Best Practices: Using Moodle™ for a Blended Classroom Experience

Are you running out of ideas for using Moodle™ in your classroom? For designers and instructors, it’s easy to get stuck in a pattern of using the same activities over and over again. Sure, activities that we aren’t familiar with can initially be intimidating and time-consuming to learn how to implement, but the payoff can be huge. Below are some activities that you can add to your course to increase collaboration. However, be warned: incorporating these activities can cause drastic increases in student engagement and motivation!

Forums

This is one of the most commonly used activities. Forums enable students and instructors to discuss topics, reply to each other, and even rate responses. The forum activity is a great way to add collaboration between students and instructors. One enduring favorite is the Q&A forum because it requires students to reply to a thread before being able to view class member responses.

Quick tip: Try dividing students into small groups and tell them to meet to discuss a provided topic. Then each group can post to the forum.

Database

This activity is great for collecting and storing information such as text, dates, files, and URLs. Plus, it enables instructors and/or participants to build, display, and search entries about any conceivable topic. You can add information by creating an entry form and control the visual layout by using templates. The format and structure of these entries can be almost unlimited.

Quick tip: Try using a database for a course project. Instruct students to upload the assignment into the database for their peers to review and comment on.

Chat

This allows participants to have a synchronous discussion. You can use it to conduct Q & A sessions before a test, hold virtual office hours, or establish an informal meeting place for group projects so students can communicate with their group members.

RELATED READING | ‘Successful Blended Course Design: A Step-by-Step Guide’

Wiki

This is a fast way to build user-generated content. It’s a powerful tool for collaborative work.

Quick tip: If you haven’t used this activity yet in your classroom, try using it for a group project or as a brainstorming tool.

Glossary

This activity allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions. It’s like a collaborative dictionary for your students; participants can even add media to the entries to help explain concepts and terms. You can also build it independently to share with the class.

Quick tip: Add a glossary to your course, and ask students to add a few entries.

Workshop

Workshops allows students to create their own projects, assess the work produced by their peers, and complete a self-assessment. This activity has multiple steps for implementation in the classroom. It typically takes several days or even weeks to complete, but it’s deserving of your time.

Quick tip: If you have a class project that requires a written piece of work, use Workshops to formally structure peer feedback and provide students with an opportunity to revise their submissions.

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Rebecca DeSantis is a former Senior Instructional Designer for Open LMS. Connect with her here.