We have learned in the Inclusive Teaching at Lane series that “course policies should be flexible and welcoming for all students, allowing for mistakes, external challenges, learning, and growth”.

Assignment > User Override

Allow extended deadlines for specific students or a group of students.

Quiz > User Override

Require a password, extend deadlines, and/or adjust a time limit.

Moodle Philosophy and UDL

Moodle is built on a “Social Constructionist” pedagogy, where participants can be encouraged to construct something for other classmates to use and experience. This pedagogy in the core of Moodle offers a lot of resemblance to Universal Design for Learning. UDL allows students to express their knowledge in many different ways.

Here are a couple of ideas we can use in Moodle:

• Choice: Ask a question and allow your student’s responses to build a graphic (anonymously or not).
• Database: participants create and maintain a spreadsheet of student entries.
• Forum: Provides a place for student-to-student discussion
  • Tip: Assign students to moderate or even create the discussions prompt and directions.
• Glossary: (a personal favorite) use this in a number of different ways:
  • students create a list of definitions
  • Tip: These pages can include images, videos, links, text – essentially everything you find in the ATTO editor. Not limited to definitions!
• Quiz: Allow students to receive instant feedback.
  • Tip: changing the local role in the quiz activity to allow students to create quiz questions. Then let students take each other’s quizzes. The best questions might be found on midterm/final.
• Wiki: An oldie, but still a goodie – similar to glossary individuals or groups of students can create and maintain pages.
  • Tip: If interested in using Wikis – consider using Google suite instead.
• Workshop: One of the most robust tools in Moodle to allow for student-to-student collaboration. The workshop is like a 3 phase assignment that includes a phase of peer review.
  • Tip: Not for a beginner.

What are your ideas? How do you allow for flexibility in your course?