February 9, 2023, by Helen Whitehead

Using Moodle Choice for engaging students

We’ve been running webinars recently on different tools to use for engaging students with polls, questions and feedback. The series of  iTeach webinars on Engaging students with… continue through February and March. You can find out more information and links to book the next webinars.

Ostensibly a simple multiple-choice poll, and deceptively simple for students to interact with, Moodle Choice can be used in many ways to engage students. It can be used asynchronously, independently of, or before or after live sessions. It can be used synchronously in face-to-face lectures or live online sessions. Students can be given a link or a QR code to the Moodle Choice in a module on which they’re enrolled.

Some of the possible ways in which Moodle Choice can be used include:

Icebreaking or introducing a topic

• What Hogwarts House would you be most likely to be a member of?

Assessing prior knowledge

• Have you attended any of the previous webinars in this series?
• What is your previous experience with Moodle?

Module admin and voting

• Select your presentation topic (limited to 3 students per topic and set to close 2 weeks before the presentation session)
• Which topic would you like to me to revise in the last lecture before the exam
• Which of the following dates can you make for an extra lecture engagement session (allowing students to choose more than one)

Simple question / conditional release

• Requiring that students acknowledge that they’ve read the plagiarism documentation before the assignment dropbox becomes visible to them.
• Asking a question, and if answered (a single option answer is “Yes”) then further material becomes available, as in the online induction escape game Sarah’s Secrets.

Checking understanding

Here’s an example

Debate / Opinion

Choice is really good for polling student’s opinions on topics before and/or after sessions or tasks.

In this example from a Sustainability course student were polled, which gave them access to a discussion to say why they gave the answer they did, then resources and discussions about the topic were caped off by a repoll with the same question(s) and a discussion to chat about whether and why their opinions had changed.

Prompting reflection and feedback

• Which of the options given are going to be of most use to you in your practice?
• How do you feel about today’s session:
• What are you going to do to continue your learning on this topic?

Features

Some of the main features of Moodle Choice include:

• Can allow learners to make one choice or multiple selections.
• Can allow students to update their choice, or aloe only one response.
• There is no right answer – this isn’t a quiz question but a poll.
• As editing teacher you can always see the results (with students’ names), but you can also choose to allow learners to see others’ choices – before, immediately after making or choice, or once the choice has closed. You can show names or keep it anonymous with just the number choosing each option.
• You can download responses as a spreadsheet/csv.
• You can restrict the number allowed to select each option (e.g., only 6 can select each project title).
• You can display a column showing who hasn’t (yet) made a selection.
• You can delete a student’s choice or “move” students manually from one choice to another (e.g., when using it for students to form groups).

More on setting up Moodle Choice can be found on our Help Site: How to create a Choice activity (poll) 

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn