Get Your Students Hired
We are piloting using an electronic format in the classroom. I have discovered just over the last four weeks what a time savings it is to do electronic test. I will continue to use this format and find other ways to use this in the classroom to help save me a lot of time. However saving me time is not the only benefit. Students love getting immediate feedback. They know when they miss a question right away and then they also know what their final score is on the exam as soon as they are finished. I was concerned about their reaction to taking the test on line but was pleasantly surprised that they really like it.
Interesting concept Ellen. As long as you can trust students to grade accurately, this sounds like a wonderful approach. Perhaps you can spot check a representative sample of exams to ensure that students are not cheating the system.
We have our students grade their own exams using a colored marker. They get to see where they went wrong,or right, immediately and it saves much grading time. We are not allowed to have students grade each others' papers for privacy reasons.
Testing and grading is set by the corprate office and must be done accoring to their procedure, I cannot deviate much from their policy
I currently use the multiple choice, true/false, and fill in the blank exams. But one thing that I will not do is have the students write essays every class period. Grading those essays took away alot of time that I could have been using for another task.
I will have the class graded their own homework by letting the class grade each others. that way they will learn as they grade and then I can collect them and enter them in the grade book. I will change my essay test to a very limited bullet like format where they will list four or five premises instead of writing four or five premises in paragraph form.
I feel that I currently do a good job at streamlining my grading process. All of my theory exams are either multiple choice or true/false. I often let the students switch homework to be graded.
For those courses where it's appropriate, I've been experimenting with software test banks and online test generators from the text publishers. (You have to be careful to review the questions before testing, because the publishers are not always 100% accurate in answering their own questions!) Other than that, though, they're a fabulous means of saving time in the grading process. Also, they're a great way to get test results back to the students as quickly as possible.
So glad to hear Brenda! This is a wonderful time saving technique. Also, it focuses the student on producing the best answer so it's great for learning too.
I like the idea about giving essay and having the student underline the answer with a highlighter, then I can see the their answer very clearly without trying to make out their writting.
I disagree with the idea of having students grade other student papers in the name of speed. What about FERPA? There is a privacy issue here.
I do like the idea of answers being off to the side and of underlining main ideas.
I am afraid that our students do not get enough essay questions in the name of efficiency. They need practice formulating their ideas as they will in the real world.
One way to format exams and homework assignments is to use auto-grading capabilities. This works especially well with objective type questions where auto feedback and scoring can be incorporated, this should drastically cut down on the amount of grading needed to be done.
As an English instructor, I give quite a few essay exams during the term, which is often difficult to avoid. Often I have as many as 80 of these correct at one time. Having the students underline key points in their essays can help me streamline my grading in order to save time.
I operate within the confines of a defined curriculum. This has allowed me to develop tests that are short answer and limits my searching for answers within long answers. In addition, when I'm grading I look for the key words I need to see and underline them myself.
Wow, sounds like a wonderful tool Paul. I'd love to learn more about this website and it's name. Could be helpful to many other instructors.
Since I teach English composition classes, I am thankful that our school utilizes a website to check all essays for plagiarism. Although I still have to read and grade the essays, this eliminates one aspect that I previously had to check on my own. However, to streamline the correcting of other tests and assignments, I now have students email these to me to try to eliminate as much paper as possible. In addition, I use objective tests whenever possible.
Thanks for sharing Alexander and I agree. Short answer is great because it requires our students to remember important information. It also helps us grade quickly to save time.
I think as instructors we all have our own way and process of grading. I really like the section on Short answer format. I do incorporate that into the class. Where there really is only one answer.