Enhance your adaptive teaching with a new Moodle plugin

A new plugin developed by Moodle Community members allows you to restrict access to resources and activities based on a single Quiz question.

The Moodle LMS supports teachers in creating customised learning experiences for their learners in many ways. From completion conditions to branched lessons or access restrictions, students can go through adaptive learning experiences tailored to their particular needs. 

We’ll take you through how to restrict access based on Quiz answers, using a new plugin that will take your students’ learning experience to the next level.

The right learning resources at the right time

No two learners are the same or acquire knowledge and skills at the same time, and that’s why Moodle supports restricting access to activities and resources based on several criteria. Take quiz results, for example: if a student fails the quiz, you can automatically direct them to supplementary materials to reinforce the learning objectives; however, if they pass with a high grade they are then directed to some extension materials. 

Now, a new Moodle plugin developed by Moodle Quiz maintainer Tim Hunt, Moodle HQ’s developer Shamim Rezaie, along with Benjamin Schröder and Martin Hanusch, allows your students to access resources and materials based on their answer to a single quiz question. 

This enables teachers to customise their courses and tailor the learning experience for their students even more accurately. Let’s have a look at how this plugin works, how you can set it up and what it will be like for your learners.

How to set up the new restriction access

Let’s say a language teacher wants to help learners who struggle with a particular part of grammar, like the use of subject and object pronouns, for example. First, the teacher will create a Quiz, adding all the questions and answers. Then, they create a revision lesson that focuses on the particular topic they’d like to reinforce (subject and object pronouns). In the ‘Restrict access’ settings for that lesson, our teacher will choose “Quiz Question”; meaning that students will be able to access these materials based on the outcome of a single question in a Quiz.

Now our teacher needs to select the Quiz and, within the Quiz, the specific question, as well as the outcome that will decide whether a learner has access to this material or not.

The plugin is designed so that partially correct answers may be used too, which we think is very convenient!

Let’s see an example:

When a student enters the course, they see the Grammar Quiz (1).

They attempt the Quiz (2), but their answer about Subject and object pronouns is wrong (3).

This prompts a message recommending that the learner sees a Lesson to revise this particular topic, and when they return to the course, this Lesson shows up right below the Quiz (4).

Now the student can access the lesson and learn more on the topic.

So how can I add this to all my courses?

Talk to your Moodle Administrator, who can download the Restriction by single Quiz question for your Moodle site from our Moodle Plugins Database and add it to your Moodle site.

Teaching tip!

Enhance the learning experience using this plugin as part of a gamification strategy. Release tokens, treasures or other digital rewards (or corrections!) based on your learners’ responses and get your students engaged in their learning. 

For example, if students get a particular answer correct, you could display a Moodle Page or Label with extra clues towards solving a mystery. Remember that you can use the plugin several times with different quiz questions and responses, and you can offer a different resource depending on whether the students get the answer right or wrong – so many possibilities! 

Any other good ideas? Let us know in the comments or join the dedicated Quiz forum on Moodle.org to discuss all things Quiz with our global Moodle community.

Moodle plugins are add-ons that you can install to your Moodle platform to add a specific feature, functionality or even appearance to your Moodle site. Only Moodle administrators can add plugins to a Moodle site – so if you are a teacher and would like to try one, talk to your Admin!