Activity 4: Using the rating facility to provide feedback on students' definitions

Aim: Prompt students to improve their definitions

Moodle modules: Glossary

Extra programs: None

Ease of setup: *

Feedback … students love it. So do teachers. Most of us want to know how well we're doing.

There are lots of ways of providing feedback in Moodle. In this activity we get students to write definitions of new words in a glossary. Then we give feedback by using the glossary rating facility. This will give them a chance to improve on the definitions, and will help them to understand the words better. The rating facility uses a fixed scale which will provide a preformed comment on students' words. It will help them decide how much they need to rewrite them. In the following example, Jill Smith has written a definition of put up with and got a rating of good basic definition. She knows that she needs to add detail to make it better.

We could add more detail by adding comments to the students' definitions....