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Testing and Grading

Testing and grading are probably two of the most important academic concerns of most students, and two of the most difficult and complex challenges for you. You probably look at grades on tests and assignments as an assessment of how well students learned what you taught. Students may look at grades as a personal judgment or as a commodity that will likely have a concrete influence on their academic and vocational futures. Both of these perspectives place a significant obligation on you to be clear, fair, careful, and expeditious in testing and grading activities.

Technology can help.

Making the Tests.
There are numerous software programs, both in course management systems and independent packages, which can help you to format and create tests. Some will allow you to load test items into a database and then randomly select the number of test items you want on your exam. You can also create your own database of test questions, connected to the material and skills you are teaching. Referring to such a database from time to time can actually help you to stay focused on, or revise, what students need to know to pass the course.

Taking the Tests.
There are also IT tools that will enable students to take tests and be scored on-line, either within a course management system like Blackboard, or with stand-alone programs. You should consider the implications for student responsibility, accountability, and integrity that the absence of physical test-site proctoring raises. Regardless, these tools can be useful for practice tests and other ungraded exercises designed to help students learn or to get prepared for an upcoming in-class exam. Some programs will allow a degree of immediate answer analysis and provide instant feedback to students regarding their test responses.

Scoring the Tests.
Some of the test-taking software tools mentioned above will also provide scoring capability. Also, if you choose to use multiple-choice “bubble sheet” tests, you can have them computer-scored and get a report of various statistical parameters of class performance on the test as a whole and on each test item. This kind of information can help you diagnose problem trends in student learning as well as help you discover ways to improve your tests or modify your teaching.

Grading the Tests.
There are software packages and templates for loading into Excel and other spreadsheet programs that will translate numerical scores into letter grades according to standards you establish, whether criteria-based (where you establish the “criteria” for an “A,” “B,” etc. before the test), or normative-based (where letter grades are designated according to some kind of “curve” of the distribution of numerical grades in the class). The University will require a letter grade for each student you teach, but there are no UNC standards as to what constitutes an A or an F. That is a departmental or individual issue.

Recording the Grades.
You can access university-administered, Electronic Class Rolls (ECR) and then place this roster information into on-line grade books or templates that will then do most of the math associated with averaging grades and scores over the semester. These grade books may be within course management systems like Blackboard, or exist as independent programs. Excel and other spreadsheet programs can also serve as effective grade recording/tracking tools.

Distributing the Grades.
You can protect all of this information to assure grade confidentiality for your students, but still allow them to know how they're doing. Many gradebooks, particularly those associated with course management systems like Blackboard, include this kind of confidential access to grades by students. You can also communicate grades through email or password-protected communication on your web site.

Glossary of Related Terms.

Blackboard
CCI (Carolina Computing Initiative)
Classroom and lab scheduling
Course management software
Electronic class rolls (ECR)
Exam scanning
Grading templates
Group workspace
Chat/Instant Messaging
Library instructional services
List servs
On-line grade book
On-line quizzes
Security
SIS-Access
Video conferencing

 

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