Yes, the underlining is a fantastic time saver. It also focuses your students on making sure they answer the question completely. So this helps everyone.
Currently I am using true/false and multiple choice, I change these tests periodically; however in the future I plan on essays and will adapt the underlining of important terms by students to effectively make the best use of time while grading.
That's a great tip Jason! Thanks for sharing. Yes, electronic grade books help everyone because they often allow students to get feedback much faster than paper based methods.
I noticed that using an electronic gradebook to track percentage grades for subjects has cut my time in half in calculations at the end of a course. Students are able to know where they stand in regards to GPA ranking and has decreased the dreaded question, "Do you have our average yet." ExamView Pro is an excellent resourse for creating all kinds of exams as long as Answer Test Banks are available.
This is true Jennifer. As instructors, we need to strike a healthy balance between becoming more efficient and taking the time to make certain we best serve our student assessment needs.
Streamlining is possible but we should never forget that students expect a great deal of feedback and assessment to understand their performance. So long stremalining does not remove this aspect, everything is possible.
There are different ways today to save time by using technology. For example, offering web base tests (multiple choices), it saves a great deal of time in many ways: first no need to administer the test. You can define a time frame during which student can take the test from school or from home so long they can log on to the portal.
Second, the web base test can be linke directly to the grading book of the students and therefore transfer the grade directly into the grade book.
Good Morning:
In reading Dr Melissa's suggestion my thought was having students place important ideas that the rubric is measuring in bold print is not a bad idea either.
Wanda
Great point Ronnie. Sometimes reading every word is not necessary, even in essay style questions. You can even ask your students to underline the most important words for quick and easy scanning.
I find myself trying diferent proceedures in my grading of papers most of my grading is in the SA type of qwestions so reading every word is not nessasary.
These are both great ideas Byron! I say go for it one at a time. You will be amazed at how much time you save with just a little investment.
I find myself surprised too Susan. I think the reason why instructors stay away from tools like blackboard is because they are sometimes hard to learn. Learning takes time and can be stressful. But those who have been willing to make the investment have a great return in the end.
Excellent! Sounds like a great plan Marilyn.
I have changed some of our tests to scanton to save time grading.
The online college that I teach for provides all of the assignments and testing materials, so it is unlikely that I will use any of the technology resources there. However, in my on- site classes, I believe that these resources will be quite helpful. I have used Blackboard a lot and I have found it to be helpful. I am always surprised when teachers do not use such a resource when it is available. I guess change is difficult for some people, but the time savings alone would be an encouragement to change :).
I would format my grades on the exams and homework assignments to be streamlined. Examples could be consistent assignments on homework from class to class to be graded. Exams could be scan tron so you would have a standard way to grade the exams and administer them from week to week and class to class. These two formats would allow me to streamline my assignments.
Outlines are great for students. They help them identify and refine a thesis and supporting statements prior to spending so much time writing.
I grade pastry practical exams, written tests, and research project which are relativly easy to grade. Both the practical exam and eritten exams are graded quickly. Eassy exams can be a little extensive sometimes. I like the idea of having the student make an outline for the eassy assignment. This seems like it would save a lot of time.
I'm excited to hear about how this goes Dorothy! The short answer format really can save instructors a tremendous amount of time!
Short answer exams to make sure the students have read the assignments is the way to go.
