Andrew

Steinman A34091396 TechQuest: Applying Technology to a Problem of Practice in Education The Problem of Practice: A Need or an Opportunity Educational Need or Opportunity: Formative assessments have always been tricky to do in class. I can ask students questions, but then I can only assess the knowledge of the students that answered. I could give a quiz in class, which will allow me to assess all of my students. The problem with this is that it takes time away from my teaching. Also, if I grade the quizzes for accuracy, it then becomes a summative assessment. Not only that, by the time I grade the quizzes, hand them back, and go over them, the whole meaning of the quiz is lost. Technology-Integrated Strategy: To help solve this problem, I have chosen to use Moodles quiz feature. By using this feature, I am able to assess all of my students without using any class time. There is also no delay on students receiving feedback on their quizzes. I also have the ability to give students multiple attempts on the quizzes, which I think is the best part about the quiz feature on Moodle. Supporting Research: By using these Moodle quizzes, I hope to help my students to better understand their learning, as well as help me check my students educational progress. In Brabecs article, Building Better Instruction, she discusses setting objectives and providing feedback. By using Moodle quizzes, I can clearly set objectives and provide instant feedback. For example, if I were to have students do a reading in class, I could set up a Moodle quiz to check their understanding of the reading. Students would know that the quiz is only on the reading assignment, which allows them to understand what needs to be completed before taking the quiz. Brabec states that setting clear objectives is important to student learning. Brabec also states that timely feedback is important to student learning. Moodle quizzes are excellent for giving students instant feedback on their answers. Immediately after taking the quiz, students are able to see which answers they got right and wrong. Also, it can provide important feedback on what they need to do to improve. Brophys booklet on teaching emphasizes the importance of improvement-oriented feedback for students. Brophy states that students need to practice what they learn and receive feedback that will help them improve. Moodle quizzes are also helpful for the teacher. It also allows me to see where students are at with their progress. If a student gets 100% the first attempt, I know that they are making good progress with the current unit. If a student doesnt do well on the first attempt, but then improves the second attempt, I can see where this student is having issues and that they are making progress on solving them. It truly allows me to formatively assess my students in a timely and effective manner.

Plan for Implementation: My plan during this course is to implement multiple Moodle quizzes for one unit. These quizzes will focus on important tasks in the unit, such as readings, labs, and weekly progress. These quizzes will allow for multiple attempts, this way students can make improvements to what they have missed. The quizzes will be graded for accuracy, but I expect that all students will receive full credit since they will have multiple attempts for each quiz. Each quiz will provide important feedback with each question, which will assist students in understanding what they got wrong, why it is wrong, and where they can learn more information related to that question. My goal for doing this is to help students better understand the material in class, which will lead to higher test scores on the unit test. Moodle quizzes will be implemented into my IB1 biology class. If successful, I plan to also implement these quizzes into my Honors (9th grade) biology class. Implementation Journal My focus for the TechQuest is to implement Moodle quizzes as formative assessments for my class. Since the beginning of this project, I have made multiple quizzes for both my freshmen and junior classes. The first quiz I started with was a cellular transport quiz for my juniors. All of the questions on this quiz were multiple-choice and matching. I gave students two attempts to take the quiz. After the first attempt, students could see what they got right and wrong. The quiz also gave general feedback based on their progress. For example, if a student earned a 90% or higher, they we told that they were doing well and to keep doing what theyre doing. If a student earned a 80%-89%, they were told that they were on the right track, but that they should spend a bit more time studying. So this was the original plan for the first quiz, but this is not what happened. At first, students could take the quiz, but then they couldnt see what they got right or wrong. Because of this, I gave the students 2 additional attempts to take the quiz. Well, turns out that I didnt completely fix the problem, so I had to correct the setup of the quiz so students would receive proper feedback. So again, I gave my students 2 more additional attempts. After all these corrections, the quiz was finally working properly. Since this quiz, I have successfully implemented a total of nine Moodle quizzes between all of my freshmen and junior classes. These quizzes have also been improved. The quizzes now have a greater variety of questions, including short answer questions. I also have been able to allow only 2 attempts for each quiz since there have not been any issues with the quizzes. I also started to include individual feedback for each question. If a student gets a question wrong, the quiz gives them feedback on what they can study to help them with that question. Since this takes so long to do, I have only done this for one test for my freshmen. Overall, this has been a great experience. I feel that I am on my way to successfully implementing proper formative assessments in my class, which will provide students with instant feedback to help them be more successful in my class. I am going to continue to use Moodle quizzes as formative assessments in my class. I am also considering using this system for a summative assessment. In this case, I would have students take a test on Moodle in class. It would be able to provide instant feedback on some questions. Others I would have to grade, but I feel

like I could get them done faster since it is easier to read typing than some of my students handwriting. Findings: This assignment was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I couldnt find anything when I tried to find other peoples perspective on Moodle quizzes. When searching for moodle quiz perspective or moodle quiz analysis in Google, all I could find were links on how to make a Moodle quiz. It wasnt until I searched online quizzes benefits did I finally get some good results. The Benefits of Linking Assignments to Online Quizzes in Introductory Biology Courses This resource was very interesting for me. It is a research paper on implementing online quizzes for a universitys biology courses. One thing it found was that students performed better if they were given 10 minutes to study between attempts. This is something that I would like to try with my Moodle quizzes. http://www.utexas.edu/academic/blackboard/examples/videos/hamilton01.html This link provides a video interview with a university professor who uses online quizzes in her class. She highlights some of the benefits of using online quizzes, particularly the benefit of allowing students to take the quiz in a comfortable setting. This relieves the stress that a student would normally get in a traditional in-class setting. The professor also highlights the benefits on immediate feedback. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Jtneill/Teaching/Online_Quizzes_and_Exams_with_Mo odle This link walks through how to set up an online quiz through Moodle. I did not use this link, but I thought it might be useful to have as a reference tool if I have questions. When learning how to set up a Moodle quiz, I simply just jumped in and tried it. I set up a practice quiz for my students to take. There were some issues that I ran into, but now I feel that I know how to successfully implement a Moodle quiz. If I were to do this search again, I would take advantage of the databases available through MSU. I already used Google Scholar when setting up my SIG. I used it to find some articles on the benefits formative assessments. I did not include an evaluation of these links since they are already on the SIG wiki. I will also be adding the new links I found to the SIG wiki. Implications: When learning how to do something new, I usually jump right into it. I like to learn through experience and research questions when I run into them. I feel like this is how I learn best. This is exactly what I did with my Moodle quiz implementation. Overall, this worked out. Since this was my method for implementation, I did a practice run with my classes so that I could work out any issues that might come about. This worked very well. I received a lot of feedback from students, which helped improve the implementation of my Moodle quizzes. For example, I thought that it would work best for students to only view one question at a

time. Students reported that they would prefer to view all questions at once, therefore, this is what I am doing from now on. If I were to implement another project like this, I would have students test the project in class. This way I receive feedback in just one day, rather than over the course of a week (which is what happened for the Moodle quizzes). Doing so would allow me to more quickly implement the final project with my students. I would also speak with my students about the project before having them test it. This way I can make modifications before the students even see it. One last thing I would do differently would be to work with other teachers who are interested in the same project. While implementing the Moodle quizzes, there were multiple teachers that approached me for advice on how to they could also use Moodle quizzes in their classes. If I communicated sooner with other teachers, we might have been able to work together on learning how to use and implement them. With this TechQuest project, I have gone beyond my original goal. I have not only successfully completed multiple take-home quizzes with my classes, but I have also implemented one in-class test using Moodle quizzes. This was a great experience and worked out very well. The students not only enjoyed this type of test, but they also elaborated more with their answers. This really helped me understand what my students did and did not know. When implementing this test, I did run into one major concern, which was cheating. Since students are using a computer, they have access to other resources that they could use to assist them on the test. To solve this issue, I found a program called Secure Exam Browser. This application closes all other applications and restricts students from exiting outside the program. The only thing that students can see is the test. I tried this with one group of students and it worked flawlessly. I then proceeded to install this application on all of the school computers. Now all teachers have access to using this program if they also choose to implement tests using Moodle. I have also renamed the application to Student Test Viewer so that any students that want to research any ways to hack the program, they will be researching the wrong program name. If anyone chose to implement Moodle quizzes or tests, I would highly suggest they follow what I have done and try some of my suggestions for the future. I have had great success with Moodle quizzes and it has completely changed the way I will assess my students. Resources: Brabec, K., Fisher K., and Pitler H. (2004). Building Better Instruction: How Technology Supports Nine Research-Proven Instructional Strategies. Learning & Leading with Technology. 31(5), 6-11. Brophy, J. Teaching. Educational Practice Series-1. The Benefits of Linking Assignments to Online Quizzes in Introductory Biology Courses http://www.utexas.edu/academic/blackboard/examples/videos/hamilton01.html http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Jtneill/Teaching/Online_Quizzes_and_Exams_with_Mo odle