Moodle Discussion as Assessment Hurdle: Insights from a Hong Kong Award-winning Teacher's LMS Practices

Abstract

This paper sets out to depict an award-winning teacher's Moodle design as assessment hurdle and explore students' actual experience with such design in a Hong Kong university context. The rich qualitative data, drawn from classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and documents, shows that the voluntary nature of Moodle task without clear assessment criteria discouraged students' participation. Two pertinent issues were discussed concerning building disciplinary community and teacher-facilitated versus student-facilitated discussion. However exploratory, the perspectives regarding various pedagogical practices and dilemmas on web-based learning, and pedagogical insights that emerged from the specific setting may carry resonance for teachers and researchers in Hong Kong context and beyond.