Post 5, Testing is such fun

This week in the reading, I found myself disheartened at what I read. I know testing isn't fun for students. Last week, and this week I'm learning of the agony of testing from the other side of the classroom.

First and foremost I found the notion of choosing the type of question problematic in my class I'm teaching. The test I formulated is all multiple choice. Judging by what McKeachie says about multiple choice testing, this does not conform to my idealized concept of how my classroom would run. I did find some solace in reading the section titled "Grading Essay Questions"

This section was helpful for several reasons. First, it gave me comfort knowing that although I'm using a multiple choice format for my test, I am getting at some of the benefits of an essay style question through the speaking assignments. I came to accept that my students are (hopefully anyhow) applying class concepts through their speeches.

Additionally, the section was helpful to me as an instructor going through the pains of grading speeches. I found that suggestions presented for grading essay tests can easily be applied to grading speeches. I found that the suggestions presented were helpful in terms of making a rubric, writing specific comments on papers (or grading forms in this case), coding comments, and doing a short analysis of student performance. Sadly however many of the recommendations do not carry over to speeches. Examples of these are: grading without knowing who the student is and taking a random sample. Somewhere in between applicable and not is the notion of grading in teams. We have fun grading in the office together which, makes the experience more enjoyable. Also, to a degree we can get our colleagues input on grading, but on the whole it isn't something that we can really do with a speech.

Admittedly, I thought about skipping the section on grading essay questions due to time constraints but, I'm glad I decided to read it. I found it useful information that confronted many of the tensions and struggles I'm facing in grading this second round of speeches. For the next speech I plan on expanding upon the rubric provided for the speech. For example, determining exactly what good eye contact is, and assigning a certain amount of points to that aspect of delivery. I believe that this will add to the overall validity of my grading. In a similar fashion assigning a grade calls upon issues I've been facing.

The notion of grading on a curve versus criterion based grading I found to be of interest. I believe that much of the grading and exam related principles suggested imply grading on a curve. We can see this through the implications of looking at work relative to other students. For example going back to "Grading Essay Questions" procedure 3 says "Read all or several of the examinations in a preliminary fashion to establish some notion of the general level of performance" (McKeachie, 2006, p. 96). Clearly, this implies grading on a curve and looking at student performance relative to each other. If for example, every essay violates the core rubric an instructor has for what an A paper is, does that make it okay to lower the bar? In a way this could cause grade inflation.

Grade inflation is our favorite topic ever, therefore I must dedicate some time to it. The excerpt for the week "What the Best College Teachers Do" very briefly touches on the notion of "arbitrary extra credit". Given the discussion we had on grade inflation last week, and reading over that term, I feel that this could likely be a good reason for grade inflation (if it does indeed exist). The notion of arbitrary extra credit is that we are grading on items not related to learning.

Arbitrary extra credit can be found everywhere in the fundamentals of public speaking course that many of us are teaching. For example, why do we give credit for attending class? I don't believe that this is an effective measure of what students are learning. Also, although I understand the value of the research requirement, this too is a form of arbitrary extra credit. I felt underhanded for adding pop quizzes as a way to help my students, and give them an easy opportunity to enhance their grade. After reading about arbitrary extra credit I think this is actually a far more honorable means of giving credit for coming to class. If nothing else, I'm measuring learning and understanding of course concepts which is far more than giving 40 points for attendance is doing. Clearly, if we want to battle grade inflation within the communication department, we should cut much of the arbitrary extra credit that we give.

On a final note I wanted to talk about assessment. We spoke of the value of non-graded assignments, and concerns of students completing them. (This is probably why we give arbitrary extra credit for participating in research). In any event, I've thought a lot about ungraded assessment. I believe it has it's place, and can bridge our dissonance with the notion of arbitrary extra credit. For example, we could have an "ungraded" assignment and use a check, check plus/minus system and use that as attendance points. As long as a student turns something in they get the equivalent of a "D" for argument sake. I feel there is no harm in rewarding students for effort on something that isn't graded, and it could work towards making attendance something less given, and more earned. Perhaps this runs counter to the notion of ungraded assessment (or completely does) but I think it may be useful.

Helpful Links:

ECE Article in Ebsco I found this article in the ebsco database on extra credit exercises (ECE). this article speaks to the value of giving one point extra credit pop quizzes. The article also talks about giving percentages of a point but I don't necessarily agree with that. However, the article speaks to several benefits of this exercise, and I think it would be something I would incorporate into my classroom.

General Tips for Writing Multiple Choice Questions I found this source to be very useful when considering how to write multiple choice questions. Additionally, the book referred to terms that this article expands upon.