Module 2 Book: Optimizing the Organization of a Moodle Course: Plan

Plan: Course Structure

Once you've planned your course content, activities, and assessments considering constructive alignment, now it is time to determine how to make your plan come to life in Moodle. To determine your Moodle course structure, questions you may ask yourself are: How do I want to organize my course sections (weeks, modules, topics, etc.)? What structure makes the most sense for this course content? What course content exists in each section? What assessments exist in each section?

Engaging in a planning exercise can be helpful to answer these kinds of questions and figure out the best way to structure your Moodle course. You may consider:

Making an hierarchical outline on a piece of paper
Creating a table that organizes your course by weeks, topics, or modules
Developing a concept map of the course structure
Making notes on slips of paper that can be rearranged

To help you visualize what these planning exercises may look like, here’s a basic example of a concept map. You can begin to see certain pieces of content and assessments being placed within each week:

A concept map with the course name in the center, weeks 1-6 branching out, and then activities branching out from the weeks

Or, if you prefer working in tables, a framework for this kind of brainstorming may look something like this:

A table that organizes weeks, topics, course materials, and assessments into columns with the learning outcomes at the top

Challenge!

Take a scrap piece of paper and begin to conceptualize (in the format of your choice) how your Moodle course could be organized. This can even be for 1 or 2 sections/weeks for now, just to begin thinking about how your resources, learning activities, and assessments exist in each section of your course.

For existing Moodle courses, it may be valuable to write your current course structure on paper to see it from a new perspective. Then, you can determine if that organization strategy is clear or perhaps you might want to explore some different options!