Improving student engagement through a blended teaching method using Moodle

Abstract

Web-based learning system commonly known as Learning Management System (LMS) which makes use of internet technologies has been widely used by many education institutions around the globe. LMS forms a part of their campus-based and distance teaching. With the wide uses of LMS nowadays, university teaching is often conducted in blended mode: partly through face-to-face teaching and partly through LMS. To date, little research has been carried out to investigate to what extent the uses of LMS contribute to student learning, particularly student engagement. In this paper, we present a blended teaching method for promoting better student engagement and their willingness to participate in the learning activities through better uses of LMS (Moodle in our case), the design of our assessments, and the ways we lead them to learn. To demonstrate the usefulness of our method, we also present in this paper the results of applying it to teaching a third year computer science subject, CSE3MQR.