perhaps you don't see that these are adults learners in a work environment.."
Let me tell you about my first class, when I was younger then today. (1982)
I gave in these days "civilian informatics" to teachers, twice my age.
They came after a hard day of work - voluntarily - in the evening to our teacher training institute.
I did my lectures and gave these adults extra exercises and readings for at home until the next week.
Halfway I did a survey: "Shame on me, how could I give homework without testing it the next week!"
And then I wondered: Adult teachers?.. homework?... Is that what they teach their students? Only work if the boss is looking? Are adults just old children?
(I still like this small button of that chessgame on C64: [when the boss comes by] showing an impressing spreadsheet dump.)
Since that day I always wonder during design:
What can a student still do when he switches the computer off?
Did I try NOT to use a lot of control?
What if the boss is not there?
So, my question to you: "How much should a course also work on a better learning attitude?"
In 1999 I gave - as part of a whole program - a course to master students with academic grades and a daytime job, but virtual coming back for an extra educational grade.
My subject was: "How to setup an eLearning environment for your own institute".
(I just did that very succesfull as head of the multimedialab from the educational department. Our University Twente is still using that TeleTOP system today.
I proposed the University to give it away to the community, nop.
I proposed in these days my young coworkers who did the real job to start a small company around it, with help of the University , nop
I wanted to rebuild this prototype, taking advantage of the new standards from IMS, nop. Then I went away to these schools, starting all over again like a real pioneer. And then I found Moodle, happy end)
In these Master Classes I worked with my old tool TeLeTOP, giving them resouces and assignments (homework in the old jargon), reading their electronic homework, commenting on it, referring to resources, bringing in new ones and then looking at their new written versions..
No single m.c-test, no worries about not reading texts, just forums, resources and (word)-assignments as prove of their skills, a fantastic course, but o boy, what a work..
We met for the first time during graduation, wondering who that person was on the other site of the cable..
My real background is psychology and I took some extra classes in psychometrica.
So I believe that you can test anything, if you get a lot of money to construct that test, validate it, calibrate it on the target population, do a consistency check.
Especially in life saving courses I see the importance of VERY GOOD TESTS.
That is something different then al these clumsy multimedia-quizz-questions you see nowadays all around you: Did you see adaptiv testing in one of these new eLearning environments? The only thing we have now in Moodle is the work done by our man in Kyoto to check a little bit these clumsy questions we write together: is the question to difficult, to easy? a little bit sick? ( do not misunderstand me: I like these options very much!!) It s always better then nothing but calling it very well developed tests? How are yours?
So, my question to you: "How much should a course also work on a better learning attitude?"
That's the $64k question. With learners in formal education (K-16) the emphasis is, among other things, on developing the mind to move from non-differentiation (me only) to concrete thinking (categories) and finally to abstract awareness (others as distinct and significant). We just assume an individual has moved through these three levels of consciousness by the time they show up for work as adults (wish we had a smily face with tears).
With the adult learner in a business environment these factors have zero importance. The emphasis is on relative skills with here-and-now meaning (the bottom line). There is an expectation the adult learner will have already moved into abstract consciousness, and actually into a fourth level of consciousness (i.e., self-authoring). "Skills acquisition" moves along without consideration for learning attitutde. The boss expects accountability and productivity from the human robots. This is why I suggested looking at the Logs, and making this fact known to the adult learner... accountability (the stick - forget the carrot). Sad, but a fact of life!
Hi Ger and Brian and ?
Why five rules ? Why not eight or ten rules?
Perhaps you mean five golden rules or ten values (bible) and put it on a important place somewhere in Moodle
Here are some points of wich i think its important .
About the adult students:
-you want to now who are those students?
-the students want to now who is the theacher?
-A good working e-learning system (Server) (No waiting times) ( Very important for their motivation)
-Make a good coursplan (what , when , how long ,how much , etc)
-Knowing why they start a cours ?
-What is their motivation ?
-What their target is?
-What are their qualities already and how anticipate on it.
There is now general approach.
-What are their ict qualities
With them:
-How is responsible for what?
-When it is possible , plan a meeting.
-Tell them your vieuw
In Belgium or the Netherlands easy to organize. How about China , US or Canada ?
-consider a plan with them , the target to reach.
-after a time make an evaluation.
-Is there a possibility for tempo differentiation?
Ofcourse it is hard to realise it. But its always good to optimize.
Until now, the E-learning environment is still not the best way to get the best results.
You have to meet them.
concur with Ger, you want to use the lesson module. That way you don't let the students at the quiz questions until they've at least gone through the material (& wrong answers can send them back to the page they should have read if you like.
We've also added a few features to it of our own for an adult learner class: random unseen within a branch and a 'tree view' overview for looking at an entire lesson as a series of links.
We'll be releasing a the mods soon.
IMO, lesson is great for adult learners, we've also inserted flash videos and narration to keep the adults interested.
I haven't played with the lesson module, but I will because based on what I have read here today it might solve my situation.
That being said, I do think there is some utility in requiring a student to read materail, posted as a resource, before taking the quiz. The unfortunate truth is that not all adults act or learn as adults should. Some of that is the result of external pressure place upon us, such as deadlines, work comitments, family obligations. These external pressures often tempt us into taking short cuts.
What if a site administrator/course creator/teacher was given the option of having the apperahance of a quiz "triggered" by the accessing of a resource? It might be a useful option.
Ralph
Two other tricks (earlier told in these forums) to force them to read:
I have a word of warning about looking at the logs or releasing the quiz only when a resource has been accessed. The problem is that 'accessing' doesn't have to equal 'reading' or 'learning'. Take these two examples:
In the above examples, students in 1 should not be allowed to take the quiz, while student in 2 should. However, by looking at the logs or by 'triggering' the quiz once the resorce has been accessed, you will 'punish' the wrong students.
I agree with Ger, Bernard and Michael - the lesson would be a better way to go. And, take Martin's advice: create a quiz which is based on the resource in such a way that the students have to read the resource if they want to pass the quiz.
Just my ¢2 
Hi there,
Interesting subject,
There will be no end on it and that is Ok!
There are hundreds of reasons why adult learners cannot or can .....
That is not the responsibility of the theacher.
Create several quizzes , and one ore more of them is based on the resource in such a way that the students have to read the resource. Some will walk to the wall sooner or later.
Its part of the teachers job to motivate , stimulate , interact again ,again and again.
Why, what , how etc.
Aaldrik
..Its part of the teachers job to motivate , stimulate , interact again ,again and again.
If you are with your students in the same room - when they do their work - you have the impression that you see what they are doing. (and can interact when needed)
Without this, you - as good teacher- feel the strong need to have a way to observ them from a distance and interact when needed: I think that Bryan is stressing the importance of this. The activity logs is one way of doing this, but students will experience this very easy as the eye of god or worse..Activity log is only showing that they move, not what they are doing.
So the fun is: "How can we redesign the student tasks in such a way that we have a better impression of the learning PROCESS not only the results: forums where they develop together their thoughts about what they had to read, workshop with peer review, exercises with scales, lessons and soon also for collab work eWiki.
(and maybe webquest with built in eWikis and roles in version 2)
