Exam Builder Online
Most teachers share the same student-related concerns. Students
forgetting lessons from the previous school year. Students moving on to
the next level though not yet that prepared. Students who should belong
to another section. And so on and so forth.
As teachers, you can always have high expectations of concept
mastery from students. You can choose to only award good grades when
students really deserve it. Or you may even advocate placement testing
so students are grouped according to their capabilities.
How can you keep track of all these? You need statistics and
assessment figures. A form of evaluation is the use of examinations
where students are supposed to answer the questions, get their grades,
and the feedback due them.
But if you want to take things further, what about your own version
of an online assessment management system? Use technology to help you
in this endeavour. You and your students can benefit from automated
grading, immediate feedback, 24/7 access to records, and post-exam
analysis reports.
With online exams, you can manage work better and enhance limited classroom time. Software such as Hot Potatoes, Blackboard Inc. and Exam Builder can very well make these possible.
Teachers simply have to create the exams and post them (be sure to
input the correct answer when making them). Then implement guidelines
for these exams (like students can only view the test once or is
retaking allowed?).
Exam Builder is an award-winning interface that
saves a lot of time when creating online exams. It was designed to be
powerful, flexible and easy-to-use. Tests suddenly become automatically
random as questions and multiple-choice answers reach students in
random order.
They can also perform automated tasks like exam retakes (teachers
can set Exam Builder to immediately reschedule exams) and auto schedule
(for everyone in the group list to take an exam at a particular time).
Software like Exam Builder is perhaps most efficient in providing post-exam benefits.
The exam review feature enables students to see the questions they
answered incorrectly. The gap analysis report gives students an idea
which part of the exam they need to work on. The feedback feature
allows you to send a customizable message when students pass or fail
the exam.
Finally, there are the summary reports. These reports provide
details on your students and their exams. These statistics can also be
the basis for a class analysis report (how each group performed on an
exam) or a progress report, and even be a point of comparison over time.
The tests themselves can have their own statistics, a kind of
post-exam evaluation. You can find out the following with just a click
of a mouse:
- What is the percentage of people who were right or wrong in answering a particular question?
- Which question was most difficult and which was easiest?
- How many respondents answered each question?
- What was the high score, low score, average score and resulting range?
- What was the average time of completion?
- What percent of students clicked on each multiple choice answer?
With online exams come even more data to improve teaching and learning. That’s a great step forward, don’t you think?
Sources:
“Chapter 9. The Assignments Module.” Retrieved April 8, 2009 from
http://manhattan.sourceforge.net/static_content/manhat_docs/teacher_manuals/teacher_manual2.3/hotpotexams.html
“Creating Exams.” Retrieved April 8, 2009 from
http://www.exambuilder.com/overview.htm#fragment-2
“The Problem.” Retrieved April 8, 2009 from
http://www.exambuilder.com/overview.htm
“What is an OAMS?” Retrieved April 8, 2009 from
www.math.unl.edu/~jorr1/presentations/2007/oams/presentation.ppt
(Published 20 April 2009, Smart Communications, Inc.)
