Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

by John Isner -
Number of replies: 8
I have a large question database (2000+ math questions) that I use for making quizzes. I would like to use my questions in Lessons, but that won't be possible until the Lesson module is integrated with the question database. Meanwhile, I am using quizzes to simulate simple lessons, as explained below.

Suppose your Lesson structure is completely linear; that is, it does not contain any branches. It consists of an explanation, followed by some questions, followed by additional explanation, followed by more questions, etc. You can can use a quiz to simulate this structure as follows:

Description question (explanation part I)
MCQ
MCQ
MCQ
Description question (explanation part II)
MCQ
MCQ
Description question (explanation part III)
MCQ
MCQ

A disadvantage of this technique is that the movement of students through the lesson cannot be controlled. For example, the student can jump to the material in the second part of the lesson without first having mastered the material in the first part.

An advantage is that we leverage our investment in a question database (probably only significant to people with large question databases).

Incidentally, commercial products like LessonBuilder create lessons with similar linear structure and lack of control, so I guess it's fair to call them "lessons" with a small L.

Has anyone else used this idea? If so, do you have any additional thoughts or suggestions?
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In reply to John Isner

Re: Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

by Chris Collman -
Picture of Documentation writers
Hi John,
My snappy answer is wait for 2.0 with its unified conditional activity feature (I hope and pray) smile In the meantime, here are 3 ideas

Look at one of the Activity Lock hacks. You could chain conditions from one activity to another to enforce the "course logical order" upon your students. If you are not worried about score as a condition (some AL flavors don't have it, some do), this might be an option. Some flavors will let you make entry into part 2 explaination dependent upon completing the 1 Explaination and the 3 quiz activities .

I suspect you have rejected exporting selected questions out of quiz and into the Lesson as question pages. This would allow you several options to control/direct student choices through the lesson dependency feature and/or jumps in the lesson page themselves. We use these kinds of things to annoy our speed clickers (they have to repeat the lesson) which also assists those who need help, but we use the Quiz as a Test to determine the grade for our course.

I rejected the idea of using an html link within a lesson page to jump to a hidden quiz. I am sure that is possible but I am not aware of an automatic way to jump from a quiz back to the next lesson page. I don't play with quizes, so I offer this idea in case somebody knows how to make it work.

Hope this helps or at least encourages conditional activity in 2.0
Best - Chris
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In reply to Chris Collman

Re: Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

by John Isner -
Hi Chris,
For me, the advantage of the quiz solution (reuse of the question database) outweighs the disadvantage (inability to control student movement through the material). After playing with a LessonBuilder demo, I decided that the value of control (branching, etc.), is overrated, and that simple (linear) lessons would work just as well for my purposes. In fact, I quite like LessonBuilder's top down approach, which starts with a finished document and allows the teacher to insert questions at arbitrary points.

I have a huge investment in my question database, and I am unwilling to allow copies of my questions to proliferate, so export/import is not an option. In fact, I have disabled category export on my site! Until Lessons are integrated with the question database, using quizzes to simulate simple lessons is the best alternative I have found.
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In reply to John Isner

Re: Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

by Chris Collman -
Picture of Documentation writers

John,

Thanks for sharing!   I am a straight line through the lesson kind of person.  But I assist trainers, so that is not surprising. 

I don't use LessonBuilder, but I use the same approach. Create branch pages with content (designed by others) that students travel in a straight line, then I insert questions.   

I hear you about your investment.  From my standpoint is it about control. We have a committee which must approve each question in the quiz/test.  So we have a huge investment in every quiz question.   In the lesson, they don't want the exact test/quiz question being used, so I intentionally don't even look at their tests until I am done with my questions. 

However, I still want a bank of questions to use in a lesson, that I can reuse and edit in one place.   And it would sure be nice when I edit the question in the bank, that it would change in the lessons that are using it (I can see pros and cons to this).  And to have a report that would tell me where my questions were being used (which quizes, which lesson page). 

But for what I do, like you, I can make Moodle do what we want.

Best

  

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In reply to Chris Collman

Re: Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

by John Isner -
In the lesson, they don't want the exact test/quiz question being used

That's a good point, and one that I have wrestled with. Fortunately, I have enough questions in my question database that I can spare a few for lessons. To avoid accidentally reusing those questions on tests, I made a slight modification to the "editing quiz" code that shows, next to each question in the list of available questions, a list of the names of quizzes in which that question is used. For example

Question-999
Used in Quiz-1, Quiz-2, Lesson-3, Quiz-4, Quiz-5

Since my lessons are actually quizzes (and use a special naming convention), I can easily spot the lesson questions and avoid accidentally reusing them on tests. In the above example, I would not choose Question-999 for a test because I can see that it is being used in Lesson-3. The same hack helps me avoid accidentally reusing practice quiz questions on tests.
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In reply to John Isner

Re: Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Hi John,
Your idea of showing for each question the name of any Quiz(zes) where it is actually being used is excellent. Have you submitted your idea as New Feature in the bug tracker?
Joseph
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In reply to John Isner

Re: Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

by Chris Collman -
Picture of Documentation writers

Good tips.   I was thinking that an SQL query should be able to track where each question in the database is being used.   Guess you and Joseph are way ahead of me, I was thinking paper outputs.smile

When I first started, I created about 100 questions in GIFT format.  Naming the text file was important.   The whole process seemed cumbersome and too much effort.  I started thinking of using Access to create questions, which would be imported into Moodle in GIFT format.  About that time I learned about the Question Bank and decided others could invent the wheel better than me. 

 

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In reply to John Isner

Re: Using Quiz to simulate a simple Lesson

by ejoyce navarete -
how do you differentiate Lesson from Quiz... seems similar to me.. smile
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