Using data to ease the grading process - An Educator's Perspective. I have become an educator and I am teaching a Spanish MOOC with over 1,000 students! They submit weekly assignments that are to be hand graded, and I alone simply cannot meet the task of grading these assignments. Obviously there is no silver bullet, and no proven technology to automatically grade writing assignments. So, out of necessity, we developed a process to ease our burden as teachers grading assignments.
When I was a junior in high school, our teacher's union declared an order for all the teachers in the district: they were to "work to rule," which meant that they would not spend any time beyond the 40 hours indicated in their contract helping students or grading assignments . Learners follow assignment instructions (e.g. We have found that this substantially reduces the effort we expend on grading assignments.
You may also find useful the following video where Ryan and me introduce the next big MOOC: Blended Teaching of World Languages. Harvard researchers: frequent tests increase retention in online learning. It's easy to get distracted--especially when you're in the midst of an online training course that shows no signs of ending. While most of us can agree on the utility of web-delivered training, we must also face the reality that even the most well-intentioned of learners, when left to their own devices, can be distracted by a sudden beep on their tablet or a buzz of their smartphone. Studies have shown the distractions can be disastrous to concentration: Michigan State researchers found that interruptions as short as 2.8 seconds can double the rate of errors in a sequence-based task.
The question then falls to us: A pair of researchers at Harvard University think they've got part of the answer. In a study run by Daniel Schacter, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology, and Karl Szpunar, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology, they found that interspersing short quizzes into online learning course can dramatically increase student retention of material. Frequent, Low-Stakes Grading: Assessment for Communication, Confidence. April 18, 2013 By: Scott Warnock, PhD in Educational Assessment, Online Education After going out for tacos, our students can review the restaurant on a website. They watch audiences reach a verdict on talent each season on American Idol. When they play video games—and they play them a lot—their screens are filled with status and reward metrics.
And after (and sometimes while) taking our classes, they can go online to www.ratemyprofessors.com. It may surprise us to think of it like this, but today’s students grew up in a culture of routine assessment and feedback. Certainly, grades, when misused as what Filene (2005) calls a “pedagogical whip,” can lead to problems: Grading curves pit students against each other, fostering strategic rather than deep learning (Bain, 2004). I offer the strategy/philosophy of frequent, low-stakes (FLS) grading: simple course evaluation methods that allow you to provide students with many grades so that an individual grade doesn’t mean much. Bain, K. (2004). Assessing Assessment: Five Keys to Success. April 22, 2013 By: Vickie Kelly, EdD in Educational Assessment There are those in the academic community who dread hearing and reading about assessment. But aside from the mandatory reporting required by credentialing and accreditation agencies, how can faculty members be sure that all of the assessment activities they are required to report actually produce change and are not just more paperwork?
The university where I teach is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and is on the new review cycle. As part of that initiative, members of the university assessment committee, of which I am a member, are charged with reviewing program assessment plans and reporting to the accreditation committee. This article was prompted by research that I conducted for the committee to develop a new and more inclusive rubric. There are some excellent resources on program assessment that can drive the right questions when assessing assessment. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Dr. Assessing Student Learning - five practical guides. ‘If lower-order learning is an unintended educational consequence of on-line assessment, then any perceived or real gains made in efficiency, staff workload reduction and/or cost savings are at a questionable price.’ Why consider on-line assessment? A good deal of investigation and development is underway in Australian universities into the possibilities for effective and efficient on-line and computer-based assessment.
The current commercial ‘virtual learning environments’, which integrate various curriculum elements at subject level into a single software portal, usually offer various built-in options for student assessment. As well, many on-line assessment initiatives are being locally developed to suit specific curriculum needs. There are many reasons why on-line assessment is being adopted by Australian universities. The move to on-line and computer based assessment is a natural outcome of the increasing use of information and communication technologies to enhance learning. NB. Content Mastery and Problem Solving Skills | PHYZOOKS. I recently had the honor to help host a district showcase on the uses of the Canvas LMS.
It was set up like “speed dating” where I sat in one place, with my laptop connected to a large monitor, and interested parties moved from table to table, and asked me questions, or watched a demo of how I use the LMS. It was cool. And I got asked many great questions. Most of the specific questions were on quizzes. This is because in my AP and gen. physics classes I give all quizzes on Canvas. I have quiz banks set up, from which Canvas pulls random problems, and the students do their best to answer them. One question went something like this, “Well, how do they take the quizzes? It would seem the other teacher viewed quizzes as mini exams. But I don’t use quizzes that way. Sure some students may be “cheating” a little, asking someone nearby what the answer is when I’m not looking, but generally this is not the case. So what should I tell a teacher who raises a concern like the one above?
Create. Share. Learn. Where everyone can create, publish, share and take tests, exercises and assignments. Designing Assignments that Accomplish Course Goals. December 5, 2012 By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog I’m betting that many of you are in the midst of grading a large stack of papers, projects or other final assignments. Too often these end-of-course pieces of work don’t live up to our expectations or students’ potential. It’s easy for us (especially the elders among us) to bemoan the fact that students aren’t what they used to be. As usual, my reading is what got me thinking about this topic. It’s the example of his general education writing course focused on the social functions of art that made me see how clear the connection between assignments and course goals needs to be. After making some changes, students are still writing three papers, but the assignments are very different. Here’s why these assignments better accomplish the course goals.
Does that mean students enjoy writing these papers? Reference: Hanstedt, P. Recent Trackbacks.