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Zip Grade... Thank You.


I give many, many kinds of assessments. But there is one assessment I give throughout the year that makes me want to pull all of my beautiful curls out of my head, and that, my dear friends, is the REVIEW UNITS FOR VOCABULARY WORKSHOP.

I will promote Vocabulary Workshop until the cows come home (affordable, SAT prep, CC aligned, online resources, etc., etc.), but the review tests (five in total throughout the year, in all three of my LA classes) are 50-100 questions, primarily multiple choice, and by the time I have graded close to 90 of them, my eyes are crossed and I swear I need new glasses.

Enter ZIP GRADE. I remembered hearing about some program years ago that would scan a bubble sheet and give you the answers. Zip Grade goes a step further. Create your class list, and each student gets a code (I created easy-to-remember ones based on their graduation year). Tell the students their code before the test, and you're off to the races, as my momma would say. When the lovely student is done, I always give them the choice to see how they did or not (they usually do). I scan it with my iPad, and it gives them the number right over the total and their percentage. It literally saved me about three days of grading. THREE DAYS! It will save the scan too, so you can look back and see specific questions that went wrong for one or all of the students.

And what did I do when I learned how this worked? Well, I ran around my school building telling anyone who would listen! 

As far as students go, they weren't that crazy about it at first. The bubbles made them nervous and reminded them of the old days with the bubble standardized testing (we test online now), so they took a little convincing. But once they were getting results right away, they liked it! You can also use it for exit tickets, quick quizzes, etc., because they have a variety of sizes of bubble sheets. I use it only for these review tests right now to stay away from too many bubbles. :)

Pros:
- Students know results instantly.
- Less anxiety after a test for them.
- Students can immediately know to study more for next exam if this one didn't go so hot.
- The first 100 papers are FREE! I went ahead and purchased the full year ($6.99) after my first 100, and it's already paid for itself in psychiatry bills. :)
- Works with Apple and Android

Cons:
- Takes a bit to set up for middle school
- Goes back a bit to old school testing

Give it a shot and see what you think. You can't lose with a free app, free set up, and future free time!

~Caitlin

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