Assessments#
The recommended way to assess the progress of your students throughout the semester is with a combination of participation problems, online homework, quizzes, and exams. Generally speaking, having a larger number and variety of assessments is beneficial for your students.
Participation Problems#
Participation problems are posed to the class during our daily Zoom meeting and are based on recent lecture video examples. Students are given class time to work on them using their lecture notes, after which their work is collected, and the correct solution is reviewed.
These participation problems are not usually graded on correctness or even completeness. I just want to see if it looks like they put in an honest effort to solve the problems using their notes. I use a simple binary scale (0 or 1) on whether they get credit.
The questions are intentionally written very similar to the examples from the lecture videos.
I either collect their work on Gradescope or more commonly have them hold up their work to the Zoom camera. Screenshots of the Zoom gallery view are a quick way to identify participants and for grading purposes afterward.
Online Homework#
Online homework sets give students an opportunity to practice addtional problems outside of class time, uisng WeBWorK or some other automatic grading platform. Part of the daily meeting can be used to discuss questions about the homework.
Due to integrity concerns, it is recommended that you assign homework using an online platform which can be graded automatically as compared to handwritten assignments which need to be graded individually. Save your time for grading and validating the proctored assessments.
Quizzes#
Quizzes use the standard 2-device proctoring setup with one exception: they are given during the regular Zoom meeting with only the instructor acting as proctor. Once finished, students go through the usual check-out procedure and upload their work to Gradescope.
Why? Having 2-device proctored quizzes is an excellent way for both students and instructors to practice the logistics of completing a proctored assessment before the actual high-stakes midterm exams.
Prepares students for how the higher-stakes midterm exams will work.
Prepares students for correct camera positioning.
Lowers the number of cases of academic dishonesty.
Recording: I use the cloud recording feature of Zoom, but I also do a local screen recording for large classes that have more than 24 students. When students check out, I pin their video in Zoom so that their work is actually legible. The local recording captures the pinned view, while the cloud recording captures the gallery view.
Screenshots: As students checkout, I also take a screenshot on my computer. This gives me a bigger image that I can use to compare what they showed me versus what they uploaded to Gradescope. If the class is a manageable size, I will do this for all students. If not, I will do this for a rotating subset of students so that everyone at least gets checked at least a few times.
Exams#
Exams use the same 2-device proctoring setup as the quizzes, but now with a separate Zoom Meeting for each group of 24 students. Groups of 24 students are used to ensure that all students are being continuously recorded in the Zoom gallery view.
Quizzes: Instructors can use the regular Zoom meeting they create for thier daily meetings.
Exams: New Zoom meetings will be scheduled for each instructor by the department. These links will be sent out to each instructor after the add / drop period.