Pilot role and plugins guide

Workshop can be a powerful activity for peer assessment, but different experiences indicate that it might be difficult to implement if the settings are not chosen carefully.

In this section, we provide a summary of three teaching experiences and advice that can be learned from them about how to suitably set up a Workshop.

Summary

In this example, Workshop is used to mimic some important features of the advertising and branding profession. Students work in groups to elaborate and present a branding project. During the process, they produce three deliverables and receive feedback from the other groups and lecturers. Lecturers provide a series of questions to guide the peer assessment and general feedback for each deliverable.
Moodle workshops do not allow group submissions, which presents an important limit for the implementation of this activity.

Goals

Provide students with opportunities to participate in the design of a branding project and acquire criteria to evaluate it.

Task

Students should submit three deliverables along the module:

• Deliverable 1: Brand Analysis and Brand Strategy. A power point document with notes.
• Deliverable 2: Advertising strategy, advertising ideas, media plan and brand monitoring concept. The power point document improved and a spreadsheet explaining the media plan.
• Deliverable 3: Each group present the project, a power point presentation and a text document with additional notes on their analyses and strategic decisions.

Summary

In this example, the University of New South Wales uses Workshop to introduce students to one important practice of scientists: collaboration and peer review. The module is designed to support the transition to university and develop the relevant skills for a professional scientist.

Goals

Provide students with opportunities to engage in peer review not only for its own sake (as a professional practice), but as a mechanism to enhance learning through active or reflective practice.

Task

• Students complete two essays. Both essays are biographies based on interviews. The first one is shorter (600 words) and the emphasis is on the process of peer review rather than the product. The second essay is longer (1800-2000 words).
• Three peers review the essays. The peer review process emulates more fully the research publication process.

More Info

Cox, J.M., Posada, J.P., and Waldron, R., 2012. Moodle Workshop activities support peer review in Year 1 Science: present and future. ASCILITE-Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education Annual Conference.

Summary

This experience on the UCL Arena Teaching Associate Programme was developed as a trial for the Workshop activity.

Goals

The goal for designers was to trial the Workshop activity.

Task

• Participants write a 500-word case study about aspects of learning, teaching and assessment mapped to aspects of the UK Professional Services Framework, and review three others.
• The review takes the form of summary comments (i.e. no numeric marks, no rubric, no structured questions to answer).
• They have a week to prepare the submission and a week to carry out the assessments.
• Participation is strongly encouraged but not compulsory.

More Info

Vogel, M., 2015. Peer review with the Moodle Workshop activity – a close look [online]. Digital Education team blog. Available from: https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/digital-education/2015/02/13/peer-review-with-the-moodle-workshop-activity-a-close-look/

Depending on the needs of your module, it will be necessary to choose specific settings for your workshop.

• Make the experience for students as simple as possible. Use Comments as a grading strategy. They offer a single field into which participants type summary comments. In the instructions for submission, briefly tell participants what they need to do in order to make a successful submission.
• Don't allow submissions after the deadline, especially if you are using the scheduled allocation at the submission deadline. 
• Set the maximum number of feedback files to Zero. This will make reading any feedback easier.
• Offering at least one example may help students to understand the assessment criteria. 
• Set the Group mode to No Groups.
• Consider the number of reviews. This feature is dependent on the amount of participants. If the assessment is not mandatory, try to be sure that everyone will receive feedback.