Category: How To

Putting current content first in your Moodle site

Heather Stafford / / How To, Resources
Some general feedback that we have gotten from students about Moodle is frustration with having to scroll to the current week’s information. “Isn’t there a way that the most current info can be listed first?”
Good news! There is! The first step is to change your course format to Collapsed Topics. (You can do this under your course settings.) When you make this change several other fields will become available to you in the Course Settings page.

 

Course settings

 

In the Set Structure field, select either “Current Topic First” or “Current Week First”. The Collapsed Topic format (with default settings) will look similar to this:

Collapsed Topic view

By clicking the triangle on the left hand side of the content column that section will expand. (The Set Elements field allows you to remove the “Toggle” text.)
This video provides more details on how to set your current topic/week, and how this will appear to students. (Keep in mind that the video is presented by another college so the theme is different than ours at Middlebury.)
Please let us know if you have any questions (lisct@middlebury.edu). (Also,  as always, it’s best to try out these changes before class starts so you can feel comfortable with the way the site functions with the new format.)

 

Flip Tips

Heather Stafford / / Application, Connect & Participate, Create & Edit, Flipping, How To, Resources, Synthesis, Uncategorized
Peggy Bacon in mid-air backflip, Bondi Beach, Sydney, 6/2/1937 / by Ted Hood Format: Film photonegative (copied from original nitrate photonegative) From State Library of New South Wales via The Commons on Flickr

Flipping the classroom is getting a lot of attention lately. If you’re anything like me, learning about concepts is interesting but actually figuring out how to implement a new technique is what really draws my interest. I’m banking on the fact that I’m not alone on this so let’s dig in.

Robert Talbert is a mathematician and educator who writes for Casting Out Nines in the Chronicle. Over the last few months he has been writing a series of posts about a calculus class that he flipped for the Fall 2013 semester. In his article “Getting Off On The Right Foot in an Inverted Calculus Class” he offers instructions for how to integrate the out-of-class component with class time. These tips pair pedagogy with action to help practioners figure out how to activate prior knowledge, employ formative assessment techniques and integrate time management methods into their usage of the flipped classroom. (Robert expands on the necessity of certain student skills here. It’s an eye opening read.)

I want to flip! Who can help me?

We’d love to talk to you about your goals and ideas! Contact Heather (hstafford@middlebury.edu) or Joe (jantonio@middlebury.edu) so we can get started! There are also several faculty on campus who are already actively working on this in their classrooms. If you are a faculty member who is working on the flip and interested in developing a community of practice with others who want to do the same, please let us know!