In semester 1 each year, around 1600 students enroll in the major Year 1 Physics course at UNSW. Laboratory time for any given student is limited, with significant pressure to complete the laboratory activities on time. This has been problematic when students are poorly prepared. To attempt to remedy this, pre-lab quizzes were introduced in 2011. Along with the questions, quizzes have accompanying supporting materials such as videos that introduce the students to the important concepts covered and equipment used during the laboratory sessions. The pre-lab quizzes have resulted in students being significantly more prepared for their laboratory sessions, allowing the demonstrators to maximize the time they spend helping students. It has also reduced greatly the need to mark preliminary work at the beginning of laboratory sessions. Students are now better prepared and better able to complete the laboratory exercises within two hours. Further, moving the safety induction online has released an extra week of laboratory time to introduce a new experiment. Thus, the use of Moodle quizzes has enhanced efficiency and quality of laboratory learning and teaching. This approach is being embraced by other schools within the faculty, such as Chemistry, for use with large first year classes. To further diversify and enrich these activities, an advanced quiz question type, which will allow for calculated questions including randomized quantities such as different planets or chemicals, is planned for development.

1. Moodle quizzes to improve learning in
large first year laboratory classes
Elizabeth Angstmann, First Year Physics Director
Russell Waldron, Educational designer
Julian Cox, Associate Dean (Education)

2. The Problem in general
Large student numbers (1600 in semester 1)
• labs must run efficiently,
• if students finish late it disadvantages students in the next class
When preparatory work was in the lab manual
• Students would copy each other
• Students came unprepared for class
• Demonstrators mark preparatory work in lab rather than helping students
• Safety induction talk given 17 times during first week by one staff member

3. The solution
Students complete prework online before coming to class
Prework consists of reading over the lab manual, watching a video, a few additional
resources and then a prework test.
The test counts as 25% of their lab mark, each test is 0.5% of their total physics mark,
students get helpful feedback as they complete the test; formative assessment.
The test shuts down as soon as their lab session starts (group overrides)
Safety induction moved online, video and then a test

4. What it looks like

6. Rotational Inertia

7. Rotational Inertia

8. Rotational Inertia

9. Behind the scenes….

10. Settings
Interactive with multiple tries: 2 hints for each question

11. Students see
Calculated question type

12. Woops!

13. Behind the scenes… Calculated question

15. Students see
Cloze (multianswer) question

16. Woops!

17. Behind the scenes…Cloze (from Pool)

18. Edit quiz

19. Does it work?
Students feel that they are better prepared for class
Demonstrators report that the labs run much more smoothly
The number of labs running overtime has been reduced
Random numbers mean that even if students get help they need to enter it into their own
calculator, reduced plagiarism

20. Further efficiencies in the lab
Rubric for each
exercise:

21. Demonstrators enter marks into GoogleDocs
Tried Moodle but too slow….
Lab technician uploads marks to Moodle after each lab

22. Current limitations of
Moodle
A pendulum is located on Mars/Jupiter/Saturn…
Mars/Jupiter/Saturn has a mass of ….. kg and a radius
of …. m.
What is g on Mars/Jupiter/Saturn?
___________ ms-2
What is the period of a spring on Mars/Jupiter/Saturn
with a spring constant of …. N/m with a hanging mass
of …. kg attached to it?
___________ s
What additional mass would you need to add to
double this period?
___________ kg
Question types are fairly
limited.
Can not easily ask questions
like:

23. Trials (soon)
• Drag-and-drop marker
• Electron pushing
• Multipart questions (or STACK)
• Mindmaps
• WIRIS STEM questions
Wish list
• Draw a vector
• Drag, drop, rotate and resize a shape
• Bookmark a segment and area of
screen in a video
• Conditional upon current score
New question types of interest

24. Trials (soon)
• Learning analytics
• iPad and mobile platform
• Multitouch interface
Wishlist
• Branching - or sharing questions with
Lesson tool
• Clean Single-question mode
Future Quiz developments

25. The future of online quizzes at UNSW
Blended Learning institution: Moodle augments campus experience.
Ask questions that enhance campus experience.
UNSW capacity and track record for enhancements relying on:
• Modular, Open Source software
• LMS provider relationship
• Institutional LMS Advisory group
• Faculty team: executives, academics, designer, technologist, programmer
• Faculty facilities: servers, access to live identities
• Moodle community: user-contributions