How to Assess Students from Home

Looking after students' and teachers' mental and physical wellbeing takes first priority, but most schools still have to plan how they will manage to assess their 1st - 5th year students at the end of the school year. As part of our recent teacher survey, over 1500 teachers shared ideas about how their school plans to manage assessments in this new era of remote teaching.

Recognition of participation with online learning

Rewarding students for their engagement with the remote classes you have delivered is a great way of recognising the effort that students have put in in attending online classes and doing work. It is important, however, to be cognisant of the fact that sometimes lack of student engagement can be a result of that student not having internet access, access to a device or they may even be expected to mind younger siblings. It is worth schools having a system in place whereby management are in a position to be able to make teachers aware if certain students have valid reasons for not being able to engage online.

Online testing and quizzes

There are many really great tools that lets teachers create customised tests. Google forms and Microsoft forms are great options. You simply create your test by adding a series of questions, you then get a link to share with your students by email or through your school’s LMS. Once your students take the test, you can access their individual responses in order to mark each student.

In a pre-COVID world, we launched Studyclix Teacher Quizzes which is a tool that lets you create quizzes for your class that you don’t have to correct.

Assignments & CBAs

Many schools are rewarding students for work done prior to the school closures. Many students will have already completed CBAs as well as other practical work that can be acknowledged in summer reports which for many schools will be comment only formative feedback.

Averaged grades from work and exams undertaken prior to school closures

A minority of schools are opting to not hold any summer assessments and instead are choosing to grade students on an average of school assessments taken prior to the school closures that in some cases includes mock exam results.

Paper exams

Some teachers will be simulating an exam hall-type situation by setting up a Zoom or Google Hangouts call at a pre-arranged time. They will then share their test and all students take the test on paper while on the call. After the test, the student is then required to immediately photograph their work and send on the photos for marking.

In conclusion

These are just some of the possibilities. Perhaps you'd like to use a mix of some of the options listed above, or if you have other good ideas that you'd like us to add to the list, do get in touch at info@studyclix.ie.

Best of luck with the assessments and let us know if you need any assistance.