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.
Planning your lesson
- 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 the direction they want their lesson pages to go in, rather than having to remember and visualise the navigation in their head.
Setting your lesson 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 the
icon to see contextual help for that setting if you're unsure.
Adding content and questions to your lesson
- When you have set up your lesson with the Lesson settings,click "Save and display" and you will be taken to the screen in the screenshot below.
Import questions / PowerPoint
- 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.
Add a cluster
- 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.
Add a content page
- 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.
Title
- 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.
Page contents
This is where you can add information for the student,making use of the Text editor and its multimedia features.
Content
- Here you write the words they 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.
Number of options available
- How many of these you have depends on your choice in the Maximum Number of Answers setting in Lesson settings
The Jump
- 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 chose from the dropdown 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 dropdown, 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.
Add a question page
- From this link you can choose from a variety of question types which will then be added as pages to your lesson:
(Note: 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
Question types
Multichoice
- 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.
Essay
- Students can write a longer answer as part of the lesson and this 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.
Matching
- 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.
Numerical
- This requires a number as an answer. A number within a range may also be accepted as correct.
Short answer
- A student must provide a single word or short phrase answer. The teacher must anticipate the possible answers and enter them in the Jump dropdown boxes, using ** wild cards if appropriate.
True/false
- The student is given a sentence and must decide if it is true or false.
Moving your lesson forward
- Once you have added your first content or question page, you reach the next screen which displays your page title/type/jumps (ie 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:
Collapsed view
- This gives a brief outline of the lesson structure as in the two screenshots above.
Expanded view
- This shows more detail as in the screenshot below:
Ending your lesson
- 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:
