Student Centered Environment

Student Centered Environment

by Martha Chamberlin -
Number of replies: 19

I am interested in building a course that is centered around the student and his/her individual learning.  It would look something like this:

* The student logs on and works on the course.

* As the student makes progress in the course, his/her progress is tracked.

* Each time the student logs on to work on the course, the course appearance changes depending on the student's progress.

Am I correct that Moodle doesn't currently have the capabilities to do this?

Is there anyone who is working on this that I could collaborate with?

Thanks --

-Martha

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In reply to Martha Chamberlin

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Vu Hung -
I hope that when Moodle implements fully IMS LD in version 2.0, we'll be able to provide not only collaborative (social constructionism) but also adaptive (student centered) learning environment.

Cheers,
Vu Hung
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In reply to Vu Hung

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Adaptive != Student Centered
IMS LD != Student Centered

Yes, Moodle 2.0 will support the LD standard by adding custom roles, activity-level groups and conditional activities, but from what I've seen most teachers are looking forward to these features so they can put restrictions and controls on top of what we already have. Such control is actually a very teacher-centered approach, or perhaps content-centered approach. wink

My main interest is on adding more control for students, allowing them to modify the shared course environment for each other in more ways. This is what student-centered means (or should mean!). Think more in terms of a self-directed learner driving their own education (like yourself on this site), and less about mazes.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Vu Hung -
Perhaps I misunderstand the student-center concept. smile

But at least with IMS LD, a student with a certain role can keep track his learning activities (which activities he already complete or not).

By the way, have you made any preparation for coding IMS LD in Moodle 1.6 ? I'm really paying much attention to this forthcoming feature.

Cheers,
Vu Hung
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In reply to Vu Hung

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Ger Tielemans -

The current Moodle is heavily teacher centered: only he can setup a course and populate the activities and resources in that course.

Student centered is when the student can start and organise initiatives, like:

  • lets start a new project (choose course format "project B"?)
  • I guess I will finish it in six weeks, so lets create six sections.
  • lets fill the sections with the things I will do, like keep a journal, organise resources in folders, start writing a book..
  • lets invite John to work with me
  • lets ask teacher Bob to coach us
  • lest start a blog to attract some audiance smile
  • oops it takes more time, lets add 3 sections
  • etc..

Products like Plone are more suited for that? (creating folders and populate it with functionality?)
I saw also the new version of Swiki (1.4 "Winterlong": you can just past a calendar on every page and populate it with sticky papers/pages: the easiest planning tool I saw untilnow smile must inspire the dfWiki guys.)

One day (IMS/LD?) it will be possible to check the conditions of who initiated an action and what the consequences are.. (changed eWiki can do it since it lives  inside Moodle - without LD - how comes?)

.. and NO, do not come with the idea to make them teachers in the course: in that case you give all your security away. (unless teacher edit fields are checked also, by the way a good idea anyway, because most teachers have no idea what they cut and past into their courses...

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Art Lader -

Ger,

Do the wiki and the blog not address some of this? What do you think?

Art

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Student Centered Environment

by warmac - -
sounds alot more like "student-centered ego" is this a way to manipulate students into thinking they are in control while teachers sit back and drink latte ? lol

student-centered is fine with teacher guidance, if we leave it up to automation as the education is trying to become students will never learn anything but useless knowledge.  Teachers get lazy or become obsolete and before you know it, your child is being raised by an automated program
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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Ger, all you need to do to go this far is to set up a separate Moodle (or even just a separate course) for those students (and make them teachers there).  Everything in your list is then possible with stock Moodle.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Ger Tielemans -
  1. Yes Art, wiki and blog are the first minor steps in the direction of student centered
  2. a separate course? that is the old wrong answer from two years ago smile What about the code students can bring in in these not checked edit-fields?
  3. On a  separate moodle you loose all control: how can you say that the grades - especially these for open assignements - are still correct?
  4. Using a tool without teacher monitoring is possible: Tikiwiki, Plone, Swiki but that is a complete different educational approach..
  5. But if you want to combine the advantages of Moodle with the teacher as coach and a student centered approach... 
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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Darren Smith -
I have had superb results by giving capable students their own course. In fact, my computing class have their own course where they are all teachers. They are doing a moodle project for me. More soon ..... wink

I note what you say about results but that falls under assessment rather than learning. I have no assignments or quizzes as such in the computing course. It's more of a sandbox for them to test their ideas and share. i made an initial post at sean k's site about the results but I think I will write them up properly at some point. Dunno where I would put them. Keep an eye on the teaching and learning forums if any one is interested in my revelations.

The problem with giving kids courses is, as pointed out somewhere before, they could enroll the whole school and spam them. That, as far as i can see is the only downside. When the students get teacher access they see how everything can be monitored so they tend to play nice. Of course, there are certain students that should not be made teachers but that is a different thread ...

What do you mean by ' code that students can bring in in these not checked edit-fields?' please???

Ger, if you want to see the work my students have done by themselves drop me a moodle message and I'll give you a url and a password.
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In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Ger Tielemans -
Yes I will, thanks for the offer. I will contact you after my holiday! (starts tomorrow, two weeks without internet!)

As far as I now teachers can insert code in their edit fields: we did it in the past before we had the multimedia filter: a complete disaster on the screen when you forgot the last bracket..  what if someone inserts an evil code, found on the internet?

As far as I know students cannot insert code in their answers, it will be filtered

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
If this is a concern then a completely separate Moodle server for student-teachers (with separate accounts) is the way to go.
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In reply to Vu Hung

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Adding the notion of "completion" to each activity (and thus courses) is definitely the first thing we need to do in the stack of things that full IMS LD support requires. It's the prerequisite to conditional activities and external things like student information systems.

But first (for me), Blogs and Databases.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Ger Tielemans -
When is a forum, a chat, a glossary,  a wiki or a blog completed? I think that there is more educational creativity needed here.
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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Indeed, this is the province of each module to implement.

For example, a forum could be finished when completing three posts, or has rated 10 other posts, or has been rated with a grade above X, or a teacher has pressed a checkbox for that user, etc.

There are lots of possibilities ... the module would support all the ones we think of and the teacher decides which one they want at the time they create each activity.
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In reply to Martha Chamberlin

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Martha Chamberlin -

Wow!  What great replies -- and so quickly!  Thanks for your feedback and ideas.  Certainly something to think about.

-Martha

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In reply to Martha Chamberlin

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Darren Smith -
I remember seeing an add-on which incorporated a gantt chart in section 0 which may do some of the things you require. Can't remember what it was or where I saw it sad Somebody else may.

Also, students could track their own progress (and share it with a teacher) using the online assignment.

There was another moodle package called moodleFN which had things like ticks (checks) next to a completed activities. this would do what you require to a large extent except it was based upon version 1.4 and you may have problems when you want to upgrade your moodle.
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In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Ger Tielemans -

the newest one is: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=28024

but you mean: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=21659

I also see that I repeat myself (april 15) smile

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Student Centered Environment

by Martha Chamberlin -

Very nice, Ger!  This wasn't exactly what I was thinking of, but I think that it will address the issues I was interested in (and much easier than custome coding).

Thank you very much!  Generally a very interesting discussion here -- what a great community!

-Martha

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