Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Kirsten Finger -
Number of replies: 12

Hi, In each lesson within my four topics in my moodle course, I have at least one (sometimes more) essay question.  These are the only question types I am using within the lessons themselves.  I have tried all the settings I can think of but can't seem to reconcile a solution to my problem.  I want the students to be able to go back to lessons as many times as they like (though it seems the maximum reattempts I can set is 10), and for them to be able to review their response to the essay question they already submitted.  I also want them to be able to review the lesson at any time without them having to retype a new essay question response each time.  This is important, because the quizzes I have set involved them finding the answers within the lessons they have already completed and they may need to go back.  The nature of the course also means they may need to review and add to their essay question answers.


Can I achieve this?

My students are due to start in 2 days so I need to see if I can fix this quickly :S

Thanks, Kirsten

 

I've just realised this may be 2 problems:

1:  I need students to have somewhere that they can review their essay question responses - is this possible or available currently

2:  I need students to be able to reenter and review the lessons, without them needing to 'reattempt' the lesson and resubmit a new answer in the essay question within that lesson each time they go in to review.  I want them to only have to submit a response the first time, and not each or any subsequent times.

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In reply to Kirsten Finger

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Lynn Scarlet Clark -

Hello Kirsten,

Once you've ticked 're-takes allowed' students have an infinite number of times they can re-look at the lesson. I think you're confusing this with the drop down on 'max number of attempts' (where the max is 10) as this applies only to how many times they are allowed to retake the questions within the lesson, not the lesson itself.

Your students won't be able to view what they've submitted simply by going back into the lesson, as it will continue to present a blank submission box. However, once the teacher has MARKED their essay the student will recieve an email with the teachers' comments on and the text they submitted - of course this means the students have to wait to see their submission.

You can get round this in a couple of ways that I can see (I expect others in here may have different suggestions which may be better for you, but here goes...):

Use the left-hand menu option, this lists all the pages and will allow your students to 'hop' over the lesson submission page to the next contnt page. This still does not let them see their answer though. You could encourage the students to write their answer in a text editor and save it somewhere, before cutting and pasting it into the lesson essay submission box - then they have a record of their submission (and it's best practice anyway!)

Alternatively, don't use the essay in lesson - have a 'upload a single file' activity on the course page for each of your lessons (they complete the whole lesson first, then submit their document). This way they have to submit a saved file and they can review this file or upload/overwrite it if they wish to re-submit - or you can stop them from re-uploading if this is your preference (they can still see the file they uploaded though).

Hope this helps

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In reply to Lynn Scarlet Clark

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Kirsten Finger -

Hi Scarlet,

 

Thanks for your reply.  There are a couple of things that complicate your suggestion for me, that again I don't know if it can be overcome. 

Firstly, the essay questions are not in fact going to be 'marked' as such.  They are 'hurdles', and are reflective activities, so they are a space for the student to reflect.  As such there is no right or wrong answer, and our aim with this course is that it is self-managed in that it won't require ongoing input from educators to continue.  We do however want to have access to their answers, but they won't be required to be marked.  The student has the lesson marked as complete simply by viewing the lesson, but they must submit a response. The requirement to go in and even simply mark a response as a pass for that many questions for that many more students elimates the self-sufficientness of the course for us.  Secondly, if I remove the questions, and allow a spot for submission then I lose the ability to make each lesson dependent on the previous.  I have found this out the hard way, that a lesson won't be considered 'complete' for the purpose of dependency without the presence of a question.  Thus, for the course to be completed in the necessary order I have had to ensure that there is a question within each lesson.

Unless anyone else is able to offer another solution I may have to simply recommend students keep their own record of their responses as you suggest.  Thanks heaps for your input and your swift response.

Thanks for the tip regarding re-takes.  I will look at this again.

Kirsten

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In reply to Kirsten Finger

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Lynn Scarlet Clark -

Hmm, I see what you mean. I have some lessons where I list a 'reflective' question for a similar purpose. I have simply put in a question into a normal lesson page (not a question page) and asked them to take a few minutes out to research and reflect - you could do something similar, asking them to write their responses down for their own convenience. This would keep the self-sufficiency.

In order to keep the lesson dependency you could incorporate a simple true/false question page linked, perhaps, to this reflective exercise asking them if they feel they have accomplished what they set out to in the lesson, or a very simple question related to the learning content.

Alternatively, you could hide all but the first lesson, making the only way to get from lesson one to lesson two is via a link or page jump from within lesson one.

Have you got anyone there who can alter the php for you? If so they manipulate the lesson dependency.

I'm sorry I don't have a neat answer for you, it's possible there isn't one - often with Moodle a little out-of-the-box thinking is required to eleicit the results you need.

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In reply to Lynn Scarlet Clark

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Kirsten Finger -

Thanks Scarlet.  I need to retain the students having to input their reflective answers, as whilst I don't need to grade them, there may arise an occasion in the future where I need to review them for a particular purpose.  I do also need to track that they are getting the idea of the course etc.

Thanks for your help, out of the box thinking may be just what is required smile

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In reply to Kirsten Finger

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi Kirsten,

There is a solution for your problem #1: "I need students to have somewhere that they can review their essay question responses - is this possible or available currently?" See this discussion: New Block: Display Lesson Essays Feedback & Score to students. You might consider installing my Lesson Essay Feedback block, although it will only answer part of your problem.

For the rest of your problem, I suggest that the Lesson activity is not the best place for your students to post an essay that they need to revise several times. Please consider using the Assignment activity instead.

Joseph

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In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Kirsten Finger -

Thanks Joseph,  I will check out the discussion and the block.

The assignment activity looks perfect, but I really need it to be within the lesson, and not within the topic which I gather isn't possible.  It's not so much that they *need* to revise their answer, but they may *want* to due to the nature of the course content.  I will try adding a contents page at the start of each lesson to avoid the student having to submit an answer to a question in the middle of a lesson to re-access a later content page.

Kirsten smile

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In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Kirsten Finger -

Hi Joseph,

I have downloaded the file, and followed the instructions to the point of changing the file name.  Unfortunately I am not in the know on how to upload a folder to my moodle/blocks folder.  I don't even know where to find this.  Is there some basic instruction you can provide for me?

Kirsten

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In reply to Kirsten Finger

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

@Kirsten,

Are you the administrator of your own Moodle site? If so, then you must know where to find the location of your moodle folders, including the <yourmoodle>/blocks folder. If not, then you'll have to ask your admin for help.

Joseph

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In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Kirsten Finger -

Yes I am the admin.....but I am a self-taught moodler....I am looking for the files within moodle itself, is that wrong?  Should I find them on my computer or in my hostgator instead?  Excuse my ignorance in this area....I am VERY keen to install your block.

 

Thanks,

Kirsten

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In reply to Kirsten Finger

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

I don't know hostgator, but I expect you have FTP access to the moodle files on your distant site. If so, open an FTP window and copy the lesson_essay_feedback folder to your distant <moodlesite>/blocks folder.

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In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Essay Question Student Review with Lesson-URGENT

by Kirsten Finger -

Hi Joseph,

Just letting you know we successfully installed the block and we LOVE it!  Thanks smile

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