Get Your Students Hired
Aaron, This is true. Of course, if you can automate the process using technology, each student can get instant feedback.
Dr. Melissa Read
More of a subjective than objective.
I also thought that the underlining on key points in an essay was a great idea,
I prefer to grade the students work as they turn it in to me. This gives the learner a real time assessment of their progress in the course.
After completing this block of instruction, I have determined that I would omit essay questions and concentrate more on word bank and multiple-choice questions for expediency.
I usually require essay exams mainly to get the students to write in complete sentences. I find a lot of younger students lacking writing skills. I like the part of asking students to highlight or underline the key parts of their answers! That looks like a time saver! I will try that on my upcoming finals.
Sherry, Exactly. This is a wonderful technique to help students focus on the most important portions of their answers. It's a great way to ensure that they've thought about their answers fully.
Dr. Melissa Read
I like the scantrons because it is easy for grading, however I really like to see how the student's respond. Sometimes they surprise me with their resposes that are correct, but not how I would have expected them to respond. I normally do scantrons for finals/midterms, and scantron and one page of Short answer/fill in the blank/ or 3-5 sentences for "essay". This makes it easier for me to grade, as I can just have the students turn in only one page (only the front side) to grade. I hate flipping pages to read responses, and it takes forever. But, one page ( I normally try to stick to even point numbers) makes it easier to add to the scantron score.
Dear Dr. Read,
Grading is a time where one can teach. By streamlining your grading process, one does decrease the grading time, but also decreasing the opportunity to teach the concept of the course. Therefore I do not try to simplify the exam with giving the answers. I prefer to have essays and reports on various topics.
AIU-online prefers to have automatically grade assignments and exams. When one has that type of format, it relieves the instructor of having to grade.
Sincerely,
Walter
I am already utilized a streamline grading process because all of my courses; including activities, assignments and exams are all web-based/online. Therefore, I must agree that anything that you, as an instructor can use the course management system, or the blackboard methods to would be great as a time saver. Everything is automatically, electronically graded. I love it.
I think its a great idea to have the students underline their key points in their papers. It not only makes it easier to grade for the instructor, but the student also enhances their learning by highlighting the subject matter that is important.
Our exams are graded by a scantron machine so that is very efficient. My problem is with the homework-I have an average of 25 to 30 students and the homework is a mixture of true and false,multiple choice and short answers. I can't begin to grade everything so I usually pick a few short answers that I feel are important and T/F because they are fast to grade. Still I don't feel I'm doing a good job for the student. I hesitate to go to passing around the homework and letting the class grade it because some of the students would be embarrassed I think. I don't know I'm torn with doing it that way maybe it would make them work harder if they knew someone other than myself was going to look at it.
I'm planning on checking some online resources to format my exams in a simpler way not only for grading but taking the exam was well.
William, Large class sizes demand efficient grading systems. For classes of 100+, I definitely recommend multiple choice and I also recommend secure online grading. For smaller classes, we can get away with essay and short answer formats to more deeply test knowledge.
Dr. Melissa Read
When I know that I am going to teach the same online class several times, I create sample feedback that I can modify when I put comments into an online grade book. Many times there are things that students get stuck on in every term, and those comments I keep as "templates" that I can copy and paste into the grade book. Also--when I have tasks that I know students have a hard time with and I get a submission from a student that is VERY well done.....I will ask that student if I can keep a copy of their paper to post in future classes to show students a sample of what a great paper looked like---after I have graded their submissions. That usually helps answer many of the questions that students may have about what was expected of them and how they could have improved their responses.
I will definitely group the correpsonding chapters with lab time to make the transition to lab easier and more effective. Covering clinical and classroom time on the same days will help!
I try to use scan trons as much as possible due to the fact I have really large classes.
Gerald, So true! At the same time, short answer and essay formats also more deeply test knowledge. It's a balance trying to find the best questions for grading and taking knowledge.
Dr. Melissa Read
I think that having more multiple choice and true false questions will make the grading process go much faster. Short answer, and essay questions definitely eat up more of your time.
Angela, Yes, it sounds like you have significantly speeded the grading process. At the same time, it's important to consider how each kind of testing format tests knowledge. Multiple choice questions are great for speed, but sometimes with them, we sacrifice how deeply we test knowledge.
Dr. Melissa Read
Our school strongly encourages us to use multiple choice exam questions and quizzes for grades. Homework is graded as quizzes. In my program our students need to pass a nation wide computerized exam to be licensed so we focus a lot on critical thinking questions using a test bank. We can do one correct answer, prioritizing the answers, true-false and multiple response. We use scantrons for grading which saves a great amount of time. I use matching, short answer, and an occasional essay in my quizzes. These do take a little longer to grade. For big classes I use an A version and a B version of the same test to decrease cheating. If I have a smaller class where I can have only one student at a desk, I may use only one version. This makes grading and test review easier also.
We now do online grading and students do have access to the system so they can check their grades.