Blended Learning using Moodle Pilot group - Full time initial teacher training

Starting point I wanted to change the current scheme of work where all students do the same thing in class

Moodle - One place to create teaching material, assess students and importantly track student engagement

Creating teaching materials Goal - One-stop-shop for all teaching materials that worked on all devices. Created videos based on my existing powerpoints using the green screen and then using a Smart board. The green screen videos took more time to produce because they required more editing. The Smartboard videos were quick to create but were of a lower quality.

Creating teaching materials The videos were uploaded to Google Drive but I didn’t want students having to leave Moodle. So all the content was embedded into Moodle. You can generate an embed code for any document on Google Drive. Example of embed code = <iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yhMarEh60oOTFQMnJ0MXVkU2M/preview " width="640" height="480"></iframe> I also embedded the powerpoint for the lesson as well.

Linking to the classroom

Assessment and using it in the lesson At the end of each lesson students were given new learning content and a question or quiz to complete. Based on the scores to the quiz students were assigned one of two tasks in the next lesson. One task was a recap of the learning content because the student had a low score in the quiz or didn’t complete the quiz. The other task was an extension task for the students that had highly in the quiz.

Tracking students Using the activity tracking report in Moodle I could see how much a student had engaged with the learning content and be able to focus my support for them.

Feedback from students I gathered feedback from the students about what they thought of using Moodle. All feedback was positive and they commented; Moodle was “very informative, clear and easy to access.” “I found the videos very helpful, I could come back to any info I missed or didn't fully understand during lessons.” “Blended learning was helpful. Moodle is really good.” “It was helpful to extend my knowledge and understanding of the module content.”

Things to consider Planning time to design SOLA and create the content - Do this as early as possible! Students not engaging with Moodle content or completing the assessment. How to manage the class when two separate activities are happening at once. How do you split your time? The pilot group and a control group performed the same and generated the same number of distinction, merit and pass grades. However a module not using blending learning the pilot group had lower grades than the control group. Further research is needed to determine the benefits of blended learning.

Any Questions?