Understanding a Moodle course layout

Moodle Classroom Layout

While your instructor has control over the appearance of your course, most Moodle courses have the basic structure that is outlined below.

The home page of courses in Moodle have the same three-area structure as your dashboard, but with different elements:

  1. The left area is the course index. This is like an outline for the content of your course. Navigate to any activity within your class by clicking on its name within the index. Click the "x" at the top to hide the index on your screen, giving you extra space for your course content.
  2. The right area on the page is the “block drawer”. Like the index, you can toggle this drawer open or closed. Many course and site resources are located within the drawer. For instance, the “Upcoming Events” block will show a list of course items from the course’s calendar. The "Latest Announcements" block shows messages the instructor has posted for the class. The arrangement and appearance of these and other blocks are defined by your instructor. Contact your instructor for more specific information about blocks they use in your courses.
  3. The center area of the course is the topic outline. It shows a detailed list of all the assignments and activities in your course (similar to the Navigation block). Content is usually organized into weeks or content sections. Content generally appears in order with  the first section at the top of the page, starting with the introductory unit.

Above your course topic outline are a series of course tabs to access other parts of the course. These tabs include a link to the "Participants" page - a list of all the people in the class (including the instructor) and "Grades." Click on the Grades tab to see your scores on submitted assignments.