Excellent Ronald! It's nice to start with a few good templates as a foundation. You can build off of them with your own take on the course material when you have the time.
Sounds like you have a great system in place Manual. With no homework, you have far less grading to complete. And true / false as well as multiple choice formats can be graded by the scantron machine or very quickly by hand.
This is a great approach Bruno. Go ahead and give it a try and see how it feels.
Excellent Charlin! Go ahead and give a few of these techniques a try. A little investment in time up front can really go a long way!
Sounds like you have some opportunities to save a significant amount of time Scott. I'd invest in the scantron idea first, then work on the underlining and highlighting method.
This is true Brian. It's also nice to get students feedback quickly when we can. Some instructors are able to do this. Others are not due to time constraints in their schedules. In they end, we have to work to best serve the needs of our students while also setting reasonable expectations of ourselves.
I definitely have plans to change the current format I've been using!
Although the school I'm employed at does not offer scantron use I've incorporated a version of that type of grading for myself. Even so, with 60+ students & two different classes it is difficult to keep up with grading!
Even prior to this course I had planned on making changes to my Exams & Quizzes. Now more than ever I cannot wait to tackle the project as I know that it will save so much time in the future.
Hello Dr. Read,
I give true/false and multiple choice tests. I am careful to choose the questions that will accurately assess what students have retained. With respect to homework, I am looking for well thought-out, concise answers to case studies. I don't mind spending a little extra time evaluating the case study material because I feel it is very valuable and I truly want to encourage "critical thinking" by all my students. I probably won't change the formats except to offer an extra credit...bonus point essay question ocassionally. Lots of good information in this module!
William,
I grade cooking school exams, too. I have found that if I spend sometime on a good rubric sheet, the grading is faster, simpler and more easily understood by the students.
Toni Leahy
on the testing, we already use scantron answer sheets but we use an answer sheet with the correct answer punched in it to grade the tests. On homework I like the idea of letting the students grade another students paper. That sounds like a great time saver.
Hi Roy,
I am substituting for Dr. Read this week while she is on vacation. She is working on reducing stress I am sure.
You make a number of good comments about how you approach the evaluation process. I like you use a lot of case studies because I want them to develop critical thinking skills. Yes, they take a little more time to grade but as we both know they really give insight into how the students are processing the content.
Gary
Hi Jeff,
Letting students grade each other student's papers does save a lot of time. The key is to have a clear rubric of how the grading is to be done and that way everyone will see the grading as being fair.
Gary
Our grading is a little bit different here as it is simply a matter of laying the answer key over the top. We hav no homework to speak of.....
I have found that rubrics are very useful to the students as well as saving me time as I grade PowerPoint presentations. It prevents me from being "subjective" in my evaluations. I give the students a copy of the rubric before hand so they know exactly what is expected of them.
I also found a useful way to grade student homework is to provide colored "grading" pens to each student. All other pens and pencils must be put on the floor out of reach. The students then grade their own work, and we can discuss why some answers are right and why some are wrong. The assignment is then handed in to me to quickly double check.
I actually already implement several of the techniques elaborated upon in the module. I use matching,essay, and fill in the blank. I am not a big fan of multiple choice, because I feel some of the answers can be misleading. I do go over the tests immediately afterwards though and will utilize the student grading discussed in the module for matching, listing, or fill in the blank. Then I will collect them and grade the essay questions myself. My essay questions are usually not as cut and dry and I want a bit of independant thought contributions from the student.
I have been teaching for many years and I have modified my testing format during that time to include more multiple choice. I look at homework and grade for completion rather than for content. These two items have saved me a tremendous amount of time. I really like the technique of using technology (online classes) to further facilitate this process and that is definitely something I will check out and see how viable it is to use.
I always tested mainly by using short answer and essay questions and found myself grading for a long time. I will make sure that my exams are more streamlined by checking out the variuos websites and making more objective based exams.
I plan on using the highlighting or underlining method for short answer essays. I already use software to assist in the creation of exams but will schedule online exams
The gradebook software is another topic i will explore and utilize
Excellent plan Joel! Yes, the highlighting and underlining method works great. Go ahead and give it a try. It will save you so much time.
Unfortunatly, the assignments are created by the University and not by individual instructors. Which is a positive for the student --- as students move onto the next unit of work they will all have a similar baseline of knowledge. However, I have created some "wording" that I use from assignment to assignment when appropriate and I don't have to recreate every single comment to the student. I can still personalize however, it's easy to cut and paste some frequently used verbage.
