Use of Moodle group forums to facilitate an
interactive exercise in a large Second Year class
Dr. Avril Edmond, Andrea Brown, Prof. Felicity Huntingford, Lorna Kennedy,
Dr Mary McVey, Prof. Douglas Neil, Ian Reid, Anne Tierney
a.edmond@bio.gla.ac.uk
Overview
• Background
• The Interactive Exercise
- Aims and Objectives
- Design of the exercise
• Results
• What we have learned
• Conclusions and Future Direction
Level 2 Neuroscience and Behaviour
Background
• 2nd year course
• 10 Credits
• Approximately 450 Students
• 88% of students go on to Level 3 FBLS courses
Research Exercise
• Introduced in session 2005-06
• Drop-in Session
• Early in course
Research Exercise
Self Teach Poster Session
• Posters created by young FBLS researchers
• Students study 3 of 9 posters
The Task
• View poster
• Think about the work
• Answer questions
Encourage students to:
• Engage with research within the faculty
• Think about research design and interpretation
• Meet the researcher
Assessment
• Two MCQ questions
Exercise Feedback
70%
60%
Course Evaluation
50%
• Rated as good
• Room for improvement
40%
2005/2006
2006/2007
30%
2007/2008
20%
10%
0%
Excellent
Good
OK
Poor
Did not
attend
Comments
‘Only point I felt I did not greatly benefit from was the poster lab although it is good to see student works‘
'Poster session caused a lot of confusion and was very busy - longer time and clearer instruction would be better‘
Staff –Student Liaison Meeting
Exercise Feedback
Self Teach Poster Session
Pros
Cons
• Exercise generally liked
• Needs clearer instruction
• Subject interesting
• Accessibility issues
• Aims of exercise still valid
• Lacking feedback
• Opportunity to meet researchers not taken up
Exercise Redesign
2008 - 2009
Aims
• Improve Instructions
• Improve Accessibility
• Provide Feedback
• Increase student / researcher engagement
Constraint
• No requirement for extra class time
Exercise Redesign
Ideas for Redesign:
• Retain wide range of research subjects
• Continue allowing students to choose subject
• Allow students online access to resources
• Encourage student interaction
• Provide feedback
Use of Moodle VLE
Use of Moodle
Why use Moodle?
• Supported by University
• Easy storage of online resources
• Students familiar with the system
• Ability to use Group Forums
- History of successful use with several other
level 1 and level 2 courses

Students familiar with the forum format

Facilitates peer discussion

Facilitates researcher feedback
LTDF Project
Current LTDF project
• Extent and type of usage in Biology 1A and 1B being evaluated
• Aim of project to establish ‘best practice’
• Create a manual on setting up group forums using Moodle
• Opportunity to introduce and evaluate Moodle group forum usage in
another large biology course
Exercise Details
Information Provided
• Exercise introduced during first lecture
- Aims of exercise
- Assessment - 2 questions
•
Trailers for each topic released
•
Group sign-up opened
- Choose a topic
- Access to group forum
• Assignment
deadlines released
- Tasks to be posted on forum
Research Trailers
Who did the work: The work described here was carried out by Monica Vanessa Garduno Paz, who
is writing up her PhD thesis on plasticity of jaw structure in fishes and its possible role in speciation.
Her PhD has been supported by a scholarship from the Mexican Government, and when she has her
doctorate, Monica will return to Mexico to take up a post in the Autonomous University of the State of
Mexico.
Assignments
Design of Assignments
• Lead students through research
• Gradual release of information
• Small tasks
• Short timescale – retain momentum
How did it work?
• Assignment released
- Questions to be answered
• Student response on forum
• Assignment 2 released
- Feedback on responses supplied
- Further information
- Questions to be answered
Assignment Example
Assignment 1 – Research Hypothesis
Forum Posts
Assignment 1 – Forum Posts
Feedback
Assignment 1 – Feedback from Researchers
The possibility of testing the same female several times was also discussed; this
would reduce “noise” due to uncontrolled variables, but as one of you rightly pointed
out her motivation might well change with time. (Female sticklebacks do indeed get
less choosy if their eggs are getting over-mature).
These are all issues that researchers working on mate choice have had to wrestle
with and between you, you have covered more or less all of the angles in an
excellent set of comments.
Assignments
Assignment 2 – Experimental Design
Think about the design of these two studies and post any comments (positive or negative)
that you may have about them.
Further Assignments and Group Quiz
Series of Assignments
• Results, Conclusions
• Comments Invited
• Feedback posted
Moodle Quiz
• 2 questions per group
• Not assessed
Results
Evaluation
• Moodle Site Statistics
• Student Questionnaires
• Researcher Interviews
• Course Staff Debrief Meeting
Results - Group Sizes
Number of students signing up for each group
180
156
Number of Individuals in group
160
140
Results
120
• 420 students signed up
• Topic Choice - 70% ns
100
89
• Topics H and I popular
80
60
44
40
38
28
25
16
15
20
9
0
A (b)
B (b)
C (b)
D (b)
E (ns)
Group
N=420
F (ns)
G (ns)
H (ns)
I (ns)
b – behaviour
ns – neuroscience
Results - Group Forum Activity
Student activity within each group
% Non participation
90%
% Direct Participation
80%
% View only
% of group
70%
60%
• 3 participation types
50%
• % of group in each category
40%
Results
30%
• Activity in all groups
20%
• Direct participation >30%
10%
• No effect of group size
0%
A (28)
B (44)
C (15)
D (38)
E (16)
F (25)
Group (number of students in group)
G (9)
H (89)
I (156)
What the students said…
Student Questionnaire
Qualitative Results
What if anything did you particularly like / dislike about this exercise?
Liked Topic, variety of topics
Liked Research / studying real research / real science
Disliked timescales / too fast
‘Encouraged awareness of further research projects and potential career paths for graduating
student; allowed open discussion; encouraged exchanging of ideas’
‘I liked having an insight into actual research done by students.’
What the students said…
What do you think you have learned from this exercise?
Experimental design / techniques / methods
About specific research topic
Postgraduate research / work of researchers
‘I have learned how much thought must go into experimental design; how a particular design is
chosen and that there are benefits and drawbacks to each way of doing things’
‘More about experimental procedures, a bit more about what it would be like doing research myself’
What are the disadvantages of the Moodle group forum?
Lack of participation / motivation to participate
Repetitive messages
Not as good as tutorials / face-to-face
‘Can get repetitive as everyone wants to post something but has no more to add so writes the same and /
or I agree; That put me off posting if I was one of the later ones to read the assignment’
What the researchers said…
What did you like / dislike about the project?
• Enjoyed seeing the suggestions made
• Liked that students early in their career got the opportunity to study actual projects
‘Indeed the course was a brilliant idea. I liked the idea of making students think about research
work from this early stage and encourage them to search and explore’
Benefits to the researcher in taking part?
• Improving communication skills
• Confirming research ideas
‘It is helpful to get the opportunity to communicate this to different audiences as every time you do
this, you learn more about how to communicate effectively and it reminds you not to get bogged
down in the minutia‘
‘Astounded by the insights and suggestions received’
Anything you feel should be changed?
• Face-to-face meeting should be timetabled
So what did we learn?
Group sign-up worked
Forum Use
– All groups used the forums
Forums Worked
– Participation rates were high
– Forum use tailed off towards the end of the project
Students
– Did not like the timescale
– Appreciated the choice of subjects
– Enjoyed studying real research
– Felt they learned about experimental design and analysis
Students appreciated
studying work in progress
Researchers / Teachers
– Increased science communication skills
– Appreciated seeing student’s suggestions
Has benefits for
researchers / teachers
Future Directions
Making the forums even better
– Reduction in group sizes
– Hide forum posts from students initially
Improving the timescale
– Removal of one assignment
– Assignments more evenly spread across the time
Promoting Personal Contact
– Inclusion of a face-to-face meeting – timing issues
Acknowledgements
450 patient second year students
University Teachers
Maureen Griffiths, Pam Scott
Moodle support
Craig Brown, Dave Scotson
Learning and Teaching Support
Jane MacKenzie, Amanda Sykes
Learning and Teaching Development Fund