Thursday, April 2, 2009

It gets worse

Still grading exams. I didn't expect this, but they managed to get worse. On one of the first quizzes I gave them, it seemed that the average class grade went up as the week went along, so I made multiple versions of exams to discourage sharing of info with friends from other classes. This time I just made A and B versions of two exams: 1A and 1B for Tuesday and Wednesday classes (only difference is the questions are in a different order or multiple choice answers are mixed up, so if they decide to peek at their neighbor's exam, it won't help) and a 2A and 2B version for the two Thursday classes.

I expected that the Tuesday group might have slightly higher scores. I was wrong.

Here's the rundown
o As
1 B
1 C
6 Ds
34 Fs (80% of the class)

8 solid Fs (50-59%)
14 Gs (40-49%)
10 Hs (30-39%)
2 Is (20-29%)

Maybe the next exam should be open book?
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2 comments:

Nate and Molly said...

in my experience students don't do well on open book tests. I don't know why. Maybe they don't study and then they try to look up every little thing and they don't finish? Or they think it is automatically easier so they rush through it? I've always been disappointed with the outcome of open-book stuff. I think that only the students who are good students already do well on them.

Hang in there! Do something fun to get your mind off of it.

April 3, 2009 at 4:43 PM
Clay said...

I agree about the open book....of course at my school we have no book this term.....I'm teaching oral English to the trade and economic majors. conerning cheating.....I find the cheaters are the pretty girls who are quiet. The boys seem to be proud of getting a low grade:)

April 4, 2009 at 9:25 PM

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