Moodle: Workshop

The workshop activity module enables the collection, review, and peer assessment of students' work. Students can submit any digital content (files), such as word-processed documents or spreadsheets, and can also type text directly into a field using the text editor. Submissions are assessed using a multi-criteria assessment form defined by the teacher. Using the Workshop activity, students are given the opportunity to assess one or more of their peers' submissions. Submissions and reviewers may be anonymous. Students may obtain two grades in a workshop activity: a grade for their submission and a grade for their assessment of their peers' submissions. Both grades are recorded in Moodle's Grades section.

Add a workshop

1. Click the Turn editing on button in your Moodle course (if it isn't already on). 
2. Click +Add an activity or Resource in the section in which you want the Workshop to appear.
3. Choose “Workshop” from the icon suite. 
4. Once you click Add, you will be taken to the Settings page to choose all of the customizable options for the workshop module.
5. Give the workshop a Title and Description. You also have the option of displaying the description on the main course page.

Drop-down Settings options:

     6. Next, you will set up grading for the submissions and the assessments. There are 4 options:

• Accumulative grading: Comments and a grade are given regarding specified aspects
• Comments: Comments are given regarding specified aspects but no grade can be given
• Number of errors: Comments and a yes/no assessment are given regarding specified assertions
• Rubric: A level assessment is given regarding specified criteria

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  Submission settings drop-down

  • Instructions for submission: This is an optional field but may be useful if you have specific criteria for the submissions (e.g. format, file type, etc.) that you want to convey to students.
• Assessment Settings
  • Instructions for Assessment: This is also an optional field, but it is helpful if specific directions need to be given to the students while assessing the other students’ work. This is also where the option of self-assessment is if the students are allowed to assess their own work. If applicable, make sure to go to the Assessment settings and click on the checkbox “Students may assess their own work” to enable this feature.
• Feedback
  • Overall feedback mode: If enabled, a text field is displayed at the bottom of the assessment form. Reviewers can put the overall assessment of the submission there, or provide additional explanation of their assessment.
• Example Submissions: If you offer an example submission, you can choose whether students are required to assess them or if it is optional. If they are required to assess the example submissions, then you can also decide whether they assess them before they submit their own work or afterward, but before peer assessing. Assessment of example submissions are not counted toward the student’s grade
• Availability: choose when the dates for the submissions to be open, as well as the dates for when students assess the work of others.
  
  

     7. To finish creating the Workshop, click Save and display.

Keep track of student progress

The Phase box is an interactive box that you will refer to throughout the peer review process to keep yourself organized and to keep track of students’ progress. Question mark icons throughout the Phase Box provide clarification on how to use this feature. You can manually switch phases by clicking on the name of the phase in each column.

Allocate submissions

Once the Workshop is created, you will need to allocate submissions to your students for them to review each other's work. There are two ways to do this, through manual/random allocation, and through scheduled allocation.

Manual/random allocation 

Here, a teacher can manually choose which students review whose work. A student can review work even if they have not submitted anything themselves. 

The teacher is given five (5) settings that determine how the random allocation will work. These are:

• Number of reviews: Here the teacher picks between 0 and 30 reviews for either each submission or per reviewer. That is the teacher may choose to either set the number of reviews each submission must have or the number of reviews each student has to carry out.
• Prevent reviews: If the teacher wishes for students of the same group to never review each other’s work, as most likely it is their work too in a group submission, then they can check this box and Moodle will ensure that they are only allocated other students out of their group’s work to access.
• Remove current allocations: Checking this box means that any manual allocations that have been set in the Manual Allocation menu will be removed.
• Can access with no submission: Having this box checked allows students to assess other students’ work without having already submitted their own work.
• Add self-assessments: This option when checked make sure that as well as assessing other students’ work they must also assess their own. This is a good option to teach students how to be objective toward their own work.

Scheduled allocation

If you set the Workshop to automatically switch to the Assessment phase once the deadline for submissions is over, then enabling Scheduled Allocation means that Moodle will automatically and randomly allocate submissions. As with Manual Random Allocation, you can specify the number of reviews, whether or not students need to have submitted something in order to be able to assess, and so on.

Questions?

If you have any additional questions or problems, don't hesitate to reach out to the Help Desk!

Phone: 610-526-7440 | Library and Help Desk hours
Email: help@brynmawr.edu | Service catalog
Location: Canaday Library 1st floor