moodle/lang/en/help/exercise/moreinfo.html

<IMG VALIGN=absmiddle SRC="<?php echo $CFG->wwwroot?>/mod/exercise/icon.gif">&nbsp;<B>Exercise</B>

<P>An Exercise is a simple but powerful assignment. In an exercise the teacher 
asks the students to do a piece of practical work. It could be writing an essay 
or a report, preparing a presentation, or setting out a spreadsheet, etc. When 
the student has done the task they must first self-assess their work before 
submitting it to the teacher. Once submitted the teacher can assess both the 
student's assessment and the piece of work itself. The teacher can give 
feedback to the student  and ask the student to improve the work and re-submit 
it or not as the case may be.</p>

<p>Before the start of the exercise the teacher sets up the exercise by
<ol> <li>Creating a Word document or HTML file which introduces the exercise 
	and tells the students what they have to produce. This file is uploaded
	into the exercise by the teacher.
	
<li>Adding the textual elements and choosing the options in the Assessment
	Form. This form is used by both the students and the teacher to assess the 
	work produced in the exercise. There are various types of assessment 
	which can be used (see the help on &quot;Grading 	Stratgey&quot;)
</ol></p>
	
<p>In large classes, the teacher may find to helpful to create more than one version
	of the exercise. These variants add a degree of variety to the exercise and 
	ensure that students are doing different tasks in the exercise. They
	are allocated to the students in a random but balanced way. Each student 
	receives only one exercise but the the number of 
	times each variant is allocated in a class is approximately the same. Note
	the variants should not be too different as the same assessment form is used for
	all of the variants.</p>

<p>With the description(s) of the exercise and the assessment form in place,
	the assignment is opened to the students. They are shown a description
	of the exercise or task. When they have done the exercise they must assess
	their own work (using the pre-prepared assessment form) before they can
	submit their work to the teacher. The assessment form can be used as a 
	&quot;checklist&quot; by the students. They can, if they wish, revise both 
	their work and the assessment before they actually submit their work, and
	probably they should be encouraged to do so!</p>
	
<p>Once a student has submitted their work both their assessment and the
	piece of work itself becomes available to the teacher. The assessments can be
	graded and there is a box for comments. The teacher can also access the piece
	of work (using the student's assessment as a starting point) and make a 
	decision whether to ask the student to re-submit an improved version of the 
	work or not.</p>
	
<p>If the teacher feels that the student's piece of work could be improved, the 
	student can be given the opprtunity to re-submit. If this is taken up the 
	teacher re-assesses the work using an assessment form which contains 
	the grades and comments they gave to the student's previous submission. 
	Thus, the re-assessment is then a matter of updating the form in the light 
	of the student revised work rather than undertaking an assessment from 
	scratch.</p>
	
<p>When the deadline for the exercise is reached students can continue to submit. 
    However, such work is flagged as &quot;late&quot;. The teacher can, if 
    desired, grade the work and give feedback to the student. The grades of 
    late work are held back and are <b>not</b> used in the calculation of final 
    grades. If, for whatever reason, the teacher wishes to accept a piece of 
    late work as a normal piece of work the late flag can be cleared by going 
    into the Administration page, finding the submission and clicking on the 
    appropriate link. The grade for that work will then be used in the calculation 
    of a final grades.</p> 
	
<p>When all the submissions have been graded, the exercise is moved to the 
	final phase. Further student submissions are now not allowed. The students 
    can now see their final grades together with the grades given to 
	their submissions. A student's grade for the exercise is a weighted combination
	of the teacher's grade for their self-assessment and the teacher's grade for that 
	work. (The grade given by the student is <b>not</b> used.) For the submissions 
	themselves	the grade is teacher's assessment. The weights used for the two 
	grades (the grading grade and the actual grade for the work) can be set and 
	changed at any time during the assignment (the weights are set on the 
    Administration page).</p>
	
<p>When the teacher allows students to resubmit work, the teacher should 
	consider how to set the option which controls how the student's final grade 
	is calculated from multiple submissions.  This option allows the teacher to 
	choose between using the mean grade of the student's  submissions or their 
	best submission.  This option can changed at any time and it has an immediate 
	effect in the grades screen.</p>

<p>In the final phase of the exercise the students can also see a &quot;League
	Table&quot; of submissions. This an ordered list of the submissions, the 
	submission which received the highest grade is at the top. When there are 
	multiple submissions only the student's best submission is show in this list.</p>