Assessing your students
By giving my students daily quiz's, I am evaluating how they are doing and where each student is in the learning process. I have found that this is very helpful in my teaching process as well. I also give my students back their quiz's/exams the very next class period and go through them as a class. I have made errors in the past and this is the best solution to giving my students the most available points possible. I have also found that giving my students who have missed my exam another version is a little trickier on the students. They feel they can talk to their classmates and get a good feeling for the quiz/exam. I don't find that is fair to my other students who were present for the exam, so I do give a different version to that student that had missed class.
I agree with you Meghan regarding daily quizzes. I warn my students that I pull questions directly from their homework for their quizzes so that if they do their homework than they will be just fine on their quizzes. I also always return classwork to students immediately during the next class period so that the students continually know where they stand on the subject. It is also useful for me to grade them right away so that I know if students are struggling in a certain area that we might need to revisit. I do not give make up exams or quizzes. It is the student's responsibility to be in class. Only under extreme circumstances will I allow students to make up an exam. However the student needs to be in contact with me first before class begins.
Hi Meghan:
I have always felt that the one time we can't be teachers is when we we test our students. But then, we really do have an opportunity to use the test as a learning tool by reviewing the correct answers along with why they're correct, and also reviewing each incorrect answer, and similarly, reviewing why that selection is not the best choice. On fill-in quizes, when a student has answered a question incorrectly, I like to ask "why did you answer that way" in order to try to understand their thought process. That helps me fine tune my delivery methods and materials for subsequent exams. So even a test can be used for multiple purposes (besides assessment).
Regards, Barry
