Supporting Project-Based Education with a Well-Designed Moodle Course

1. Create course structure –> Tiles course format

Why? Tiles give your Moodle course a simple visual structure, allowing students to make sense of it quickly and providing an overview of your entire course. For Moodle courses with a lot of materials, it also makes navigation much quicker. Alternatively, we recommend the topics format for a collapsable structure.

How? Activate the Tiles format for your course appearance in the course settings. To activate the Tiles format, go to your course settings > course format > select tiles. Hint: You can also choose the custom sections course format to help students navigate the phases of their project.

 

2. Determine clear milestones –> Assignments with deadlines

Why? Clear milestones support progress through a project and help avoid overwhelm. You can define project milestones with clear task descriptions, deliverables and deadlines. Moodle can make the deadlines visible on the Dashboard, which helps students to meet deadlines on time.

How? Define deliverables that are due at specific times and activate completion tracking in the settings of your course. Then you can define the due date in each individual activity (such as assignments). Hint: Add the side block progress bar and students can see their tasks turning green as they progress as well as any overdue tasks.

 

3. Enable collaboration –> Set up groups

Why? Teamwork is a core principle of PBE, and many of the transferable competencies that PBE fosters are developed through interactions within the group, from project management through to cooperation and teamwork, communication and negotiation. However, assigning students to groups can be time consuming when done manually.

How? In Moodle course settings, enable separate groups or visible groups to facilitate team collaboration. You can also assign group tasks. Allocating students to groups can be done manually or randomly when creating groups (you’ll find this under the section ‘participants’), or you can enable students to choose groups (using the group choice activity).

 

4. Enable collaboration –> Activate MS Teams

Why? Team work thrives on interaction. MS Teams allows students to work together in class and asynchronously, and provides familiar functions like document storage, shared note taking (OneNote – for a whole class, a channel or individuals), chats, posts and channels to organise different topics and groups. It also provides access to Apps like Miro, Excel and Planner from a single location. Additionally, the video call function can be used.

How? Moodle courses can be automatically (but not instantaneously) connected with MS Teams. To enable MS Teams email with the full course name of your Moodle course (You can find this at the top of the Moodle course page). Once the MS Teams is created, check that your teaching team are all owners. Hint: MS Teams cannot fully replace Moodle, because there is no way to do assessments via Teams. Therefore Moodle remains highly relevant for handing in assignments, setting deadlines and notifications, and for formative assessment functions like quizzes.

 

5. Encourage documentation –> Database

Why? Most projects require some kind of progress or process documentation. This supports students by helping them to document throughout, remembering crucial details, rather than writing final reports at the end of a long project. It could also be used to collect specific milestone documents (e.g. team agreements) or to facilitate knowledge sharing between teams (e.g. sharing project-specific summaries).

How? Use the Database activity to allow individuals and groups to upload and categorise project-related materials. They can upload documents or fill in predetermined fields, add tags and view the work of others. (Detailed instructions)

 

6. Facilitate peer review –> Workshop

Why? Structured peer review and feedback is a key part of PBE, helping students refine their work with each other. Being asked to give feedback develops student evaluative skills, and receiving formative feedback allows rapid iteration and improvement of assignments and tasks before they are submitted for grading.

How? The Workshop activity supports a guided peer review process with customisable criteria. Students receive written feedback and/or points from peers and can also receive points for completing the peer feedback. (Detailed instructions).

 

7. Enable appointment scheduling –> Scheduler

Why? PBE courses can require students to use equipment or book slots with coaches or lecturers. Providing a booking system reduces communication overhead for everyone and allows access to resources to be fairly accessed.

How? Install the Scheduler activity to create booking slots for people or equipment. (Detailed instructions).

 

8. Structure communication –> Forums

Why? Using the announcements forums ensures that notifications of new announcements are sent straight to the students’ computers (please note, some students deactivate notifications, so you may need to ask them to ensure they are activated). Standard Forums can also be used to enable direct interaction between students. They also ensure that information is readily available to the students whenever they are logged into the Moodle course – so no one misses essential information or which they might need to refer to.

How? The announcements forum appears in your course automatically. Set up a Q&A Forum or Standard Forum for general use. These can also be divided for each project group using the group settings function. Forums also allow posts to be scheduled, allowing you to plan and prepare communications in advance, ready to be sent out automatically at the right point in time. (Detailed instructions).

 

9. Flipped learning –> Asynchronous (but interactive) content

Why? PBE courses lend themselves to conveying theoretical content outside of class time, allowing lecturers to focus in-class time on interaction and discussions, and on deepening understanding through the applied context, as well as handling the diverse queries that emerge when teams work on challenges. Creating videos or other interactive resources for Moodle also allows lecturers to automate the assessment of student understanding of theoretical aspects (freeing up time to evaluate the more substantial project assignments which really showcase student effort and learning).

How? Upload videos via Kaltura, create quizzes or interactive H5P elements like timelines, or drag-and-drop exercises to enhance learning. (Detailed instructions).

 

10. Stuck? –> Finding help with Moodle

Why? Sometimes you just need some extra support with figuring out where a particular setting is, or why something is not working like you expected.

How? As Moodle is open source, there are many websites with tips and tricks for Moodle – a quick google will help you find some. Your favoured genAI tool can also perhaps help track down a specific setting that you can’t find. Within ETH, you can also get help from the Moodle Support team via and build your Moodle skills via self-paced Moodle course: “Building an effective Moodle course”.

 

Conclusion
A well-designed Moodle course can significantly enhance the success of project-based education in STEM fields. By strategically using Moodle’s built-in settings, activities, and third-party plug-ins, educators can create a structured yet flexible learning environment that supports collaboration, iterative learning, and real-world problem-solving. Whether you are new to PBE or refining your approach, leveraging these Moodle features will ensure a smoother and more engaging project experience for students.

Which additional features would you wish for? Are you using other existing features in your PBE course that are not listed? Do you have a best practice you want to share? Leave a comment below!

New to PBE and want to know more? Contact PBLabs, visit the PBLabs website or book a training.

 

This blog post was authored by Emily Elsner and Kerrin Weiss (UTL PBLabs) and Karin Brown (UTL Lehrentwicklung).