I’m glad to see your fourth bullet Glenn. When things get too stressful and when we feel like time is running out, it’s easy to forget why we became instructors in the first place. For many of us, we began working with students because was something we really enjoyed. It was fun. And doing fun things can reduce stress I our lives and really help us enjoy the time we have. So remembering to have fun in what you do is a great part of your strategy and I’m glad to see it here.
After grading tests, the frustrating thing for me is when a student does not like there grade on a question.
That is frustrating Eugene. When this happens, I remind students that I did not give them the grades, I’m just the reporter. Grades are something that students earn, a natural outcome of knowing or not knowing the exam material.
I am unable to do the online grade book and testing at this time. My wife is taking college courses and utilizes those methods. In the future I hope to be able to streamline the process.
Multiple choice make it cut and dry, Followed by a hands on task gives you the time to grade as they are working, Now it does take some time to log the information in and that is where scantron would be the best for the written part.
I would like to stick to what I have been doing. In fact, I'm happy to report that it is exactly on the lines suggested in the Module 2.
In some courses, I follow the multiple choice & T/F, and other courses, for example, in Business Ethics, I stick to short essays, spliting the questions into 2-3 short parts so that the students can specifically give me the answer I'm looking for & I can also grade efficiently & effectively.
I have been a university lecturer for almost 20 years where multiple questions were not the norm. In law, you have to have reasons & arguments. At the Career College, initially, I struggled with the idea of just having multiple/ true & false type of tests. Then, the biggest problem was how to collate the results in a timely fashion as the grading of essay form scripts continued right up to the deadline for submission of results. So, I turrned to excel right in the beginning of each semester, type my class roster names, and start putting in the grades for each week quizzes. The most helpful aid in this respect were the CDs/Tests generated through test banks and, also, the students writing answers in the margin-blanks I provided the students with. It is well tested time-saver; try it out.
My students are given enough info to complete the project then it is discussed in greater detail when they are finished.The highest grade they can get in regular lab is a 70% and on the last day of class we do an assessment on 2 random projects.This keeps focus and allows students to work as partners but since they dont know exactly what they will be assessed on they both make sure to know every aspect of the projects.
I believe it woild be helpful to have a time limit on the testing procedures
Indeed. Setting limits as well as student expectations is often key when it comes to streamlining grading.
I teach all aspects of Drafting and Design. The use of multiple guess exams works for portions of the course material. The rest is based on actual technical drawings. Setting up well defined rubrics helps with grading the drawings. However, the one thing that eats my time up is plagerism among the students. I realize this is a topic for other discussions, but once it is suspected, It has to be examined much closer. The time it takes to try and find even minute differences, if there are any, is pain staking.
Any suggestions on how to streamline this process?
This is a really difficult question Dale. When assessing plagiarism in essay style reports, search engines like Google have become the ideal tool. You can assess the situation quickly and easily by simply typing in a few lines from the report that is suspected of plagiarism. When it comes to assessing design work, these methods are less helpful. I am not sure of the fastest approach to addressing plagiarism here, other than confronting your students directly and letting the honors system work for you when it can.
The system we currently have in place is very simple and effective.It works great
All of our written test are easily graded. The labs were more subjective. I prefaced the lab exercises with a written document that detailed what and how many points would be deducted for each exercise. This reduced the stress on the student and held them accountable for their lab score. It also reduced the stress for the instructor by letting him focus on specific areas of the lab sheet by reducing subjective grading. This process lead to less time in grading the exercise and a more fair process for the students.
Great points Tim! Sometimes, systems that expedite the grading process also serve our students better. So it’s a win win.
We grade our assignments as a class so we kill to birds with one stone we grade them and cover any questions the students may have about what they missed.
That's an interesting benefit Rick. When students grade their own assignments, questions on missed answers do come out. And addressing them as a class is a learning experience - which is a benefit to the student.
I currently utilize many of the formats suggested in this module. However, I do know that I do need to work on organizing my personal space. It is cluttered and that is not a good thing for the instructor who shares the room. Even though it is my space, she still has to look at it.
Great point Christa! We must carefully consider the impact of our organizational skills on those around us - especially in shared spaces.
I have in the past used tests where the student will write a short answer to the question. I will modify this to make the answers be written in the right hand part of the page. In addition, I will use a combination of multiply choice and true, false questions with the answers to be written to the right hand portion of the page.
I already have students grade each others’ papers which not only helps me with grading time but also helps reinforce the material to the student two times. Reinforcing the material while grading the test and then again when we review the graded papers.
