Guides for e-learning tools

Submitting homework in Moodle (activities)

Homework deadlines

If a deadline has been set for homework (eg tests, assignments) at the respective activity, this deadline will be added to the Moodle calendar and a reminder will be sent to the learner by e-mail one day before the deadline. So if you want learners to receive a deadline reminder via e-mail and see the assignments in courses joint calendar, use deadlines for activities.

If it is not possible to add a deadline (eg you want to give students more flexibility or different study groups have different deadlines and it is difficult to set them up), it is recommended to add deadlines to the Moodle course homepage in the study guide for the period or topic. NB! Please do not assign deadlines to students only in an oral lecture or introductory video lecture.

Which activity to choose?

For submission of homework it is convenient to use Moodle activities that enable to assess the learner’s work in the course of the activity. In this case, grades are entered directly in the Moodle gradebook. If an activity has been set up as graded, the column for such activity appears automatically in the gradebook.

NB! If you have set the type of grade, maximum score or marking scale for an activity and graded at least one learner, you will not be able to change the type of grade or the marking scale in the activity settings.

Before you select activities suitable for homework in an e-course, please consider the following:

What is the nature of the graded homework in the entire course (in the e-course and face-to-face class)?
Is the work performed individually or in a group?
Who will assess the work (teacher, learners, computer)?
Can or should the learners see the work submitted by other learners?
Should the learners be able to comment on others’ work?
What scale is used for grading homework?

It is convenient to use Assignment to grade work done in a physical environment, or work performed using a non-graded activity in Moodle (e.g. Wiki, Mindmap).

NB! If you have entered the results directly into the gradebook, they will be locked on the activity results page (you cannot, for example, alter the grade via the assignment or forum). To unlock the grade, first click in the grader report Turn editing on, next click the gear button at the respective grade and untick the box at Override.

Giving homework in Moodle

If you need the learners to select their own homework (for example, topic of a paper or classmate’s work for review), it is convenient to use Wiki.

You can set up Wiki so that all course participants (Wiki type – Collaborative wiki) or members of a group (depending on the group mode) can edit a wiki page, so you can create a table with topics, workshop dates, etc. in Wiki and ask learners to write their name at the selected topic or date.

For example:

Topic:	Presenter:	Reviewer:
Winter activities (date)	Tõnu	Mari
Summer activities (date)	Mari	Tiit
Ball games (date)

To edit wiki, click Edit and then Save. If group wiki is used in the course, first select the appropriate group at the top right corner to view the wiki.

It is also possible to use the Choices, in which instructions are presented as the question and the topics as multiple-choice answers. You can determine the number of students who can choose a topic.

For pair work and group work you can create groups, in which group descriptions include the description of assignments. So learners can select the appropriate group for an assignment, using the Group choice activity. If you now create a forum or a wiki for the course and place it in the group mode, the pairs or groups will have a tool for communicating with each other and doing the work.

The descriptions of activities can be found in the menu on the right.