Topical test with Google Forms

As much as I believe that the student need to be tested from time to time, I do have to admit that topical test or exams season is one of the most dreaded times for me. The whole process of setting the test papers, then conducting the exams in sync with the other classes, and then marking the papers makes me so anxious. Did we get enough copies for test papers for the students? Are the pictures clear enough to see due to the eco mode setting of the photocopiers? Are they any typos in the exams or did we leave anything out? These are the many things that I hate facing every exam season.

What’s worse is the time you have to put in to mark the student’s answers. From illogical answers to illegible handwriting, I’ve seen it all. Sometimes I do envy the math teachers as some students tend to leave the answers blank. So easy to mark. The science and physics subject however, some students can get really creative with their answers, and worst still, I’ll have to try to understand their point to see whether its worthy of a mark or two.

However, the times have changed and along that our methods. I’ve been experimenting with google forms as a means to conduct topical tests. This is no way a perfect solution but developing this space might lead to a lot of new possibilities. For now, I stick with only multiple choice questions. So it can be graded by google the moment they submit their answers. I find that very handy as you don’t have to go through all their papers to see how well (or badly) did the students do in their exams. Another plus is that the students can also see how well (or badly) they did, something they had to wait a few days to a week or two when doing in on paper.

Another great thing about using Google forms for the test is that you get to analyze the data from the student’s answers. Insights such as which questions did the students get wrong the most or how much do they understand a topic can be auto generated by Google forms. Bear in mind, these insights are generated as soon as the test ends. That’s something that would have taken at least a day for us to do manually so I am most definitely grateful for that.

On the downside of this is that it may not be possible to grade subjective questions automatically. To be honest, if Google forms were able to do that, I would have started a petition to the school to use Google forms a long time ago. I guess this is why we cannot fully implement online forms such as Google forms to conduct important exams.

Another thing about this is that that the students would have to be online to answer. Hence, monitoring all of them so that they would not go online to check for the answers would be next to impossible. After all, they are pretty cunning when presented with opportunity. Yet another reason why we may not be able to implement Google forms in our major exams.

Maybe I’ll find some magical setting that would solve all the limitations on this format. Or perhaps a better program would be created in due time, specifically designed to meet our needs as teachers. But whatever it is, we’ll just have to wait.

Till next time, Felix.