Ode to Scantron

For two years there have been debates among the department heads about whether we should buy a scantron machine.  We finally arranged for the representative to lend us a machine to try.  The machine arrived in early November and the department heads were asked to try it out.

A scantron is a optical reader that "reads" student answer sheets.  The kids take their tests on a "bubble" sheet just like standardized tests such as the SAT.  The sheets are for multiple choice, matching or true/false questions.  I make a key, feed all the forms through, and the machine grades them.  The kids do not like using the scantron sheets since it reminds them of high stakes testing like the SAT.  But we have pointed out that on our tests they will either have to write out A or color in the bubble - both require work.  For the teachers this means we can spend more time on higher order thinking assignments.

The key concern will be the quality of questions.  It is VERY hard to write good multiple choice questions.  I took a course for my Masters degree on assessment and we spent a lot of time writing, critiquing and rewriting multiple choice questions. I still struggle to make really good ones.  We are afraid the machine will lead to laziness on the teachers' part and poor assessments for the kids.

I have been won over though.  When we were asked to give the scantron machine a try, I did a couple tests on it and then reworked my semester exam so the objective part was 100% on the scantron machine.  Usually it takes 2-3 hours to grade this part of my semester exam.  Today I was done with the grading in 5 minutes! 

Being the school addict that I am, I have been playing around with quizzes for my English 12 course. In the past 3 weeks I have written at least 6 scantron quizzes.  I'm having too much fun.  I have come to the conclusion that the current BFA student needs more little bites to actually understand the material.  The thought of hand grading a weekly quiz has deterred me from this step.  Now I can ask the questions I want but put the answers on a scantron sheet and not be overwhelmed with the grading load.