Exam Angst and Technology
It's exam week! The smell of fresh fear tangs the air! The begging for extra credit rings through the halls!
It's a stressful time for everyone.
I run a seminar on how to study for final exams to help alleviate some of the fear. I give exactly one chance for extra credit per semester, and it's always at least four weeks before finals, so my response to beggars is, "You had a chance for extra credit last month and you didn't take it. Sorry!"
Technology has granted me an interesting new twist on finals, though.
We have this program for scanning multiple choice tests. You know--those sheets you bubbled in when =you= were in school. I can create a test through the program, which also prints off specially-coded answer sheets. When a student finishes the test and brings it to my desk, I run the answer sheet under my document camera. The computer instantly scans it and gives a score. I can scribble the score at the bottom of the answer sheet and show it to the student. Instant feedback!
The program also lets me scan the same sheet more than once. So a student can take the sheet back, make corrections, and resubmit it.
I do this with exams. The student finishes and brings the sheet to me, I scan it, and report the score. If it's lower than 70%, I hand it back and say, "Do you want to try again?" They don't know which ones they missed; only that they missed a certain number of questions. Almost always when they resubmit, the score is a little higher.
Angst v. technology!
comments
It's a stressful time for everyone.
I run a seminar on how to study for final exams to help alleviate some of the fear. I give exactly one chance for extra credit per semester, and it's always at least four weeks before finals, so my response to beggars is, "You had a chance for extra credit last month and you didn't take it. Sorry!"
Technology has granted me an interesting new twist on finals, though.
We have this program for scanning multiple choice tests. You know--those sheets you bubbled in when =you= were in school. I can create a test through the program, which also prints off specially-coded answer sheets. When a student finishes the test and brings it to my desk, I run the answer sheet under my document camera. The computer instantly scans it and gives a score. I can scribble the score at the bottom of the answer sheet and show it to the student. Instant feedback!
The program also lets me scan the same sheet more than once. So a student can take the sheet back, make corrections, and resubmit it.
I do this with exams. The student finishes and brings the sheet to me, I scan it, and report the score. If it's lower than 70%, I hand it back and say, "Do you want to try again?" They don't know which ones they missed; only that they missed a certain number of questions. Almost always when they resubmit, the score is a little higher.
Angst v. technology!
comments
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