Pre-Tests and Student Growth Focus

Ah, student growth. We, as teachers, will be evaluated based on this next year in Missouri.  But, our school district is having us give a full course pre-test now  (this year) so we can track student growth from beginning to end for practice. In some classes, like my Microsoft Office class, I do pre-test by application just to see if there are things everyone always knows. However, my advanced tech classes like Multimedia, Web Design, and Photoshop are a different story. Unless someone just happens to be a dabbler or have a parent who uses one of the programs, most students start with pretty much no requisite knowledge. So, having them do a "final project" now would just be a waste of time.

Thus, I will have to administer objective pre- and post- tests for those courses (the post being the final exam or a test right before the final). I have those, though I also include other parts in my final exams that I will just not include in the pre-test. We have to track data on the "apples to apples" questions and keep a spreadsheet showing student growth from pre- to post- test. FUN! :)

Anyway, I remembered looking at a program (an app, actually) called ZipGrade last summer. ZipGrade turns your phone or tablet into an optical grading machine similar to a Scantron. It reads free-to-download answer sheets. So, I pulled out my phone and logged into the ZipGrade Cloud (had to sign up for that part) and created an answer key to the 50 question exam based on last year's final exam key (easy, just click the bubbles!). Then, I printed an answer sheet and bubbled randomly.  **Disclaimer: Yes, I realize they make scantron machines, but the computer ours is hooked to in the lounge doesn't work so you can't get data from it anyway. Oh, and in 18 years, I've never been trained. :) ha ha

I had to go in and create a fictional student to take my test and assign an ID. However, you can import CSV data (which is what I will do when rosters are final and I give the test) with names.

What I like about ZipGrade is that you can easily log into it online and you can see data analysis (how many got each question right and most " alternate answered" of the wrong distractor). Here's a few screenshots. You can see I scanned the same test twice, meaning the student can take it again and you will see it as another attempt.

So, the first 100 scans are free and after that, you'd have to pay. But, it's $6.99/yr. that's not too shabby. :)  And, you can print results (as PDF) from the program. One option is "strip report" which is for you to give students and it gives their scores AND their incorrect answers! And, you can also print (if you needed to) a PDF that shows each student on an individual page with their actual scanned test and the answer key. 

Here's a short video showing what the app looks like. They have a Google Play app (Android) and an iOS app for the Apple folks. 

Oh, and bonus! In trying to show you a video about how to do this, I learned about an app for Android called Mobizen, which I used to record the screen demo. #win #love2learn