M21 - Lessons
Lessons can be used to build structured pathways through learning materials and test knowledge as students make progress . |
Keywords: lesson, branching, questions, learning package.
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What is it?
The lesson module presents a series of pages to the student who is usually asked to make some sort of choice underneath the content area. The choice will send them to a specific page in the Lesson. In a Lesson page's simplest form, the student can select a continue button at the bottom of the page, which will send them to the next page in the Lesson.
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Why use it?
Lessons can be used to build structured pathways through learning materials and test knowledge as students make progress.
Who can use it?
Tutors or Course Administrators can set up Lessons.
Students can then take Lessons.
Before I start...
Planning your lesson is very important, and can be helpful later on. A lesson is made up of pages which may have content for the student to read or questions for them to answer. The questions can be created by the teacher or imported. The teacher decides the order in which these pages appear.
You need to have a clear idea beforehand of what you want to do with this lesson. Is it to be a graded, linear learning experience? Or an ungraded, non-linear practice session? Will students be able to go back and revisit areas or is it just a once-only opportunity?
Even those who are very comfortable working directly online might find it useful to note down on paper
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or a digital whiteboard the overall plan and design for the lesson pages, rather than having to remember and visualise the navigation in their head.
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Meeting the baseline
The UCL E-Learning Baseline suggests the following for Structure :
- 1.2 Minimise cognitive load - Avoid overloading the front page by placing content off the main page in Pages, Books, Folders, Lessons and by hiding unused items.
The Orientation category suggests that you should:
- 2.2 Explain participation requirements:
- Identify which activities are compulsory and optional.
- Provide an indicator of effort (such as timings or page counts) for all compulsory tasks.
- Explain how students are expected to use UCL and external e-learning tool. Some courses might provide this information as a screen-cast video, with a voice over.
- Link to instructions for any e-learning tools that students are expected to use.
- 2.8 Outline the Intended Learning Outcomes for every activity and resource in the description and provide a clear overview of what the student is expected to do.
How do I set one up?
The only required setting for a Lesson is the name (i.e. what appears in the Moodle course). While many of the settings are important to consider, you may want to revisit them once your lesson is created, rather than worrying about them from the start. Click
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the 
icon to see contextual help for that setting if you're unsure.
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- When you have set up your lesson with the desired settings, click Save and display and you will be taken to the screen in the screenshot below.
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- If you have some questions in the allowed formats, you can import them to use in your lesson by clicking the Import questions link.
- Although the PowerPoint setting is available, it does not really work and is not advised.
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- A cluster is a group of question pages which will be offered randomly to a student as they work through the lesson. It is best if you have made the question pages beforehand and can then decide where to mark the start and end of the cluster. The start is marked by a cluster page and the end by an end of cluster page.
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- This is a page where you can provide information to move the lesson forward but without requiring the student to answer specific questions.
- The student sees the page's title, some information and then one or more buttons at the bottom to select.
- When the student clicks on a button, they go to the next page but their choice is not scored.
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- The title of a content page appears to the student at the top of the page.
- You will see the title in the collapsed edit mode when they are working on the Lesson, and they will also be able to choose the title (and hence this page) from the drop down jump lists.
- The title in a content page is also used with the display left menu setting.
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This is where you can add information for the student, making use of the text editor and its multimedia features.
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- Here you write the words you want the student to click on to get to the next part of the lesson.
- These words will appear to the student as a button.
- You can check the box to have the buttons appear horizontally, or uncheck it for them to appear centred vertically.
- You have the choice of adding text in several formats (set beneath each content field): HTML format, Moodle auto-format (default), Plain text format and Markdown format.
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- How many of these you have depends on your choice in the Maximum Number of Answers setting in Lesson settings
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- Each Description in a Content page has a Jumps menu. Jumps take a student from one page to another.
- A relative jump is next page or end of lesson whereas an absolute jump gives the actual name of a page.
- You can choose from the drop-down the correct page to send the student to if they click on the button that will be made from this particular description. Any pages created by you will have their titles appear in this drop-down, allowing them to be selected.
- When a student clicks on a description button, they are sent to the page defined in the Jump associated with the button.
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- From this link you can choose from a variety of question types which will then be added as pages to your lesson:
These question types are not the same as for the Quiz and are in no way connected with quiz questions.
- The format of question pages is similar to content pages outlined above.
A typical question page could include:
- Title - the name the student sees at the top of the question page.
- Page contents - the actual question
- Answer/Response/Format/Jump/Score as in the screenshot below.
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- The student is given a question and a list of answers.
- The answer list will be shuffled every time the question is view by a student.
- By default they choose one answer but you can check the box "multiple answer" to allow them to choose more than one answer.
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- Students can write a longer answer as part of the lesson.
- Can be graded manually by you or another teacher.
- If the main purpose of your lesson is for students to write an essay, consider the Assignment module instead.
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- This allows you to set up lists which must be matched against other lists, for instance, words, pictures, numebers etc.
- The student must match all correctly to receive the score.
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- This requires a number as an answer.
- A number within a range may also be accepted as correct.
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- A student must provide a single word or short phrase answer.
- The teacher must anticipate the possible answers and enter them in the Jump drop-down boxes, using ** wild cards if appropriate.
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- The student is given a sentence and must decide if it is true or false.
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- Once you have added your first content or question page, you reach the next screen which displays your page title/type/jumps (i.e. where the responses take the student to) and actions you can take next:
- The Actions icons allow you to move (if you have more than one), edit, preview or delete your pages.
- The drop-down allows you to create another page of your choice.
Note the different view options:
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- This gives a brief outline of the lesson structure as in the two screenshots above.
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- This shows more detail as in the screenshot below:
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- To bring the lesson to a close, select the End of Lesson option from the Jump menu on any relevant pages.
- The student will then see a generic message as in the next screenshot, with a direction back to the main course page or to view their grades:
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- To add a lesson to your course page, turn on the edit mode toggle in the top-right of your page.
- With the edit mode toggle on, choose the + icon to add items anywhere in a section. Simply click on the course page, in the section wherever you want to add your activity. This will open up the activity chooser, allowing you to select your activity or resource. You can still add content from the bottom of any section, as you did in the previous version. To do so, click add an activity or resource to open the activity chooser.
- Select lesson.
- Give the Lesson a name (as mentioned above you can always come back to the other settings later).
- Click save and display to see the lesson or save and return to course to save and return to the main course page.
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Further guidance on the Lesson activity is available from Moodle Docs. If you find any inaccurate or missing information you can even update this yourself (it's a communal wiki). If you have a specific question about the tool please contact the Digital Education team. |
Caution
None at this time.
Examples and case studies
None at this time.
Questions & Answers
Q. Can I import questions to a Moodle Lesson?
A. If you have some questions in the allowed formats, you can import them to use in your lesson by clicking the Import Questions link.
Further information
See Moodle Docs.