Mario Chalmers, Moodle and Online Assessments

The NCAA tourney is over and my Jayhawks won it all. Thanks to Mario Chalmers I got my first good night of sleep in weeks. As I was drifting off my brain started thinking about school, but just for a moment of two.

Standardized test season is upon us. This year we are adding an online science assessment in addition to the usual pencil and paper varieties. I have a few thoughts on these new online assessments and wanted to share them with a larger audience to see what the response was.

(some low scores out of 40)

Last week I gave a short online Moodle-based test on material that was largely review. There was some stuff on phase change, pressure, and other weather related items. The scores were abysmal. I remembered something I heard from students last year after a Moodle test.

"I like Moodle tests...they are so easy. It is so easy to click when you don't know the answer...it doesn't feel like a real test."


Hmmm, I don't think students take a lot of online test so maybe it is more like a video game. Maybe the students think they are simply deciding how to cross a river in Oregon Trail. Should we caulk the wagons and float it or just pay for the ferry? In a game, it is an easy decision and there are no real-world consequences.

Tests are not necessarily the same because there are real-world consequences. I currently dedicate one block to helping my students to prepare for the high stakes standardized tests. Our school does a good job of organizing this and dividing up tasks. As more tests go online, I think that we'll have to rely on more on our anecdotal experiences and the growing research base to address how students approach online tests.

Will those online test taking skills need to be deliberately taught? Is it really any different than paper/pencil? Are the scores really lower or is it just easier to generate statistics? Are some students more disadvantaged because of tests going online?

Finally...Success with Moodle!

I'm not going to lie to you. I have used Moodle for two years and recently had one of my first real successes. My site has all sorts of bells and whistles and is a record of just about everything I have ever done in my classroom. If a student was sick they would be able to get just about everything they need to get caught up, but they don't! If someone has difficulty taking tests...they could take a pretest from home and practice, but very few do. Why do I put hours into it? I'm not sure.

I guess I am looking for the hook. When do they buy in and when can we really start making progress? Apparently, it is when you give them a chance to take control and stop the top-down approach. I recently created a forum where the students got to post their own content and they went bonkers. Here is the prompt...














At last count when I closed the forum after two weeks or so there were 46 posts. Every post happened outside of the school day and I got around to responding to about half. All the forum posts related to how the class connected to the students' lives. Granite counters, eclipse, sunsets, lava, vacations, the earth exploding....

Here is a sample.

















In my opinion, the kids are not so engaged until they have a stake in it. When you give them a chance to produce they jump on it. I think Myspace would be boring if they just got to look at it. Luckily, they can customize it so they are engaged. We are just learning that. Because of the web, we can connect with our students beyond the classroom and so we should. If we bother, they will respond.