The thought of having students evaluate each other seems like it could raise some eyebrows for accreditation. What’s to stop students from intentionally sabotaging their peers work? I would avoid this and format the assignment to make it easier to grade. Students make mistakes as it is.
Jon
My online university provides the curriculum, so I have little to no control over the format. What I can do is to provide feedback to course development so that any hang-ups can be resolved as I work through the course topics.
I used to give essay and short answer exams and they did take an eternity to grade. I now use the scantron machine but when I pick my multiple choice I choose answers that can sound correct for the question.
I will look at the websites and see what I can learn from them.
Seperating the questions and answers is a great idea and i will use this technique on my future tests.
This was a great module. I really appreciated the tips. I had not considered the impact of underlining Essay materials rather than requiring long answers which must be read. However, I will continue to use at least 1 essay question because writing skills are an important part of our program.
I like the idea of the other students grading someone else's so that they can review on the spot and then it is already graded
Excellent! Glad you are benefiting. Scantrons are an excellent way to save time.
Thanks to the test writing etc portion of thses courses, I have been able to feel better about using more scan tron quizzes and tests. Wow its so easy.
I love them. Also, this speaks to the topic discussion of not re-inventing the wheel.
Rubrics work great Marcia - even when grading assignments that are based on real-world scenarios.
Our online courses do not have exams. We assess understanding and mastery of the subject via completing assignments that are real-world scenarios.
The students are required to submit their work by a deadline date then we have 72 hours to grade the work.
There is no formatting involved. However, I have discovered that using Rubrics that provide a point break-down of each aspect of the assignment is better for providing formative feedback.
I will use the Rubrics for all classes.
Ah, I remember Testgen quite well. Outdated but convenient on a budget. I'm not sure about the functionality of Easytestmaker but if it's newer than Testgen, there are likely to be some upgrades.
We used to use a program called "Testgen" (very old!). The good thing about this program was that you could type in your questions and answers and then generate different tests in different formats at any time. Is this the functionality of "easytestmaker"? We have been looking for software to replace "Testgen", but if a free online program of similar capability is available...
We all seem to spend much more time GENERATING tests than GRADING tests, and therefore, in our small school atmosphere, the tests are saved and re-used over and over, not allowing for things like "different" tests for make-ups, etc.
Our exams are created with ExamView software (similar to the software mentioned, but came free from our vendor along with a set of test banks for each module), so I would have to say not significantly.
After this module I can see that I have been practicing alot of the streamlined grading. I give a quiz and redistribute to the class for grading as a team instead of myself. I also use Scantron forms for exams.
Most of the Homwork that is students are required does not take too much time to grade, however I think its a great idea to have the students grade the homworks as a group, by handing the homework back in class.
Great points Bruce. Even if your school administration has a standard exam, it doesn't hurt to ask if you can make some modifications for faster grading.
Even though our exams are more or less dictated by the admiinistration of the school, instructors are aloowed to partially change the test in order to fit their particular class needs. I have with our tests tired to streamline them for the sake of time, and thereofre I have used a variety of ways to test the students. On each test there are questions that are multiple choice, true/false and some fill ins as well as some essay type. Even thpough the tests have a variety of testing questions, they do seem to work fairy well and do not ususally take an inappropriate amount of time to correct.
This is quite the dilemma Solita! Perhaps you could make grading part of the learning process, and have students grade their exams after they take them. You would of course proof their grading to ensure that it was accurate. But they could do the bulk of the work and learn more in the process.
