Business and Economics

Making the most of MOODLE

Dr Andrea North-SamardzicDepartment of Management

My background Arrived at Monash in 2012.

Chief Examiner of 8 units in 2013 academic year, now 4.

Department of Management distance education coordinator.

Satellite member of Centro di Ricerca sui Sistemi Informativi at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome.

Taught for 5 years in distance education for MBT program at UNSW.

I research Moodle and learning technologies as well as using it to teach, both face-to-face and on campus, undergrads and Masters.

My PhD was on gender and leadership. Technology is something I’ve picked up along the way and turned into an area of ‘expertise’ but more importantly, a research pipeline.

A quick literature review of Moodle Search for terms ‘MOODLE’ and ‘higher education’ in Science Direct

Result of 469 articles

65 used MOODLE in title or in abstract

152 fit criteria for inclusion

– Parameters: • Article addresses the Higher Education context• MOODLE must either be a primary research interest or be

used in the methodology, i.e. simply referring to MOODLE is insufficient

Discipline No.

General 105 68.6%

Education 10 6.5%

Health and Medical Sciences 7 4.5%

Nursing 7 4.5%

Engineering 6 4%

Science 6 4%

Computer Science 5 3.2%

Arts, Humanities and Social Science 3 2%

Business Admin and Management 2 1.3%

Librarianship 1 0.6%

Cross-disciplinary 1 0.6%

What is MOODLE ‘best practice’ ? Findings from the literature indicate there is no ‘one best way.’

Discipline specific case studies are particularly useful tools to learn from the experience of others.

There is nothing to suggest that MOODLE should be treated differently from any other learning management system. Learning principles and e-learning models appear to be transferrable.

You do not need to reinvent the wheel with MOODLE.

However research is still quite inconsistent with very little research on MOODLE use in the Australian context.

The basics Be consistent: keep fonts and pictures the same size. Do not use more than 3

font types but do use images.

You should not be the only one responsible for content. Share it with the students through Question Creator Role, wikis, workshop mode etc. Vary the approach to keep it interesting.

Don’t make the students scroll from side to side. Also avoid making it too long so students have to scroll and scroll.

Use logs to gauge and even assess student participation.

Be consistent with the names and labels of activities.

Keep it visually neat and tidy, like a newspaper.

Keep titles short so the jump to menu is not over-crowded.

Give students a completion track so they can monitor their own learning.

Want to take it further? Elements of engaged learning using technology:

– Focused goals– Challenging tasks– Clear and compelling standard (e.g. Have your learning objectives

clear and visible)– Protection from adverse consequences for initial failures– Affirmative of performance– Affiliation with others (other students as well as characters you

can create)– Novelty and variety– Choice– Authenticity

Tools I have embraced Videos – extremely effective for student engagement

Conversation Sims using the lesson function

Separating out student cohorts (on-campus and off-campus) using group functions

Forced grouping tool for group projects

Flipped classroom with links to my YouTube site

The lesson function for problem-based learning (I will return to this example)

What hasn’t worked for me (but may work for you)

None of my discussion boards have been used even by distance students so I have abandoned them for the time being.

Multiple choice questions are tough in my discipline given that management can be quite a grey area at times.

Quizzes in general received little attention from my students unless they were being assessed.

Too many bells and whistles – too many activities made it overwhelming.

Some of my (unpublished) research findings on MOODLE

1. In a survey of 316 Monash students and staff, the students liked it more than staff but the vast majority of both groups had strong positive feelings towards the LMS.

2. Academics act as both mediators and moderators of technology for students.

3. It has the functionality to mimic more sophisticated software. Content still remains king – functionality and tools merely facilitate content delivery.

4. Students really enjoy it when we provide new and different ways to deliver content, so experiment. Novelty is a key was to engage students.