Help students continue their work where they left off

Help students continue their work where they left off

by Dirk Meyer -
Number of replies: 11

I am unable to find information, apologies if this was discussed already elsewhere.

I am curious how to best help students to pick up their work where they left off in a previous Moodle session. The lesson activity already supports this but I don't see it elsewhere.

For example, students read a particular chapter in a book or attempt a quiz. When they come back to Moodle the next time, they would like to have an easy way to find where they left off. I am thinking this could be done with logs? Is there something that keeps track of the last item the student was in for the course and records it. Then maybe one could either show them where they left off or just direct them to that spot.

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In reply to Dirk Meyer

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Melanie Scott -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

I think it depends on what you're doing and how you set it up.  Do they only take the quiz the one time?  Do you use course completion tracking?  If you do, you can set activity completion and they get a check when they're done, which includes opening resource materials.  Quizzes will resume where you left off.  I can't think of a way to return to a particular book page but that doesn't mean there isn't one...but the TOC is pretty easy to follow.  Have you looked at hiding some of the completed activities so they don't see them (I wouldn't do this permanently, just until they are done?  Or maybe using One Topic format or Grid format?

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In reply to Melanie Scott

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Dirk Meyer -

Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. Our teachers approach their Moodle courses in many ways and the mentioned ideas and course formats are used. We are a K-12 institution with many different needs and ways of doing things. Many of our students have multiple Moodle courses, some of which have several dozen books, quizzes and assignments. I realize much can be done with what is already in Moodle but it very hard to find a "best way" for everyone.

I think what our students need is a time based reporting mechanism that works like "Last time you were in Moodle you worked on these quizzes, you submitted these assignments and you read these books" or more simple "Last time you were in Moodle you left off here"

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In reply to Dirk Meyer

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Hi Dirk,

Have you heard of or tried the User Bookmarks block? I  use it and it lets me, or anyone else on the site, set a bookmark to their current location. Even though the version in Moodle downloads is listed for Moodle 2.0 to 2.5, if you go to the source on Github there is a version for Moodle 2.7. I have that running on multiple Moodle 3.4 sites and just installed it on a site running Moodle master branch that is soon to be Moodle 3.5. It seems to work just fine with everything I have tried except in the middle of a lesson. It works there but if you have debugging on it gives a invalid string offset warning, but works anyway.

Comes in real handy for development work on MooTyper as I have 17 different keyboard layouts in thirteen different languages with dozens of exercises for each language. I can set a bookmark to go right back to the one I was working on each time I start to work.


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In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Dirk Meyer -

Thank you Al. I have not heard of the User Bookmarks nor the Mootyper. I am curious and will need to explore. Thank you!

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In reply to Dirk Meyer

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Melanie Scott -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

I don't think there is a best way for everyone other that what each teacher decides works best for them.  smile


Have you made activity reports available to your students?  that might help...

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In reply to Melanie Scott

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Dirk Meyer -
I disagree thoughtful We are a K-12 organization and I want us to provide better support to help students pick up where they left off.
Students have multiple subjects each day, their scheduling usually rotates - its hard enough to remember what day of the week, which subject and at what time. Some classes are taught in a sequential manner while others are continuous intake and students work on all kinds of activities.
On platforms such as Coursera or Khan Academy I appreciate visual reminders or video bookmarks that tell me where I was when I left.
 

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In reply to Dirk Meyer

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Melanie Scott -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Are you using course completion?  That gives a pretty solid indication of where they left off.  And the dashboard provides a courses list with a 'visual' indicator of how much is complete.

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In reply to Melanie Scott

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Dirk Meyer -

Yes we are smile. Students want to know what books they were reading and what pages, what quizzes they started and where they need to continue, what forum discussions they read and left comments on etc. Its not about marking something complete and then moving on - its about finding activities they have been working with but have not completed.

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In reply to Dirk Meyer

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Melanie Scott -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

I'm not sure...there is a recent activity block.  I don't know if it would help or not?  You could try.  I don't use it but it might work.

Forums is easy!  Just tell it to do the tracking thing (it will tell them, just like on here it shows which posts you've read/vs not read.  And your profile provides links to the posts you've made.

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In reply to Dirk Meyer

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Patrick Kopp -

I'm not familiar with any specific plug-ins or any of the backend stuff, but is there a way we can have the system automatically send weekly updates to the students that include their most recent activity and a summary of activities they've completed?  

If that same email has a link to their most recent activity it would give them fast access to where they left off, and by pushing it out as an email it will prompt the student to return to their studies. Mondays seem like a good day for such an email.  

Looking at the types of logs I have access to for students, it looks like "All logs" for a student lists the most recent activity, and "Outline report" has a decent overview of completed/graded tasks and when activities were last accessed.

As for resuming quizzes or a book on the page where a student left off, I'm not sure that much specificity is needed.  If a student didn't finish a quiz or a reading topic they should probably start the topic over.  However, if your book is quite lengthy with many subchapters, it is probably worth looking at for reorganization into multiple books.  

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In reply to Patrick Kopp

Re: Help students continue their work where they left off

by Dirk Meyer -

Google Classroom has a nice feature which emails a weekly activity update to guardians (parents). This seems very similar to the Outline Report you refer to above.

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