Title: Activity 3.7: Discussing, Designing & Developing Activities
Course: Stage 3: Online and Blended Teaching > Section: 4. Structured Activity Design, Consolidation, and Evaluation

Purpose: to generate one or more activities or assignments for your course, ensuring that you have matched the tool to the pedagogical purpose.

Timing: 90 mins (25 + 30 = 35) (sync & async)

Tools: Live Conference Breakout Rooms & Chat; your Storyboard & Activity Profile; your choice of Moodle tool/s; Forum

Resources: Activity Design Structure, Your Storyboard & Activity Profile & Mapping Table, Moodle Tool Guide.

Task:

a) Live confernecing breakout rooms: Discuss (in small groups & then plenary):

  - What types of activities do you currently use or would like to use in your course?
  - Referring to the Activity Types in your Activity Profile, consider your choices of activities. Are you considering the many different ways that students learn? Are you considering different modes of learning to engage students?
  - Which Moodle tool/s do you think best suit/s your chosen activities?
  - Plenary: feedback from small groups on innovative activities and activities that have been successful in terms of helping students to grasp the content

After the live session:

b) Design an Activity (Individual):

  - Using the Activity Design Structure provided, and consulting the Moodle tool guide and your Mapping table (which we used in Stage 2, Activity 2.8 to choose tools), design at least one activity for your Vula (Moodle) course
  - Complete each step (what, how etc) contained in the template.
  - Don't forget to include information about word limits, recommended amount of time to be spent, and how performance will be assessed, if at all.
  - While you are working, make notes about any particular features you would like to highlight, any difficulties experienced, and justify your tool selection with respect to the pedagogical purpose of the activity.
  - Share these notes with your colleagues in this discussion forum, and attach your designed activity to the post.
  - Revise your activity design if necessary.

c) Set up your designed activity in Moodle (Individual):

  - Go to your Moodle Practice course
  - Choose the link within a topic/section to ‘Add an activity or resource’
  - Implement your activity design using your chosen Moodle tool
  - Pay particular attention to the settings for the tool in order to achieve exactly what you want for the student interaction.