Interface for matching two stage exams
Crowdmark is a collaborative online grading and analytics platform. Until now collaboration has been focused on facilitators and graders who use the platform to grade student work. With the launch of support for two stage exams, we have extended assessment collaboration to include students. This most recent product improvement supports our ongoing mission to enrich learning by transforming assessment into a dialogue for improvement.
Instructors at five universities experimented with Crowdmark to grade two stage exams during 2014-2015. In a two stage exam, students first write an exam individually and then assemble into small groups and collaborate to answer similar or identical questions again. (Further information about two stage exams may be found following the links shared below.) Feedback from the instructors who led these experiments drove Crowdmark to improve and provide better support for two stage exams.
Matching multiple students to an assessment
The Crowdmark workflow includes a matching step: instructors associate a scanned image of an assessment booklet with the student who wrote the assessment. New flexibility allows instructors to match multiple students to an assessment. This improvement provides an elegant workflow to support two stage exams and other group assessments.
The ability to match assessments to multiple students has applications beyond two stage exams. Crowdmark can now be used to evaluate lab reports and other projects authored by a collaborating group of students.
Background: What’s a two stage exam?
- “Two-stage exams” by UBC Public Affairs (YouTube)
- Carl Weiman’s Paper about his research with Georg W. Rieger and Cynthia E. Heiner (PDF)
- B. Gilley & B. Clarkston, “Collaborative Testing: Evidence of Learning in a Controlled In-Class Study of Undergraduate Students,” J. College Sci. Teaching, V. 43(3), pp. 83-91 (2014) (PDF)
- G. Rieger & C. Heiner, “Examinations That Support Collaborative Learning: The Students’ Perspective,” J. College Sci. Teach., V. 43(4), pp. 41-47 (2014). (PDF)
- UBC Guide to Two Stage Exams (PDF)
Acknowledgements: I thank the following instructors for inspiring Crowdmark to support two stage exams:
- Robert Borgerson, Manitoba
- Vincent Bouchard, Alberta
- Gerda de Vries, Alberta
- James Fraser, Queen’s
- Peter Ostafichuk, UBC
- Gandhi Puvvada, USC