I'm just doing some research for a workshop next year and I am looking at ratings in forums (and glossaries/databases too for that matter) particularly by students. There are five options - http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/Forum_settings#Aggregate_type and I was wondering what people's experience of these is? I suppose when students are rating the only useful one really is average - but do others have value? Do you use other aggregate types and in which circumstances have they been successful or unsuccessful? Thanks
Hi Mary,
I'm not sure my experience will be useful to you.
In my last course in Moodle 1.9.x, I graded Forums and found it made a huge difference. I graded them either 100% or nothing. My objective as an English as a Second Language teacher was to get students to express themselves in English. It worked: practically all of them (42) wrote at least a short message in the forum every week for 9 weeks. This had never happened before. The group was heterogeneous but mainly of a fairly low level - int the pas the same public had been very shy about writing. But this did the trick. They were adults and perfectly aware that these were in a sense "fake" grades - but they did the work. In this context, I wasn't interested in assessing who was "better" than another: just to give them practice in writing English.
I also did the same type of grading with Questionnaire: to get weekly feedback on the course. This was slightly less successful but still about a 75% response rate which was way above what I'd got before. So I know that though for a lot of them weekly writing in English was a chore, they also realised they could do it - something many had thought impossible previously. They had the choice of replying to the Questionnaire either in English or in French (their native language). Nearly all of them did it in English (there were 2/3 boxes to tick plus one open question).
I only wish I'd though of doing these two things earlier in my Moodle career.
I didn't think of getting students to grade each other in the same way - it would be interesting to try. But now I don't have any students to experiment on...
Cheers,
Glenys
Thanks Glenys - yes your experience IS useful as I am looking for all kinds of ideas and any version and in fact I will use your idea as one of my first examples of basic forum grading. When you set up the ratings did you leave it at the default "average" -presumably you only gave them one grade anyway so it wouldn't have mattered? I am struggling to find justifications for using any of the other aggregate types, to be honest http://docs.moodle.org/en/Forum_settings#Aggregate_type
Hi Mary,
I don't actually remember what kind of rating I used - I'm sure I just used something simple because I don't understand all the different types. I'll be interested to see what you come up with.
Cheers,
Glenys
In reply to Glenys Hanson
Re: Who uses forum ratings with or without student input?
by Joseph Rézeau -
Glenys "But now I don't have any students to experiment on..."
How sad! Neither do I. Maybe we should try experimenting on pigeons (as Skinner did).
Joseph
In reply to Joseph Rézeau
Re: Who uses forum ratings with or without student input?
by Glenys Hanson -
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for that - I'd never acutally seen Skinner before.
Not that he convinces me any more in a video than in his writings. My experience of myself and my students is that we are capable of acts of will - and that's what I base my life and my Moodle courses on.
But others are free to think differently.
Cheers,
Glenys