March 2008 — News

Print this article

Click here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal

Creating a Collaborative Syllabus Using Moodle

by Emmett Dulaney

Moodle includes a great tool (known as an activity) for asking a single question with limited answers in Choice. Unfortunately, Choice was much too limited for this undertaking. Instead, a Quiz titled Pre-Course Survey was created. The disadvantage to using a Quiz for this endeavor was that it wants to give a grade, and this had to be explained in the e-mail the students received:

Greetings!
 
The reason you are receiving this e-mail is that you are currently enrolled in the eCommerce (BSNS 4400) course this coming spring semester.  It is that time of year when I must start putting together a syllabus, and I would like to shake things up a bit from what has been done in the past (my babbling bores even me after a few years of the topic).  Before making changes, though, I think the most important thing to do is find out what you are expecting and want - what would be most beneficial to you.
 
To order to simplify things, I've created a stub for the course in Moodle and added a quiz - it is not really a quiz but Moodle lacks a decent survey module. Between now and December 5th, I would like you to do the following:
 
1. Access Moodle
2. Pick this course - BSNS 4400 - from the list of available courses.
3. Pick the Pre-Course Survey (it is the only thing listed) and answer the five questions.  Because I am using a quiz module to give a survey, you may get a message saying that you didn't get all the points, etc. Just ignore that. This is not being done for points - it is being done solely for your collaboration in helping create a more meaningful syllabus.
 
Your help and participation (before December 5th) is appreciated, and I look forward to seeing you in class in January.

Five questions were asked:

1. There can be as few as one exam for this course, or as many as four. IF there is one, it will be the final, and all exam points will be allotted to it. IF there are two exams, there will be a midterm and final and the exam points will be evenly allotted between the two of them.  The same pattern will be follow for three or four exams. How many exams would you like the course to include?

This was a single answer, multiple-choice, question with four choices (one, two, three, and four).

2. When it comes to grading, please prioritize the following in terms of the weight they should carry for the course:

This was done as a matching question. The choices were: Exam(s), Quizzes, Presentations, Projects (experiential), Participation, and Attendance. The possibilities for matching ranged from "most weight" to "least weight".

3. In terms of percentage of time spent on activities for the class, please rank the following:

This was also done as a matching question. The choices were: Lecture, Projects (group and individual), Media Presentations (video in class, etc.), Open class discussions, and Online activities instead of class. The possibilities for matching ranged from "More time should be devoted to this than any other activity" to "This should be the least most common activity".

4. What are three things that you want to learn as a result of taking this class?

This was given as a short answer question.

5. The grading scale is open, and a number of schools use different scales. Which of the following should constitute an "A" (we can then work backward from there to fill out the rest of the grading scale)?

This was a single answer, multiple-choice, question with four choices (95-100%, 93-100%, 90-100%, 88-100%).

After the students took the quiz, and it closed, the next step was to exam the Results, and particularly the Item Analysis. In this case, it showed the following results:

  1. By an overwhelming margin, students preferred three exams.
  2. The preferred priority was: Exams, Participation, Projects, Presentations, Quizzes, and Attendance.
  3. The results on the percentage question were too diverse to be meaningful. This left me with using the results from the second question as a proxy during this phase.
  4. Answers ranged from "I honestly have no idea what I want from this class" to specific issues involving Web site creation, moving from brick and mortar to eCommerce, and so on.
  5. By a slim margin, students preferred the 93-100% range for an "A", and this could be attributable to it being the standard scale used at this university. 

Step 3: Fine Tuning
Given the student responses, the syllabus for the course was created. Before the fall semester ended, the syllabus for this spring course was posted online for the students to see. Not all that shockingly, many students chose not to access it before leaving for break.

The week that classes were scheduled to begin, the syllabus was sent as an attachment to the enrolled students with the following message:

Greetings!
 
Attached is the syllabus for the eCommerce course as it now stands. This syllabus was created using the input many of you provided in the survey (through Moodle) at the end of last semester.  Please look it over and consider areas that you would like to tweak or fine tune. We will discuss - and finalize - this the first day of class.
 
Thank you,

At the first class session, there were several students who had signed up at the last minute and had not been able to be a part of the development. During that session, the syllabus was reviewed, and an overview of the process used to create it was given.  The floor was opened to all students for suggestions, modifications, and other discussion. Surprisingly, all of the discussion was positive, and the students expressed appreciation for being allowed to have a say in the methodology. After only 20 minutes, the discussion ended with the syllabus being left as it was prior to the start of class.

The 20 minutes of class time proved much more bearable than several entire class sessions, and the experiment was deemed a success that will be repeated again in subsequent semesters.

Reference
Galotti, K.M. & Clinchy, B.M. (1999). A New Way of Assessing Ways of Knowing: The Attitudes Toward Thinking and Learning Survey (ATTLS). Sex Roles, 40 (9/10), 745-766.

Get daily news from THE Journal's RSS News Feed

About the author: Emmett Dulaney is an assistant professor at Anderson University and the author of several books on technology-related topics. He is a regular contributor to CertCities and can be reached at edulaney@insightbb.com.

Proposals for articles and tips for news stories, as well as questions and comments about this publication, should be submitted to David Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.

Cite this Site

Emmett Dulaney, "Creating a Collaborative Syllabus Using Moodle," T.H.E. Journal, 3/24/2008, http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22270

copy text (above) for proper citation