Quiz

I am using quiz for lesson-by-lesson translation (and sometimes other, like cloze, thanks to your wonderful explanations of cloze) exercises in essay format-untimed, open textbook. I use it basically like one would use the assignment module but when I was developing my course the assignment module simply did not have the features necessary for me to implement it in the way I wanted to do so, so I chose to use the quiz module. I have even renamed it as "exercise" on my site and students will never see the word "quiz" when using the quiz module.

I have been using general feedback to give the student some extra information related to the particular quiz item, but not necessarily part of the item. For example, in one of the early exercises they are required to transliterate a word in hieroglyphs. That is all the quiz requires of them. However, I sometimes give cultural or grammatical information related to that word as general feedback. In one case, the general feedback for a specific quiz question generated a question in the discussion forums, and  I edited the general feedback to include a link to that discussion.

One thing I would like, more than a question repository, would be some definitive research on the relative effectiveness of the blends of strategies.

I have been using large random banks of questions, knowing that some (I would say good) research indicates student learning will decrease with a drill and practice approach.  However, I have the students collaborating with each other on their "quizzes". 

Everyone has a different set of questions, so the shortest path to the students desired outcome most closely matches mine ("How do I solve this type of problem", as opposed to "What's the answer to this question?").  There are some other effects as well but I just don't have time to identify them.

I do notice that students are much less reliant on a recipe approach to problem solving than we give them credit for.

My gut feeling is that the bottom third of the class benefits significntly.  I wish I could prove or disprove it.  I also wish I had more banks...

I really want to try your GREP tool Joseph.  It sounds fantastic.

Dear Joseph,

Thank you very much for your helpful explanation about the difference between using the Quiz Module for testing as opposed to learning/training.  I have always used it as a training and gaming tool (posing questions at the beginning of a lesson, with funny possible answers).   And I have always wanted progressive "Hints" to be added to the Quiz Module, and puzzled that instead we are seeing more and more security features installed.   From your new post here, I could realize what has been going on, and it led me to this discussion.

Now I am co-leading a team working on mobile phone flashcards, email study streams, quizzing and surveying (see all threads on MFM).  We are using ad hoc databases created by teachers from the Database Module, rather than the main Question Bank.  But that is another discussion.   My main questions now are:

• How do we get progressive hints built into quizzing?
• How do we build not just a site-wide repository, but share questions/feedback/hints on a multi-site and global level?
• How can we make sure mobile phone modules are a supportive, integrated tool in this effort?

P.S.  I really like what Mary says about how she uses quizzes online after a face-to-face class.  That is what I like to do too. 

Hi all,
        first thanks Joseph for your support and developpment efforts, you got a nice hat for that

Let me precise that I do only face-to-face teaching in process control and automatisation domain.

As others I do many usages of quiz module:

1 - Teaching/Learning : Using many well defined categories and random questions, the student have opportunities after an experiment or an exercice to master or to "auto evaluation formative" ( in french )  the relations  implied  in the  experiment.  Feedback, right answers  and of course the teacher explanations help I hope.

The student also can retake the preparation quiz as many time it  want  and the grade  give him or her a good idea of the result that will be reached in the real test ( 2 ) .


2 - Testing : Same repository of questions but with only one attempt and no help and effective grading!

3 - Distributing activities :  Another simple use of the quiz module is to make random choice of equivalent activities. That way students  are encouraged to collaborate in the understanding and manipulation levels of their exercice but have nothing  to copy directly.

4 - Validation : As the experiment supporter guy I generally use four checkpoints in any experiment to verify that the student is in the right way and to help him or her if not.  For that I use  four simple quiz that require some calculation on a 10 digits string and the student don't konw the answer.

As sides effects it permit to evaluate the time required by each section of the experiment and to have ideas of the groups progression. I started  a small jpgraph page that give a good idea of the relative advance of all quiz:




5 - Auto evaluation : I use the quiz also to let the students to auto evaluate their progression in a project course: Each week they have personnaly to estimate the percentage they think their group have reached for each of the graded elements of the project ( drawing, cabling, programming, documentation, ... ). After that personnal evaluation they compare with the other student working on the same project.




For the lesson the biggest problem is the authoring  time required to make the feedback and to give it the appropriate navigation.

The same time problem exist with the Scorm module and the IMS LD activities.

15 years ago I realised that problem and started very slowly to desing a system that will generate all the required feedback and navigation from simple teacher statements. The system will appear to the students as a pseudo Socratic Dialogue. You will find here my last elucubrations about that subject.

I hope it may help,

Bernard

Like many others, I see a clear bifurcation in uses of Quiz: to aid in learning, or to assess.  (and there can certainly be other uses)

also like others, I find the Lesson module not very helpful - it doesn't do what I want, and I don't like the "formatting" choices -- it seems the basic assumption is power-point-like cells with quiz.

I'd like to see two new functions in moodle, without loss of the current quiz:

1.  TEST  which uses the current quiz design but allows for more.  There is a clear shopping list out in various other discussions, for me, I'd add that the time to test could be longer than the regular time-out, and one way to handle that might be to have the test in sections (pages) where completion of one page, which could be returned to for revision (without requiring the "right button" be chosen) would satify the regular timer.  I.e., a 4 page Test, each page 10 minutes, would overcome a regular 15 minute timeout.  Only completing the fourth page would be the final upload/no changes.

2.  LEARN which uses the current web page or assignment design, where any "comprehension check" questions could be placed anywhere, with a feedback loop: 1 point (or fraction thereof, as per assignments) for a successful answer, and a redirect to the beginning of that reading for an incorrect answer, with no "minus" points and the possibility of reanswering for the full points (previous answer not displayed).  It might even highlight the correct info in the passage?

The reason the slides design won't work so well here is it doesn't really allow for questions that roll back to earlier reading sections without re-starting the hole process.

Or so I suggest...

(unfortunately, I'm not a programmer!)

Rob