Are scantrons becoming a thing of the past?
What’s the real deal with scantrons?
September 20, 2016
Scantron’s are the simple way of test taking, making it easier on students and teachers for grading. Rumors have circled that scantrons may be disappearing from Lafayette. And, that is partially true.
“As a school, we were paying a lot of money for five machines that were not being used, so we got down to two and one is currently broken,” Principal John Shaughnessy said.
He said most teachers have generally stopped using scantrons, but are starting to turn to a new method of test assessment.
“Most of the teachers don’t use scantron machines anymore. A lot of them are using Mastery Manager now and are using that system vs. scantrons,” Shaughnessy said.
It is unclear whether the last working scantron reader would be repaired if it were to break down, so some teachers are looking for other alternatives to grading multiple choice type questions.
Another new strategy is the Zip grading system.
“There is an app you can buy where all you have to do is fill and print out answer keys to give to students and then after they take the test, there are four black dots that you can hover over and scan on the phone and it will automatically tell you the grade.” Social Studies Department Chair Susan Glenn said.
The app can not only automatically give the teacher the grade, but it can show the statistics of which student missed what or what they got right or wrong.
“The app gives us the opportunity to see what problems the students generally got wrong and gives us the idea of what they need to work on,” Glenn said.
In addition, Student Council has moved its court nominations and voting online thereby eliminating their need to use the scantron machines.
