Fair exams, easier admin, better results
with NetSupport School
NetSupport School provides a range of tools supporting assessment for learning (AFL), from informal classroom discussions, and peer assessment, to end of year external examinations. Students can take tests online in a safe, secure and protected environment, while teachers can:
- Use real-time screen monitoring to maintain exam integrity.
- Enable controlled environments with restrictions on applications, websites and USB devices.
- Allow instant locking of screens to simultaneously end an examination.
- Offer a range of flexible assessment options, from instant surveys to custom tests.
The future of assessment, what’s next?
As education evolves, so must the way we assess learning. Traditional examination models are increasingly being challenged, with digital tools, AI, and accessibility at the heart of the conversation. What does the future of assessment look like, and how can schools ensure fairness, effectiveness, and real-world readiness for students and how can we make it work with the technology we’ve got?
Testing and assessment features
Testing Module
Testing is an important part of gauging students’ understanding of topics and concepts, allowing teachers to see who is ready to move on to the next stage and who needs further support.
With NetSupport School, we’ve made it easy for teachers to design tests and examinations quickly and easily, using a variety of question types. The system monitors the students’ progress in real time, showing the number of correct and incorrect answers for each individual, providing a further indicator of how comfortable students are with a subject.
In the current climate, it’s great for running socially distanced assessments in class, as there’s no need to hand out or collect test papers.
Using NetSupport School’s Testing Module, you can:
- Create a library of resources and questions that can be shared.
- Create any number of tests using questions from your library.
- Utilise up to 8 different question styles.
- Create questions with between 2 and 4 possible answers.
- Set examination grading levels (e.g. over 75% = A grade).
- Track student progress and see question success or failure in real time.
- Auto-mark the test so results are available as soon as it is completed.
- Display individual results back to each student.
- Deliver results (including highlighting the correct answers) to the class.
- Install the Test Designer on a standalone system.
Provide a variety of questions
Questions can be made more engaging for students by providing variety. Teachers can choose to use up to eight different types:
1. Multiple choice
2. Drag and drop text
3. Drag and drop image
4. Select correct answer from a list
5. Apply labels to an image
6. True or False (one statement)
7. True or False (multiple statements)
8. Put items into the correct order
9. Highlight Text
Photos, videos and sound clips can be incorporated to any type of question – and you can also require students to view
Save time!
Once you have created a library of questions, you can compile them into an exam to run on all the students’ devices. You’ll be able to see the students’ progress in real time as they complete the questions.
You can apply your own grading scheme to enable NetSupport School to auto-mark all the students’ answers – saving you a lot of time! You can also store any exams or questions you create so that you can edit them for use with other classes or year groups.
Question and Answer (Q&A) Module
Based on well-respected education standards, the Question and Answer Module is built around the concept of Pose, Pause, Pounce and Bounce – a strategy for structuring questions in the classroom, ensuring thinking time, selecting students to answer and collaborative sharing of ideas and response.
Pose – The teacher can simply ask a question verbally and choose a question type (random selection, first student to answer, first team member to answer or auto-mark entered answers). Once a question type is set, a teacher can then decide whether points will be awarded for correct answers, whether they wish to select multiple students to automatically bounce the question, and much more.
Pause – The teacher can specify thinking time before the students are able to respond, as well as specify a time window when answers can be given. Based on a game show-style theme, students see a countdown clock when answering questions.
Pounce – In random selection mode, the selector randomly moves between all student screens for a few seconds, before randomly selecting a student. This feature removes the tendency of some students to stay quietly below the radar of the lesson.
The second question type uses response speed to select the students, allowing the top ‘X’ fastest respondents to be selected. This introduces a level of competition and is most notably a positive impact with boys’ engagement in the exercise. When selecting say, the top 5 fastest responses, it allows the teacher to develop the question between each selected student and develop the questioning.
Finally ‘team mode’ is offered where students can be automatically grouped, randomly grouped, or grouped in pre-set teams such as their school house. In this mode, points are awarded to the teams and
students can see a running total.
Bounce – Once a question has been answered by a student, the teacher can bounce the question to a second student and develop the question or ask them to assess the response of the first student. The question can be bounced any number of times. The beauty of this approach, linking verbal questions with an electronic module, is that the teacher
Student survey
Simply send all or selected students a question, together with a selection of pre-defined responses, so they can ‘vote’ on the correct answer or statement. You can see their responses as an overall percentage and by individual student – and even show a results pie chart to the class. Additionally, you can temporarily ‘group’ students by their response so you can see instantly who selected the same answer – handy for supporting break-away groups.
Peer Assessment
The ‘Digital Student Journal’
The unique Digital Journal ensures all relevant information from a lesson is recorded for future review, from lesson content and teacher/student notes, to assessment results. Used as both a revision aid for students and a record of content covered for teachers, it helps ensure all information is stored in one place.
All key actions and events during the lesson can be added to a journal file, these can include:
- Details of the lesson objectives.
- A class attendance register.
- Specific notes, resources and screenshots taken or used during the lesson.
- Survey and test details and results.
- Question and Answer module scores.
- Lists of approved websites for research.
- “On the fly” screenshots during a demonstration (teacher or student).
- Details of any homework set.
- Individual student notes can be added whenever they are required.
- Target words / topics used for any comprehension or research assignments.
- Transcripts of any electronic chat conversations.
- Copies of any NetSupport School inbuilt Whiteboard sessions.
Student Toolbar
In addition to accessing relevant lesson information, personal resources, and restrictions, it also enables students to access the lesson objectives and learning outcomes throughout the lesson, ensuring learners are clear about what the aims of the lesson are and what they will have learned by the end of it- plus provides clear goals for the teacher to assess performance and understanding against.
- Lesson objectives and learning outcomes
- Real-time lesson information such as the lesson title; time remaining; any rewards they have been given by the teacher
- Request help from the teacher via the help button
- Access their digital journal
- Access to the student’s personal resources folder
- Review what restrictions are currently in place i.e. internet, application, printing, USB memory sticks
Rewards
Teachers can also reward students with new animated stickers that will appear on the student’s toolbar, and can also be added to the student journal.
