Consider this scenario: you add open-ended questions (called “Essay” questions) to Moodle quizzes to add variety in question types. When you read student responses, however, you find they are problematic. Students missed answering certain parts of a question or wrote their responses in a difficult-to-comprehend format, leading to point deductions and lost time grading the questions.

These problems can be minimized by specifying a Response Template for essay questions in Moodle quizzes. I use a table format with cells for different parts of the response. Cells ensure that students provide clear and complete responses. A set format for responses streamlines grading.

Essay Questions in Moodle Quizzes

It is helpful to understand the nature of Essay questions in Moodle quizzes before discussing response templates. Importantly, essay questions are not just for essays. They are simply open-ended questions without a specific length or format for responses (unlike Short Answer questions, which have a strict format). Essay questions can be used to elicit responses of widely varying lengths. Responses can be anywhere from one word to multiple paragraphs depending on the nature of the question.

Although essay questions offer considerable flexibility, I have encountered difficulties when using them for questions with multiple parts requiring a longer answer. Students may fail to provide all of the requested information, mix up different parts of the question, or write one long, undifferentiated paragraph that is difficult to comprehend.

Enter the response template!

Using Moodle Response Templates 

How to Add a Response Template in an Essay Question

Response templates are easy to add into Moodle essay questions. As you create an essay question in a Moodle quiz, click on Response Template in the menu of options for the question and provide the template you have created that you want students to use for their responses.

I suggest using tables with cells that students fill in with their responses. Create the tables in Word or Google Docs and copy them into the Response Template cell when drafting the essay question. When students view the essay question in the quiz, the response template will appear in the response cell for them to fill in.

Pro Tip! Students need to see the entire response template when they view the essay question in the quiz. Under Response Options, select an Input Box size (5 lines to 40 lines) that will show the entire response template.

If you need help with response templates in Moodle Quizzes, reach out to e-LIS with a help request or schedule a one-on-one appointment with an e-LIS Instructional Designer.

Creating Effective Response Templates

Response templates for essay questions should: 1. enable students to provide clear, complete, and coherent answers to open-ended questions and 2. specify a unified format for student answers that is efficient for the instructor to read. Follow these tips for creating effective response templates:

• Basic set-up – I use response templates for essay questions that have two or more parts. After drafting this type of essay question, I review how many parts the question has and in what order. For clarity, I create a response template that mirrors this information exactly, using the same key phrases in the response template as in the question and placing them in the same order as in the question.
• Examples – Let’s say an essay question has the following three parts, state the definition of codeswitching, describe an example of codeswitching provided by the author, and describe your own example of codeswitching. In the response template, I might say definition, author’s example, and your example, in that order. I also include a descriptive header in the response template, such as Understanding Codeswitching. Within each sub-question, I specify how long each part of the response should be so that students provide the level of detail I am looking for.

Response templates can also be used for solving a problem in a series of steps that need to be shown and that should be in a particular order. For example, in a phonology contrastive distribution problem, I might ask students to identify the sounds being compared, list the minimal pairs in the data (if any), state the distribution of the sounds, etc. Each step of the problem represents one item in the response template.

• An efficient format – In my experience, the best format for response templates is a two-column table with a row of cells for each sub-question. (A header is also needed to link the response table with the question.) Numbered prompts go in the cells of the left-hand column (e.g. definition, author’s example, your example or sounds, minimal pairs (if any), distribution). Student answers are written in the corresponding cells in the right-hand column. This format clearly shows whether the student answered all parts of the question and organizes student responses into chunks that are easy for the instructor to read and understand.

Conclusion 

Response templates are an invaluable tool for both students and instructors. They are helpful for encouraging students to organize their thinking for open-ended (Essay) questions in Moodle quizzes, eliciting complete and coherent student responses, and speeding up grading. Use them whenever an open-ended question requires multiple parts that need to be structured in a particular way.

Related Teaching Tips

Essays Your Students Want to Write proposes strategies for structuring assignments with questions that engage students in critical thinking and reflection.
Stepping in as a Student talks about establishing your teaching presence by taking the role of a student and posting some of the same written work students are doing.
“Two Buckets” Assessment Activities discusses the use of a bonus question to ascertain additional information a student might have known on an exam. If the exam is administered in Moodle, a response template could be used for the student’s response, facilitating efficient review by the instructor.

Save and adapt a Google Doc version of this teaching tip.

About the Author

Helena Riha, Ph.D. teaches Linguistics and International Studies. She has taught over 3,500 students in 17 different courses. Helena won the OU Online Teaching Excellence Award and the Excellence in Teaching Award. This is her eighteenth teaching tip. Outside of class, Helena maintains her streak in Wordle.

Helena Riha is the current guest editor for the Grizz Tips for Teaching Effectiveness series on the CETL Teaching Blog at Oakland University. Contribute to the Teaching Blog as a guest editor (OU community only).

Others may share and adapt under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC.

View all CETL Weekly Teaching Tips.