Create a Moodle Course 

Start with a blank Moodle course shell and configure your course layout and any desired settings.  Go to the course. Select "Settings" at the top of the course page. Review settings and make sure they support your goals. Here are some recommendations: 

1. • Course Format > Format: Select Topics format or Weekly format. This setting can also be changed later after your content is loaded.

   • Course Format > course layout: In Moodle 4.0 and higher the Moodle theme has a skinnier content container to accommodate mobile optimization. To reduce scrolling it's recommended to "show one section per page".

   • General > Availability: Set the start and end dates for when students should have access to your Moodle class. If you cannot change the dates, check with your Moodle Site Administrator to determine the default settings. Some institutions set the default start date to the first day of classes, and the default end date to three weeks after the end of the semester. 

   • Appearance > Show Gradebook to students: Determine if you wish to make the gradebook visible to students. 

   • Appearance > Show Activity Dates: Activity due dates are always shown on the activity page. This setting determines whether or not the activity due date is also displayed below each activity on the course page. 

   • Learner Access: Students can be added to your course manually or by a site administrator. Check with your Moodle site administrator to determine your institutions process. 

Note: Keep in mind that some Moodle applications (i.e., attendance) will not work until the course has "started". 

If you are new to Moodle or teaching, I highly recommend you watch Moodle gradebook essentials for everyone, a free webinar by Ryan Hazen. He reviews the basic components of the gradebook and provides insights on how to use it to reinforce what the students should be learning rather than just covering chapters or doing homework. He further explains by using backward design the grade book can actually inform the student every time they look at their grades what their objectives are in the course.

First let's get familiar with how the gradebook functions. Navigate to your gradebook by selecting the Grades tab in your Moodle shell. A drop down menu allows access to the various reports and settings. 

Setting up your Gradebook

• Setup > Gradebook setup: grade items and grade categories can be created, edited, and organized, and grade calculations can be created and modified. The "Gradebook setup" screen does not include any information about individual student grades; this screen is only used for managing the gradebook itself.

• Setup > Course grade settings: settings that affect the entire gradebook and that apply to all class members.

• Setup > Preferences: Grader report: settings for the Grader report that apply only to an individual instructor. Each instructor can configure these settings differently; this has no effect on other instructors' views.

Anatomy of a Gradebook

• Grade Item - A grade item is automatically added to the gradebook for activities like quizzes or assignments however a grade item can be added manually to the grade book. 

• Grade Category - graded items can be grouped into categories. For example if you have 3 quizzes you can create a quiz category. 

• Category Total: The category total is calculated as per your aggregation settings. The category total can be named or left with the default name of “Total”.

• Course Total: This is the total that belongs to the parent category for the course (1) and is calculated based on your aggregation settings.

• Weights/Aggregation: This is where you can adjust the weights for your categories and grade items towards the course total, depending on your aggregation settings.

• Max Grade: The maximum grade a student can achieve in an assignment (grade item) or category.

Grading

By default Moodle uses the natural aggregation method for calculating grades.

• Grading an activity— grades can be entered within an activity, directly in the gradebook or automatically calculated by Moodle (i.e., multiple choice quiz). You can also override any grade in the gradebook. Overridden grades will be displayed with a beige colored background to remind you that the grade has been overridden. 

• Grading items not located in Moodle - items not located in Moodle such as a conventional paper or pencil exam can also be kept in the Moodle gradebook. To do this a Manual Grade Item will need to be created from within Gradebook Setup. Then you can manually enter grades for those items by navigating to the Gradebook and turning on editing.

• Blank vs Zero Grades - By default, Moodle will exclude empty grades from grade calculations rather then treating them as zeros so that grade items that are not yet complete do not lower students' averages. However, Moodle cannot distinguish between a grade item (such as a quiz) that the student has missed and one that has simply not yet been completed.  For that reason, instructors must enter zeros for students that miss a quiz or assignment or the student will not be penalized for the missing grade. 
  
  

Access Gradebook Reports

Navigate to the gradebook and use the dropdown menu to access your reports. You can export the data in PDF, CSV or Excel format. Some commonly used reports are: 

• View > Grader report: a spreadsheet-like display, with student names on the left side of the screen and grade items across the top.

• View > Single view: scores associated with either a particular student or a particular graded activity can be viewed and edited.

• View > User report: approximates the view that a student sees when viewing their own grades in the Gradebook.

For in-depth information on the mechanics of how the Gradebook works, consult 

Moodledocs Grading quick guide or watch videos on the How to ...  page.

Incorporate best practices for online course design and facilitation. You can add content to your course by Selecting "Edit" (upper right in Moodle 4.0) then selecting "Add Activity or Resource" (bottom of any section). Here are some considerations: 

1. • Use the Text and Media Area (previously labels), headings, and indentation to help you organize content in each module. Make sure to use a consistent module structure. Avoid large blocks of text.

   • Make important information easy to find by putting it in the top section or in the side drawer using the block feature. For example, course meeting times, zoom link, instructor contact information, drop in hours and other support resources.

   • Consider the student experience. If you have a lot of documents (articles, pdf's, presentations, worksheets) reduce the visual clutter by creating a folder to organize documents.

   • Create a course page to organize links to resources. The page module enables you to create a web page resource using a text editor. A page can display text, images, sound, video, web links and embedded code, such as Google maps.

Course Copier

You can also add course materials by copying content from a Moodle Course Shell by using Course Copier.  

To copy the content from another Moodle space (a previous course or file) into your new Moodle shell, select the desired course from the drop-down menu. Only course content (no student data) will be copied over.

Note: Work with your Moodle Site Administrator to create or copy a Moodle shell. It may take up to an hour for a new Moodle shell to be created, and using the Course Copier may increase the time required, depending on the size of the class and how many courses are currently also being copied by other instructors.

Other considerations 

1. • Setting the tone of your course by using warm and inclusive language. Consider the differences between these two statements about make-up exams:

Cool Tone - No make-up exams will be allowed without documentation of illness, death in the family or other suitably traumatic event.

Warm Tone - Illnesses, death in the family or other traumatic events unfortunately are part of life. A make-up exam will be given if you contact me within 24 hours and provide documentation.

1. • Consider adding action words as descriptors as well. For example, instead of posting your syllabus as "syllabus" label it "read syllabus". Or instead of posting "discussion forum", label it "participate in forum".