With limited time, teachers are constantly looking for ways to maximize their efforts; ways of getting the most bang for the buck.
Knowing feedback is integral to the learning process, teachers can save time without sacrificing feedback's value by using the following strategies.
Ten Time-Saving Grading Tips That Maximize Feedback
1.
Selective commenting. Focus on only a couple of
things per essay
2.
Minimize your writing/comments. Require any
student who scores below a B to see you (before/after school, during
non-teacher directed class time, etc) and/or rewrite and/or defend their
writing
3.
Color-coded grading in which you use different
highlighters to signify different look-fors or another system (*, circle,
underline)
4.
Peer editing
5.
Group work in which the students collectively
start the writing process and work together to improve their own writing
6.
Have students write online (blogs, discussions,
etc) and comment on each others' posts
7.
Have students grade their own work using the
rubric. This is tremendously valuable in so many aspects (metacognition, feedback,
increase understanding, time-saver, etc).
8.
If students disagree with a grade (and because
feedback may be limited) give them 48 hours to defend their paper to you. Limit
their defense to a couple of minutes.
9.
3-column grading. Using a class or teacher
created rubric (column 1), students grade themselves according to the rubric
(column 2), and the teacher records his/her grade in third column. Using this
method, the teacher can more intently focus on areas where the student and
teacher disagree.
