August 11th, 2017

10 Grading Hacks That Only The Smartest Teachers Use

Teachers can save precious time by automating much of their grading process. Once you see all the ways to automatically score and record using GradeCam, we think you’ll agree it’s the smart way to grade.

GradeCam empowers teachers to quickly and easily customize, score, and record assessments – without special forms, equipment or buy in. You create your own tests or quizzes with our online software and print on plain paper. You can grade the assessments in an instant by scanning them with any web camera, iPhone or Android device. Then, you have all the data at your fingertips. You can view detailed reports of class or student progress, and transfer scores instantly to any electronic gradebook.

 

10 smart ways to grade using GradeCam this school year:

 

1. Empower your students to grade and correct

You’re not the only one who can grade papers. Help the students help you, and reinforce their learning in the process.

Set up a grading station with a web camera or other device in your classroom. Create a scan form assessment in GradeCam. When a student has finished an assessment, they can scan and see their score (and their score only). If they got a few incorrect, you can give them the option of going back and correcting their answers. GradeCam will only record the most recent score.

You may even catch them doing a happy dance!

Students dancing after scanning their GradeCam exam forms

Learn how to scan an assignment using student view.
 

2. Give homework credit instantly

Embed a GradeCam credit form anywhere on worksheets to quickly and easily allocate points. The credit form type is especially handy for when giving a set amount of points for a completed homework assignments.

Simply scan the form and the student instantly receives full credit for the assignment. If the form isn’t scanned, the student does not receive points.

For detailed instructions on how to create a credit or scored form, see our tutorial.
 

3. Make your worksheets scannable

You can embed GradeCam forms anywhere on worksheets for seamless integration into new or existing materials. Save the form as a PNG file (a type of photo file) and insert into your document.

See our tutorial for how to adjust the printed size of your form.
 

4. Auto-MAGIC-ly transfer grades to your gradebook

A teacher told us on Twitter that F8 saved his marriage, so you know this feature is good!

F8 is the default command key to transfer the scores collected on GradeCam to your electronic gradebook. With one keystroke, you can transfer all that data to your gradebook. No copying and pasting each score, or manually entering anything!

The F8 is one of our biggest teacher timesavers. Here’s a super easy tutorial on how to use F8.
 

5. Reuse your scan forms

Save time at the copy machine. Our scan forms are printed on plain paper and they can be reusable! Simply laminate or put in a plastic sleeve for use with a dry erase marker.

You can print scan forms for each student with their identification number already filled in, or a generic class set where the student can bubble their own ID number.

To get you started, we provide step-by-step tutorials on how to create the different types of reusable scan forms.
 

6. Use exit tickets

Those reusable scan forms would be really handy for exit tickets. Formative assessment is very important to track what your students are absorbing after each lesson. Using a quick 3-5 question assessment at the end of class each day can give you enormous insight into what information you need to review or if you can move on.

See this post for more ideas on how to use exit tickets in your classroom.
 

7. Let GradeCam score numeric answers

We cannot tell you how excited we are about the most groundbreaking grading feature we’ve ever released. GradeCam now uses Artificial Intelligence to actually read your student’s numeric handwriting. That’s right! We decipher hastily scrawled numbers so you don’t have to. This new AI technology answers the age-old teacher dilemma of “how best can I grade these finished test forms quickly.”

Find more info about Handwriting Recognition here.
 

8. Automatically track standards data

We know you need this data and how time-consuming it is to manually produce it. We allow teachers to track standards data by attaching standards to individual questions within assessments. A report is automatically generated.

Your principal is happy. Your team teachers are happy. And you are a superhero teacher. #WinWinWin!

This tutorial shows how to attach standards to individual questions on your scan forms.
 

9. Grade objective work by rubric

We know all work can’t be bubbled. That’s why we’ve created a solution for when you need to judge an objective answer and record a score.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, a rubric is a set of criteria used when evaluating. For example, you may use a scale of 0-5, zero being poor understanding of the topic to five being excellent demonstration of understanding.

The rubric question type option can be used for scoring just about anything. Student presentations, oral assessments, or handwritten long and short answer questions – just to name a few examples.

Here’s more information on how to create a rubric question type on your scan sheet.
 

10. Score rubrics on the go!

We’ve upped the ante with a more powerful solution to grading with rubrics. Now, you can use the rubric with capture question type that provides space for students to write out short answers up to ten lines long, directly on the scan sheet.

GradeCam can then digitally capture and incorporate an image of the handwriting onto the answer sheet so you can view it and assign points right from your mobile device or desktop. No more lugging home piles of papers!

For more info on our rubric with capture question type, see our tutorial here.

As we hope we’ve demonstrated for you, using GradeCam is like hiring a robot to do all the grunt work of grading. You craft the assessments. GradeCam will do the rest!