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Group choice: students choose their own group

Starting from January 2019, University of Helsinki Moodle and MOOC feature a new activity called “Group choice”. The Group choice activity allows students to select their own group from the groups defined by the teacher. Groups can be assigned a maximum size and students can be allowed to join more than one group. Students may also be allowed to change the group later. There are many practical applications for the Group choice activity. Below you will find three cases that teachers have already used in their courses.

How to use Group choice

First set up groups for the course. You can then add a Group choice activity by clicking the “Add an activity or resource” button and selecting Group choice from the list.

See more detailed instructions

Case 1: Exercise groups

Group choice activity can be used to let the students enrol themselves into exercise groups.

These exercise groups can be used, for example, in a group discussion by defining Separate groups in discussion forum settings.

Case 2: Scope of course

A teacher can add multiple modules to the same course area and allow students to decide how many credits they want to complete.

The student must click on the selection for the group of his choice and save the selection. In this case, the teacher has defined the groups for the course for 3 credits and 5 credits.

According to students’ choices, the course activities can be hidden or displayed with the Restrict Access setting. In this case, the teacher has defined the activity to be shown only to the group that has selected 5 credits.

Case 3: Visibility of course sections

The third example is a course where the student can choose whether to see all the sections of the course at one time or at the pace defined by the teacher.

This allows you to use a restriction set in the Restrict access setting of the section, where you can set multiple conditions for visibility.

The method described above has been used in Learn Moodle Basics MOOC courses at https://learn.moodle.net/.

As you can see from the three cases, the possibilities of using groups will increase. Above all, Group choice activity saves teachers’ time because the students can enrol to the groups themselves. The Group choice is somewhat simpler to use than enrolment key for self-enrolment and a Group choice can be added to the course even after students have registered for the course.

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Moodle is updated to version 3.5 on January 8, 2019

The University of Helsinki’s Moodle is updated twice a year to a new version. On January 8, 2019, from 8 AM to 5 PM, Moodle is updated to the version 3.5 and during this time you can not log in or access Moodle. With the new version, features have improved and we also bring a new plugin: Group choice.

New in version 3.5

Course images

Images or coloured patterns brighten up the course descriptions on the dashboard Course overview. The image can be set in the course settings under “Course summary files”.

More efficient user management

Search, filter and bulk edit or delete self-enrolled students from the Participants and Enrolments screen.

However, if you want to delete all participants in the course, use the familiar Reset function. Remember that it is advisable to set up a new Moodle area for each course – and not to empty the area from the previous students.

A new link “View all submissions”

An easy return path from the PDF grading view to back to the list of all submissions.

Quiz and choice activity improvements

 

Other novelties

New plugin – Group choice

With the activity Group choice, students can join the group they want in the course. The teacher can choose which groups the students can enroll and the maximum number of participants. This activity can be used, for example, to divide students into training groups.

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Moodle & MOOC trainings and clinics in spring 2019

Are you a new Moodle teacher?

  • Come to Moodle Basics on Mon 21st January from 2.15 to 5 pm. on City centre campus! More information and enrollment in Henkka Helsinki University’s Training Calendar.
  • Take part on Learn Moodle 3.6 Basics. This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) starts on Monday 7 January 2019 and will run for 4 weeks. MOOC is organized by Learn Moodle. This free course is designed for anybody who wants to use the Moodle learning platform for teaching. It is also a great opportunity to connect with the Moodle community. The course offers also introduction to Moodle version 3.6. which the University of Helsinki will introduce in summer 2019. The completion of the course is optional, so you can also participate to see execution of the course, and complete the assignments at your own pace. Registrate here: https://learn.moodle.net

Already familiar with Moodle?

Come to Moodle & MOOC Clinics!

  • 14th January from 8 to 10 AM at City centre campus, Siltavuorenpenger
  • 27th February from 1 to 3 PM at Viikki campus
  • 19th March from 2 to 4 PM at Meilahti campus
  • 10th April from 1 to 3 PM at Kumpula campus
  • 6th May from 3 to 7 PM at City centre campus
  • 3rd June from 2 to 4 PM at City centre campus

In the clinic, you can focus on building your own course by creating your own online lesson – based on your own needs for your courses. The eLearning experts will go around the class and help you as needed. Some topics can be raised to a whole class teaching in the training, according to the needs and wishes of the participants. More information and registration in Henkka Training Calendar: http://www.helsinki.fi/trainingcalendar.

Advanced and other courses in Finnish see here.

Can’t find what you are looking for?

We also offer customized trainings. The minimum number of participants is usually four persons. Please don’t hesitate to contact us moodle@helsinki.fi.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2019!

Best regards,
Moodle Team
University of Helsinki

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Change the course start and end dates in the course settings

Teacher! Trouble finding your course on the Dashboard? Have you noticed that the end date of your course area is a year after creating the course?

Please check that the course start and end dates are correct. Afterwards, your Moodle course will be correctly displayed on the Dashboard default view, on tabs “In progress”, “Future”, and “Past” – for students as well!

Instructions:

1) Go to your Moodle course area.

2) Go to Edit settings (gear menu in the upper right corner).

 

 

3) Set the correct dates:

 

Tip:

  • The start date can be e.g. the date of the first lecture or the day the preliminary assignments are published.
  • The end date should be a date after even the last assignment/exam on the course has been completed. If you use Moodle to grade submissions, the end date should not be before the date the grades are published.

4) Save and display.

Now the courses are displayed correctly in the list of courses on Dashboard:

Start date and end date do not close the course area from course participants. If you want to close the course completely, change the setting Course visibility in Edit course settings. Hidden courses are shown last on the lists on tabs “In progress”, “Future”, and “Past”, and the course links become grey.

When you use a few minutes of your time to edit the start and end dates

  • you make finding the course areas much easier.
  • the course area does not move to the “Past” tab on a wrong date (= one year after creating the course).
  • students do not unenrol themselves from courses because of their chaotic Dashboard. If the students unenrol from the course, all their submitted assignments and grades are no longer visible.

Tip: If the “In progress” tab on your Dashboard shows courses that have already ended, you can move them to the right tab with only a few clicks (see the previous instructions). In this situation, you do not have to find the correct course start and end dates; it is enough to set the current date as the end date and then save the changes.

 

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Learn Moodle Basics on Mon 10th September

Welcome to the Moodle Basics Training on Mon 10th September at 2 – 5 pm!

Moodle is the most commonly used web-based teaching tool at the University of Helsinki. It should be used whenever an interactive element is to be added to a course.

Moodle works in both contact teaching and distance learning.

You will learn Moodle from the beginning. No prerequisites. After the Moodle Basics you can do these things in Moodle:

  • How to add course materials, including links, folders and pages?
  • How to create an assignment submission area for students’ essays, etc.?
  • How to create a discussion forum?
  • How to get your own Moodle course area?
  • How to navigate effectively in Moodle?
  • How students can register to your Moodle area?


Even if you already have some experience with Moodle, this training is a great opportunity to learn more about some of the online pedagogy principles that are recommended for Moodle basic use in teaching.

Register here: www.helsinki.fi/trainingcalendar

Venue: Learning Centre Aleksandria, Fabianinkatu 28
 

Welcome!