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Attendance and Student Performance

Attendance and Student Performance

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Attendance and Student Performance

Attendance and Student Performance

Does better attendance improve student performance? According to NCBI, students who attend class are more likely to perform better on homework and exams compared to students who do not attend class as often. With the implementation of eduCATE’s Attendance Tracker, student attendance and performance is likely to increase significantly.

Through eduCATE’s Attendance Tracker, professors are able to report on the attendance of a specific student or section. Customizable to the program’s needs, attendance can be tracked either by day or section. 

By requiring attendance or having an attendance policy, the amount of absentee students decreases. According to a NCBI study, when an attendance policy was removed, attendance fell from 85 to 76 percent which is reported to affect students’ overall grades and GPAs.

By showing up to class, students have the chance to ask their professors and/or peers questions. This gives them the ability to understand material at a deeper, more complex level. While students may be more distracted at home or not fully paying attention, being present in class gives them the opportunity to “think more clearly about course topics.” 

Not only do students simply perform better on homework and exams, they are also able to be part of a classroom community. They will be more exposed to other resources and connections that can impact their performance. As students build relationships with their peers, they are more willing to be part of conversations and active learning.

Attending class also gives students the opportunity to build connections with faculty such as their professors. By communicating with faculty, students may have a better idea of their specific strengths and weaknesses in understanding the course material. Professors are also aware of many different opportunities for students, such as internships, and may be beneficial to the students in finding success after college.

A student’s grade heavily reflects their attendance and classroom participation. With the Attendance Tracker in eduCATE, faculty members are able to run reports regarding a specific student’s attendance. Taking those reports, faculty members are then able to determine a final grade or attendance policy. eduCATE and its Attendance Tracker sets students up for success.

Interested in learning more? Check out eMedley’s eduCATE.

Evaluations

Evaluations

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Evaluations

Gauging how material is being taught or how well students are doing in a course or session can be difficult. With evaluations, all parties involved are given an opportunity to understand how a semester is going.

Through evaluations such as those completed through eMedley’s product eValuate, individuals are able to discuss what is being modeled. Student Faculty Evaluations,  Preceptor Student Evaluations, Faculty Course Evaluations and many others heavily contribute to tracking a student’s mastery and their future success.  

Evaluations are able to give deliberate positive and negative feedback to an individual. No matter the type of evaluation or who is evaluating whom, evaluation feedback provides different perspectives and an opportunity to grow as a professional. With evaluations, schools are able to pick out unprofessional behavior and guide the student in a better direction.

Studies have also found that an emphasis on self assessment provides great opportunity for growth and learning how to work alone. Faculty members may learn a more beneficial way to teach, a student may find they are lacking skills in a specific area of the curriculum or may find they don’t fully understand a concept.

According to NCBI, students tend to overestimate their knowledge of specific topics. Along with overestimation, students also show a disconnect between said knowledge and actual demonstrated skills. With observations and evaluations, this disconnect can be reduced. 

Feedback-oriented learning is critical to a student’s success as they are more likely to focus on growth and potential in contrast to just receiving a letter grade. Students will in turn understand what a quality performance looks like and how to set a good goal for themselves. Feedback is meant to “close the gap between current and desired performance.”

With eValuate, administrators are able to create, assign and analyze reports within the system. A wide variety of evaluation types to choose from offer immense opportunities for all included parties and are intended to close that gap between current and desired performances. Form types are easily customizable to fit every need of the evaluation.

eValuate+ is beneficial for students in the didactic and clinical phase and provides great opportunities for growth.

Interested in learning more? Check out eValuate.

Educate Course Feed

Educate Course Feed

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Educate Course Feed

Educate Course Feed

Educate is an intuitive, powerful, comprehensive learning management system designed for health science programs. The Course Feed is the homepage for all the needs of an instructor and a student. This homepage allows them to see a simplistic view of everything going on in class. Instructors can manage assignments, announcements, attendance and much more from this homepage. Students can focus on one class or all their classes at a time to easily manage everything happening in class.

Student’s Course Feed

Because students cannot assign homework or discussions, their course feed looks slightly different than their instructors. Their feed has all the posts from the sections they are in. These are in a minimized listing view, which keeps it neat in order to not overwhelm a student. Each post, whether it be an announcement, homework, or discussion, can be expanded to see the details within the post. Students can comment or like any post which allows for a more interactive online experience. Provided with a full monthly calendar, students are able to see any upcoming assignments and when they are due. They can also see all of their sections, grades and attendance for each section using the sidebar.

Instructor’s Course Feed

The instructor’s feed is very similar to the students. They have all of the minimized posts that are available for the section, and the full month calendar functionality as described above. Instructors have the ability to create and post announcements about the sections for all the students to see. Teachers are able to have their students like announcements in order to ensure their students have seen them. Assigning homework and discussions for students is quick and efficient for instructors. They can see the grades and attendance of each student in the section with the sidebar. Instructors also have access to the gradebook from the course feed. The ability to create a zoom meeting has been recently implemented for instructor convenience.

Benefits

Educate’s Course Feed brings a unique advantage to students and instructors. On just one page, students can easily see all of their assignments and posts from their instructors in every one of their sections. The course feed has a wide range of abilities, while remaining easy to navigate.

Standards and Competencies

Standards and Competencies

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Standards and Competencies

States and schools across the United States are starting to incorporate competency-based learning in their curriculum. Competency-based learning has significant benefits in relation to student learning and instructor testing. As competency-based learning is valuable, Preloaded Standards and Competencies are part of eMedley’s testing system ExamN+.

Competency-based learning focuses heavily on personalized learning. As it is able to measure specifically what category students are lacking in or where there needs to be more instruction, competency-based learning creates more of a positive learning environment for students.

There are five components that make up competency-based learning that makes it successful. Students are able to advance when they master the materials being tested over. As competencies are “explicit, measurable, transferable objectives,” students feel more comfortable and confident. This in turn makes test taking more enjoyable for students. Competency-based learning gives timely and individualized support to students based on what they are struggling with. Competency learning primarily focuses on two objectives including student learning and progress management.

Competency-based learning not only supports the students as it focuses on what they need to improve on, but also sets the student up with great experiences and high expectations. Amount of time spent in a classroom setting can not accurately measure how much a student has mastered. By actively showing mastery of learning, administration and students have a better understanding of their education progression.

Testing in a competency-based learning environment is efficient in promoting long life learning and exceptional career preparation. These tests set clear expectations for students and administrators. Monitoring student progress is critical in a competency-based learning environment, making it ideal to assess with Preloaded Standards and Competencies. 

With Preloaded Standards and Competencies in ExamN+, administrators will be able to fully measure a student’s mastery of material through their exams. Questions have the ability to be tied to specific standards and competencies based on the content of the question. Students will have a more positive testing experience and be more successful in their studies and career.

Smart Test Generation

Smart Test Generation

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smart test

Smart Test Generation

To build a test for every student that covers the same material, but all the tests are different sounds impossible and too time consuming. There has always been the option to build multiple versions of the same test, but they still have the same questions but in a different order. Not only do we have every option available to create the best tests for students, but we have created a tool to significantly decrease the act of cheating and increase the ability to create different versions of the same tests efficiently. This tool is our Smart Test Generation. 

eMedley’s Test Generation

Test Generation is a computer automated tool that randomizes questions for each test. This will create a different test for every student by pulling questions from multiple question banks you select. This feature is so cool because you still get to customize it yourself. It allows you to choose how many questions from each question bank to pull. This makes it more efficient to cover all standards and competencies and topics by choosing how many questions the students need for mastery. 

You are creating a quiz over the last three units: Unit A, Unit B, and Unit C.

  • Unit A has 20 questions
  • Unit B has 22 questions
  • Unit C has 15 questions

The new quiz you are creating is going to have 10 questions in it to see how well the students are retaining the information. The students performed poorly on Unit A, average on Unit B, and very well on Unit C. 

  • Pull 4 questions from Unit A
  • Pull 3 questions from Unit B
  • Pull 2 questions from Unit C
  • 1 specific question from Unit A

For every student, the new quiz will include the 1 specific question everyone missed from Unit A as well as 4 random questions from the remaining 19. Every student will also have 3 random questions form Unit B’s 22 and 2 random questions from Unit C’s 15. This will provide a varying version of the quiz for every student.

How it Helps

One of the biggest benefits to instructors is that it saves time when creating tests. This is because the randomization of questions allows instructors to select different groups of questions that cover various subjects and know that each test will all be different but contain all the material. The instructor only has to select the question sets they want once and they are done; every student receives different tests. The instructor also has the availability of all the question sets built previously in for the class. They can also move questions around into different sets for more variability and control over what questions the computer pulls from that set. 

Instructors are not the only ones who benefit from our test generation, students do too. The control instructors have over question sets and how many questions are pulled from each one benefits the students. Because instructors know the areas students are struggling in, they can adjust which subjects needed the most work for mastery and choose to pull more questions from that section. 

There are a couple of benefits for the school as well. The difference in each test is something that I keep bringing up, but it is that important because it helps the students learn, it helps the teachers create tests, and it significantly reduces the chances for cheating. By building this academic integrity, it makes reports and alignments more accurate giving the school a better understanding of their program’s success.

Advanced Question Types

Advanced Question Types

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Advanced Question Types

Advanced Question Types

Challenging and keeping students engaged while taking online tests is critical to their mastery. These six advanced question types offered in the ExamN+ system gives students the opportunity to have an increased understanding of test material. These advanced testing types have scientifically proven benefits in relation to student success.

Choice Matrix question types in ExamN+ allow administrators to create rows and columns. Points are assigned in the correct boxes when matched with the correct answer. Choice Matrix questions are easily analyzable and clearly communicate what concepts are confusing to students. They are more dynamic as this type of question makes the student do more than just selecting an answer.

Matching Drag/Drop questions have administrators create matching possibilities with answers. The students are to drag and drop their matches while taking the assessment. Matching Drag/Drop questions are considered to be more interactive and students report them being more enjoyable. These question types require more from the students than just selecting an answer. Matching Drag/Drop questions are extremely valuable as many concepts are being tested on.

For Fill in the Blank question types, administrators can add as many possible answers with points attached to each blank. Fill in the Blank questions are essential to student’s learning as they minimize guessing and encourage more intense studying. Since students can’t see the answer, they have to know the information, and not just pull it from memory. Fill in the Blank questions provide a better measurement of mastery. 

A Hotspot question in ExamN+ is made up of a picture. Administrators assign a place or multiple places on an image with a hotspot. Students then are to select the correct hotspot(s). Similar to Fill in the Bank question types, Hotspot questions reduce guessing and cueing. Since Hotspot is a visual question type, students respond more positively and retention time is more long-term compared to short-term. Hotspot questions are also interactive, which keep students challenged and engaged.

Drawing question types allow students to mark up an image with the use of their mouse in relation to the specific question. Drawing questions benefit students’ learning as they reportedly increase recall by nearly double. Memory strength is dependent on how information is encoded. Drawing question types engage motor action and pictorial processing by drawing and viewing the image. Drawing information is incredibly beneficial to students’ long-term memory. 

Ordering question types in ExamN+ is creating a process and in turn having the students order the process correctly. This advanced question type makes questions much more challenging for students. Students have to construct a sequence or process rather than having to recognize the correct sequence. This challenges the students and encourages extensive studying.

ExamN+ provides programs with advanced question types that improve information retention time, encourage intensified studying, increase engagement, and challenge students.

Interested in increasing student mastery? Sign up for a demo.

iRAT/tRAT

iRAT/tRAT

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iRAT/tRAT

iRAT/tRAT

Readiness Assurance Testing (RAT) is meant to determine if a student is ready or prepared to move onto the next section in class. It is broken down into two parts: Individual Readiness Assurance Testing (iRAT) and Team Readiness Assurance Testing (tRAT). The iRAT is given to the students individually, and after completion, they receive their score without knowing which ones are correct or incorrect. Then, students get into groups to take the same test. This allows students to discuss the questions and teach concepts to one another promoting team based learning. Implementing iRAT and tRAT have been very beneficial to students overall retention of information and final exam scores. 

eMedley has built iRAT and tRAT into the ExamN+ module. We have made it simple to schedule tests to individuals and to groups for iRAT and tRAT. You schedule the test as iRAT/tRAT and select the students to administer the test to.

When students take the iRAT, they will be able to immediately see their score. It does not show the student which questions they missed but an overall total. This allows the students to have more honest discussions when they take the tRAT. The tRAT is available directly after seeing the score from taking the test individually. The same exact test is administered to all the students again, but at the end of the test, they will be able to see their correct and incorrect responses and discuss with their group.

tRAT has the Scratch-Off Testing feature available. This feature makes the students answer the question correctly before moving on. This allows students to answer a question, but if they answer incorrectly, that answer is no longer available to select, and they get to select again. This leads to more discussions and a better understanding of the information. Each time they select a wrong answer, the points they receive goes down, so you will still be able to see reliable data. 

eMedley also has correlated a report connecting the iRAT and tRAT scores for comparison. This gives faculty a way to track each question and each student’s score. You will be able to see the difference and benefit of using tRAT after an iRAT. The report will give you an understanding of which questions work better for iRAT/tRAT and which questions shouldn’t be included. It will also help you see if the content is being learned by the students by comparing these scores.

Interested in advanced online testing features for students? Sign up for a demo with us.

Scratch-Off Testing

Scratch-Off Testing

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Scratch-Off Testing

Tests are a critical factor in determining a student’s achievement and future success. Assessments push students to reason and reflect on their studies, but most importantly to think critically. With features such as Scratch-Off Testing in ExamN+, assessing online gives students the necessary functions to fully engage and learn.

The Scratch-Off Testing feature in ExamN+ allows students to retake a question. If the student selects the incorrect answer on a question, that answer will become unavailable on their next attempt. Students then may select a different answer option. 

Scratch-Off Testing, also known as the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) on paper, has a point profile concept. This means the number of points is adjusted and awarded based on how many attempts it took a student to select the correct answer. The total number of points is reduced a percentage until the correct answer is selected. This gives students the ability to re-evaluate questions and determine what they need to do differently.

IF-AT has been found to be an effective form of testing. IF-AT doesn’t just assess students on what they already know, but it teaches them as well. This ensures that the last response a student gives is the correct answer, no matter how many times it took them. If the student gets the answer correct the first time, student learning and studying is reinforced immediately.

As deeper learning occurs when a test or assignment is interactive, students will have a finer understanding of the content they are testing on with Scratch-Off Testing. Immediate feedback gives the student the opportunity to reflect on their performance and think of ways to improve their scores next time. When feedback is goal focused and tangible, it is exceptionally helpful to the student. With Scratch-Off Testing, the student immediately knows if they got the question wrong. This will eliminate any false beliefs students may have over a specific topic. It reiterates the importance of the content in the assessment.

Using features such as Scratch-Off Testing to critique a student’s understanding is tremendously motivational and much more attractive to students. This type of testing is extremely engaging for students as they may still earn some credit, even after answering the question incorrectly. They will feel less defeated and have a better opportunity to retain the correct information, even if they got it wrong the first time. It is just one of the many features ExamN+ offers in order to improve student achievement.

Interested in more effective and interactive online testing features for students? Sign up for a demo with us.

paper-computer

Paper-Based vs. Computer-Based Testing

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Are you tired of sorting paper tests, grading answers by hand, and inputting responses into your gradebook one-by-one? We don’t blame you. 

Many university academic programs are turning to computer-based testing and assessments, utilizing the help of automated proctoring to free up faculty resources lost with paper-based testing. Having the ability to test multiple learning objectives while reducing required grading time and energy is a determining factor in the rise in popularity of computer testing. Offering shorter, more frequent exams by computer can reduce student stress, and many students enjoy the benefit of receiving immediate feedback on their performance. In addition, retesting increases the likelihood of a student being able to recall information. 

While some instructors are concerned about the accuracy of automatic grading, studies have shown that the method of test distribution has no positive or negative effect on test scores. Some instructors may be wary of using an automated grading system for questions with subjective answers, but an easy solution is using a software with the ability to grade multiple-choice and short-answer questions automatically while allowing individual essay questions to be graded manually. 

Another concern is that testing from home unproctored may encourage dishonest test-taking behavior. The use of an automated proctor, which we addressed in an earlier blog, The Benefits of Automated Proctoring, can ensure that students are completing tests honestly and without assistance from outside parties. Lockdown browsers, randomized questions, and large test banks can also assist with the prevention of cheating, all functions available within our testing and assessment application, ExamN.

In addition to being user-friendly, some online systems also allow instructors to aggregate test results into reports, so that they can locate un-met standards in their curriculum and track a student’s progress over a period of time. Creating a record of questions and tests permits instructors to adjust their tests for future semesters or periods and review past performance. 

Eager to see how your program can go paperless? Sign up for a demo with us.

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Identifying Gaps and Redundancies

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Health science education programs use curriculum mapping to identify and address academic gaps and redundancies in the coverage of key topic areas, accreditation standards, program learning objectives, and graduation outcomes.  The mapping of course content or the curriculum as a whole is used to perform an analysis of the effectiveness of the curriculum and to make improvements.  

The first step is to map the curriculum.  The mapping or alignment process typically consists of breaking each course down into course objectives, sessions, and/or session objectives.  The objectives are then aligned to the specific standard, competency, or topic that is covered with that objective. In some cases, the objective is also aligned to the method of instruction and method of assessment.  

Once the curriculum is mapped, run a gap analysis to check and see what is missing.  A gap analysis takes the list of standards or topics, compares it to what has been aligned to objectives and provides a list of the standards or topics that have not been aligned to any objective.  The goal of the gap analysis is to fill in the holes. To do this take each standard or topic and ask questions like the following:

  • “Are we covering this?”,
  • “Do we need to be covering this?”
  • “When should we be covering this?”

First run the gap analysis across all of the curriculum.  Once those holes are filled, run it on subsets of the curriculum (by academic year, term, course, department).  Then ask the same questions above in the context of that subset of curriculum. For example, if we are looking at Year 1 curriculum and we see gaps in foundational knowledge items, we would ask “Should we be covering this in Year 1?”, “Is this possibly covered in Year 2?”, etc.

After the gap analysis is complete, perform an overlap analysis.  This is used to identify and analyze the what, when, and how of curriculum content.  If the curriculum is properly mapped, an overlap analysis will show each and every standard or topic that is covered, how many times it is covered, the sequencing or when it is covered, how the topic is being taught, and how the topic is being assessed.  This information can then be used in conjunction with student performance to make curricular and programmatic improvements.

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