Has the middle of semester burnout got you – or your students – stressed? Whether you’re preparing for mid terms, your first exam or mid-semester progress checks, we can help! Stay strong with tips to help you prepare for midterms, encourage your students to study and more!
Keep reading for tips to help you prepare for midterms with WebAssign
First, evaluate how your students are doing
Before starting your exam prep, it can be helpful to use the Class Insights tool to identify topics your students are struggling with. You can even narrow your focus further and identify specific students who don’t fully understand key concepts.
To utilize My Class Insights, click ‘Class Insights’ under class tools in the left-hand column on your course homepage. By using My Class Insights, you can easily:
- Identify key topics that need work: Utilize the status icons in the first column of My Class Insights to determine which topics students need help on. For each topic, click the blue ‘Details’ button on the far right to identify questions students struggled with most. Afterward, you can use this information to tailor your lectures, study guides and exams accordingly.
- Determine which students are struggling: Start with your gradebook for a quick overview of how your students are performing in the course. Click on a specific student with low performance which will open a grade summary. For further analysis on specific assignments or topics, click ‘Class Insights’ next to the students’ name.
Skip the study guide and encourage your students to practice on their own time
Practice is not only important before exams, but throughout the semester as well. Encourage independent learning by showing students how to use the Personal Study Plan and My Class Insights to evaluate their performance and identify areas for improvement. They can use this information to take practice tests focused on the topic areas they don’t understand. If you’re preparing for an exam and plan to create a study guode, you can administer practice exams within WebAssign to save you prep time.
Setting up your midterm exam
Once you’ve evaluated your class progress and are ready to set up your midterm exam, follow the tips below.
Use existing questions to make exam preparation easier: A quick way to begin setting up your exam is to use questions included with your textbook, created for your previous assignments or shared by your colleagues. You can search these questions by using the ‘question’ drop down menu on your WebAssign. If you need additional support, the help page here is a great resource. - Don’t forget to check your test settings: Midterm exams aren’t the same as a regular assignment, so be sure to check and adjust your settings.
- Disable extension requests for exams
- Limit the number of question attempts to only one for true/false questions
- Evaluate how many attempts your students will have to complete the exam and determine if points will be deducted for additional submissions.
- Set a time limit: The ability to administer a timed exam is a great feature for closed book tests or take-home quizzes to deter your students from looking up the answer. To set a time limit, click on the assignment, navigate to the ‘Edit Restrictions’ page and select ‘Timed Assignment’. For a few best practices, check out our help page here.
Prevent cheating with the LockDown Browser
If you’re concerned about academic integrity, the LockDown Browser can be a great tool for an added layer of security. To enable the LockDown browser, click on the assignment, navigate to ‘Edit Restrictions’ and select ‘LockDown Browser Required.’ Don’t forget to save and if you need help, read through the LockDown browser instructions here.
Tip: Be sure to instruct students to install the LockDown browser prior to the exam. If technology is a concern, coordinate with your lab administrator to download the software on your lab computers.
Manage and download your gradebook
After midterm exams, you may need to make some adjustments to your gradebook to accurately reflect your classes’ current progress. Within the WebAssign Gradebook you can:
Enter or upload assignment scores to your gradebook that were administered outside of WebAssign, such as attendance - Drop the lowest assignment score
- Manually override or change a student’s grade
- Change the grading scale associated with each letter grade
- Apply your gradebook settings to your other courses to save time
- Download your gradebook
Looking for More Tips?
Finally, keep in mind the following resources that are available to you.
- WebAssign Help for step-by-step how to’s and tutorials
- Follow us on social media for timely WebAssign best practices & tips
