Oral presentations are great. They give students the chance to practice articulating course material in their own words and in front of others. They are also easy to grade during class.
I will format the tests and quizzes in such a manner that is easy to grade. And increase the amount of oral presentations
That sounds like a great plan Vinita. These small changes can make a really big difference.
Based on what I have learned in this module, I will have exams that are a combination of short answers and multiple choices.
Also some of the homework assignments will be discussions instead of all written .
I frequently give quizzes in my classes. I usually have the students exchange papers and grade each other's work in class. I was glad that you visited this topic because it has saved me time in grading.
The tip that I liked was to place an area for the student to post the answer into. I think that this will save time and allow for easier grading.
I really enjoyed learning about the many resources out there to help me sreamline my grading proces. I have in the past used a lot of essay type tests in my classes, but I am trying to et away from that. I have been converting my old tests to a format compatable with a scantron machine to make grading quicker.
Our school made an effort over the last couple of years to move away from multiple choice exams top short answer/essay to have the students demonstrate applicatin of knowledge not just rote learning. We are now finding instruictors overwhelmed by the grading load. Since we are reviewing the construction of exams, many of your ideas may be put into use.
Hello Janet:
I agree with you. I teach both English Composition and Professional Communication.Short answer and true and false assessments may be contrary to course objectives. This becomes even more important when working with ELL, ESL, and ESOL(English second to other languages) since there is an additional barrier of their language not having all of the parts of speech of the English language.
I have been testing rubrics in having students grade each others work and have gotten poitive results. The only column I have decided to add to my rubrics is a column for brief comments. I number the assignments so students do not know the student that they are grading.I also change ratings when I review the grading rubrics that may not appear to be an accurate or fair assessment. However, the students assessments appear to match my grading.
Wanda
Yes, you definitely have options Erin. Go ahead and explore a few to see which works best for you.
Erin,
I believe use can use true/false, multiple choice (I call it guess) and short answer very well teaching in some disciplines. However, there are some disciplines in which I do not think these types of assessments work well. For example, English and Oral Communication require difference forms of assessment, because application of theory is essential. In addition, assessment and use of critical listening, critical thinking and critical analysis must be developed and demonstrated. Performance is crucial in mastering these disciplines, and I do not believe they can be adequately assessed by true/fale, multiple choice and short answer tests. Particularly, since the effective level of communication of the students in our classes is very low. I am all for streamlining the grading process, but I do not want to sacrifice student learning in the process.
Most of my exams are short answer, I find them to work well but I do realize that I am spending quite a bit of time on the grading. I am glad to know there are options out there to help with test making and grading I hope those might help me develope a bit quicker exam to grade
I will definetly use a few of the on-line resources to lessen the time of preparing and grading tests. Plus I love to research material for classes so I will use as many of these and post them on the students portal when appropriate.
This is really a great idea Frank and one I've used before. It's amazing how cutting down on the time you flip through exam pages can save time.
Changing the format of my midterm and final could reduce the time it takes to grade my classes. To clarify, I could keep my exams the same, however, going forward I will include an answer page were the students could record all of their solutions to the exam. Then I could use a one page key to correct it, and not have to turn 10-20 pages per exam to grade the test.
This is a good question, and I am not sure I can or need to do so. I am an oral communication instructor in a technology school. Most of the students have very poor interpersonal communication skills and critical thinking skills. The course I teach is required and it is my responsibility to help the students start developing their interpersonal and public speaking skills. My assignments are mainly performance based, with short take home quizzes. I have rubics set up for grading the speeches and a system for grading the take home quizzes. So, I think I have streamlined the grading process as much as I can or should..... but I'll keep thinking.
I think it's great to streamline the testing/grading process but I test my students how they will be tested on there national boards. I think this better prepares them, instead of making it easier for me.
Dr. Melissa:
I used the strategy in getting students to grade their work and provided a rubric.This worked well. I have already noticed an improvement tn this weeks assignment quality from the students.
Wanda
I administer all of my exams using the online Blackboard system.
Over the years, I have modified the exams to contain less essay/short answer questions (so that they take less time to grade)
...However, I also feel that essay/short answer questions are often the BEST way of assessing what a student has learned, and also requires students to utilize writing skills. Because of this, I will never fully eliminate essay/short answer questions
There are lots of ways to streamline the grading process for homework. Actually, many of the methods used for quickly grading exams can also apply to helping with homework grading.
I feel that the formatting of my exams are good because they are a mixture of true/false, multiple choice & matching. There are a few times that I incoperate short answer but I try to avoid too many of these as they create extra grading. Homework, well I have yet to figure out something that will allow for less time grading...
