Course Design Advice
• Think about good instructional design when setting up your Moodle course. Start with your learning objectives, and then choose resources and activities that support them.
• Start small, and don't feel that you have to use every feature available.
• Don't try to replicate a traditional classroom environment with Moodle. Instead, use it for what it is good for –giving students independence to control their own learning.
• Chunk your content into set. Think of ways to organize, classify, and categorize your content.
• Don’t feel the need to hide course sections that are not being used currently. Often students will use past or future sections for review or enrichment to differentiate and individualize their own learning.
• Minimize the amount of time your students spend figuring out what to do next, how to navigate through the course.
• Involve the students. Encourage debate and discussion. Have them introduce themselves, participate in forum questions, and chats.
• Use attention getters. Relate the content to something practical and relevant in the world, in their lives, in their prior knowledge.
• Build in material for students who need more time, help and practive. Provide Provide diagnostic quizzes for students to test themselves and determine where they need to focus.
• Have some activities that are not required.
• Look at other Moodle courses to see how teachers are using different kinds of resources and activities in new ways that you may not have thought of.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment: feel free to poke around and change things. Mix it up and don't use the same tactics over and over.
• Think about good instructional design when setting up your Moodle course. Start with your learning objectives, and then choose resources and activities that support them.
• Start small, and don't feel that you have to use every feature available.
• Don't try to replicate a traditional classroom environment with Moodle. Instead, use it for what it is good for –giving students independence to control their own learning.
• Chunk your content into set. Think of ways to organize, classify, and categorize your content.
• Don’t feel the need to hide course sections that are not being used currently. Often students will use past or future sections for review or enrichment to differentiate and individualize their own learning.
• Minimize the amount of time your students spend figuring out what to do next, how to navigate through the course.
• Involve the students. Encourage debate and discussion. Have them introduce themselves, participate in forum questions, and chats.
• Use attention getters. Relate the content to something practical and relevant in the world, in their lives, in their prior knowledge.
• Build in material for students who need more time, help and practive. Provide Provide diagnostic quizzes for students to test themselves and determine where they need to focus.
• Have some activities that are not required.
• Look at other Moodle courses to see how teachers are using different kinds of resources and activities in new ways that you may not have thought of.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment: feel free to poke around and change things. Mix it up and don't use the same tactics over and over.
Last modified: Monday, July 5, 2010, 9:23 AM