Moodle: Activities & Resources: Lesson Overview

The Moodle Lesson activity allows you to deliver content and practice activities in interactive and flexible ways. A lesson can consist of a linear set of content and question pages that guides the student down a specific learning path, and can include text, images, embedded video, and hyperlinks. Lesson pages can also present a scenario that branches depending on the the student’s responses, and students can repeat the activity to follow all possible paths. Depending on the student's choice of answer and how the teacher develops the lesson, students may progress to the next page, be taken back to a previous page or redirected down a different path entirely. Regardless of the path, including a variety of question and content types enhances engagement and varies the learning experience.

Lessons can be non-graded activities and are meant as formative checks to help students master the content presented earlier in the module readings and resources. A well planned lesson can present a unique experience to individual students with no further intervention from the instructor. This can be useful when orienting a group of students and the instructor is unsure of their basic knowledge levels. The lesson can provide both remediation for students who are behind and extension activities for students who are ready to move on to more complex information.

Best practices and considerations

• Design the flow of the Lesson activity before building. It is best to design the flow of the lesson on paper or in a separate document before building, rather than having to remember and visualize the navigation as it is built in Moodle. Will the lesson be linear or non-linear? Will students be allowed to go back and revisit pages, and will they only be able to go through the lesson once?
• Think carefully about how students will engage with the lesson pages. For example, if you plan to have a content page followed by a question about the content, consider choosing a question page and adding the content above the question. This will allow for a better flow of the lesson pages.
• Include clear instructions for students. Make sure the lesson pages provide the necessary information that a student might need to proceed to the next page.
• Keep accessibility in mind. Like anywhere else in Moodle, accessibility standards apply for videos, images, and hyperlinks. Text for navigation buttons should be descriptive so that they make sense to a student who uses a screen reader.

Resources

• Creating a Lesson (GROK #20085)
• Building a Lesson (GROK #20087)
• Using and Grading a Lesson (GROK #20303)
• Lesson Activity - MoodleDocs
• Lesson FAQs - MoodleDocs