Admit it.
You can’t stand correcting daily work.
It’s tedious. It’s boring. It’s stressful and adds hours to your work week.
It’s also a colossal waste of time.
Here’s why:
Students don’t look at it.
One of the worst kept secrets in teaching is that students don’t pay any attention to returned work. They may glance at the grade—if you leave one—but then they’ll stuff it in their backpack to throw away later.
You know this, of course.
Yet most teachers correct it anyway in the belief that it’s what good teachers do. It shows that they care, that they go the extra mile for their students. Besides, anyone who doesn’t do it must be a heretic.
So they just accept it, plodding along day after day, spending precious time on something with virtually no benefit to students.
Parents don’t look at it.
Because few students actually show it to them, most parents will never see day-to-day corrected work. Those that do, that even know it exists, are too busy to go over it with their child.
Parents are concerned with grades—as in, report cards and test results. They want to know the bottom line. They want to know if their child is doing okay in school or if they’re causing any trouble.
But the minutia of daily work? That’s your job to keep track of.
You get very little out of it.
An argument can be made that by correcting independent work—including homework—you learn about your students and their strengths and weaknesses.
Fair enough. But you don’t need to scrutinize it every day or even every week. Performance doesn’t improve fast enough to make a difference.
This isn’t to say that you’re not looking over shoulders to verify checkpoints and learning indicators. You are. But sitting at your desk correcting daily work? No need.
Plus, there is a better way.
The Better Way
It helps to think of all independent work as practice.
After all, it’s based on a.) what you’ve already taught your students in great detail and b.) what they’ve already proven they understand.
The purpose of independent work isn’t to learn in its strictest sense. It’s to practice. It’s to groove the memory. It’s to sharpen the skill and make it second nature so they can build on its base the next day.
This underscores the importance of your primary job, which is to teach great lessons and set your students up for success before turning responsibility over to them to practice.
You’ll still check homework every day to make sure it’s finished and that they’re on the right track. You’ll still look at individual and group work to triple-check they’re indeed grasping your objectives.
You’ll still emphasize excellence and neatness and work done well.
But it’s all a means to an end. It’s a means of training and preparing your students for what you will grade and scrutinize, like tests, projects, essays, and presentations.
This approach is not only easier on you, and a remarkable time-saver, but it also results in greater performance and higher grades for them. It builds mental strength and confidence and teaches them that they must work through mistakes and difficulties before becoming proficient.
It supports a growth mindset and shows them the process of learning something new and complex, practicing it until perfected, and then proving their mastery through testing and other assessments.
So what should you do with all those stacks of paper or files of work?
Throw them away!
Or, better yet, have your students do it themselves as a daily reminder that practice and repetition is the pathway to knowledge, skill, and, ultimately, success.
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Interesting article, but isn’t providing feedback on practice critical for the student’s success on the summative assessments (tests, projects, quizzes)? I agree that practice is a means to an end. And that’s why I think leaving quality feedback on the formative practice assignments (correcting) their work is crucial. Please help me if I’m not seeing this right.
I think it depends on the assignment, the students, and the goal of the lesson.
I know a lot of teachers grade everything because the think it is expected of them and they worry about being seen as lazy or incompetent. These are not good reasons.
I went 6 months and several essays one year where the online grading system was not showing my feedback. No one said anything. If students aren’t even reading it and applying it (and in my experience they almost never are even reading it), then it is a waste of time. A wise teacher once told me “if I have to grade everything, then the students won’t get nearly enough practice writing” and that is a fact.
Amen to that!
I agree Christine!
And to Mr. Michael, I’d ask:
Which is more important to you,
The fact that you made it to work today or the every step you took before you made it to work? I would argue that both are equally important. I hope you’d agree that you will never make it to work if you don’t wake yourself up, get dressed, walk to your car, get in your car, turn on your car, and drive yourself to work.
After almost 25 years of teaching, I’ve always given importance to my students practices because those very practices are the one that will
make it possible for each of my students to get their place of work-proficiency!
There are a ton of ways to provide feedback. Isn’t the best feedback someone would receive be the one you actually talk about in terms of how to apply it? I do what I call feedback circles. I randomly pick a kid’s work (sometimes not so randomly, and may target a specific class need I’m noticing). We put it up on the smart board and since we’ve worked together to co-create criteria, we discuss the application of the criteria in the work displayed. Everyone learns and applies because it was a discussion. It takes some time to cultivate the culture of risk taking, but once we do, the kids are off. Go slow to go fast. I don’t take any marking home and haven’t for years, no matter the grade or the subject. Kids learn fast and the accountability is high. Love my system!
love this practice!
Wow, I can’t disagree with you more, which is strange, because I usually agree with what you’re putting out there. Feedback is so crucial, especially in this distance learning environment.
I am a writing teacher, and I do agree that before distance learning I was doing a lot of peer/partner evaluation through the use of specific rubrics. After the grading process, I would have the partners collaborate about the mistakes and grade. They listen to each other much more than they look at comments on a paper. It worked wonderfully – but not so well in this DL environment.
That is what makes DL so much more time-consuming for me. I believe that there are many teachers in DL who give the students a grade for just completing an assignment. These students continue to make mistakes and get no feedback and learning is lost. This message you just sent out during these times promotes poor teaching.
Feedback is crucial for growth. If I went for a golf lesson, and the instructor gave me no feedback, I could not get any better. You should do a lesson on the importance of live feedback as opposed to writing comments in Google Classroom instead.
My question for you is – are you doing distance learning right now?
Feedback is only useful for growth if the person receiving the feedback is reflecting on it and using ii. Not many students view feedback in this way. For them the focus is more on the grade. If you were to give feedback without a grade that may make a difference. Getting them to mark it themselves with your guidance will help but simply providing feedback for the sake of it on every piece of work is pointless. Feedback on important assignments, general feedback on areas you think the class could improve on others is more appropriate.
In writing class at middle school level I meet once every 2 weeks with each student for 5 mins. I have read their work and I pick one goal to focus on. At the back of their writing notebook they have a goal section. After I show them their error pattern
( forgetting capitals or end marks, run on sentences, etc.) the students write this goal in the goal section. In every piece of writing they do for the next few weeks they have to score their own papers on that goal. As the year progresses they score themselves on their cumulative goals. I only pick one of their pieces per week to review to see how they are meeting their goals. When the grading period approaches I have students show me their journals and self scoring and prove to me they have improved in those goals. I do much less grading, they do much more self analysis and editing. After 40 years of teaching I found a simple, time saving and effective method for improving writing.
Exactly thank you I’m a yr11 student and I’m really stuck and I get confused really fast. this article is disgusting it’s very rude. as a student I need motivation to get a pass ,and then I read the feedback that my hardworking teachers put Its first priority especially now due to covid-19.
I agree so much cos this are my thoughts too,
I completely agree, Lee!!!
I agree with you for distance learning. I am especially opposed to giving credit for wrong answers in math. My students do daily math homework & daily quizzes online. In the homework section, the platform provides help features if a student gets stuck on a problem. There are no help features in the daily quizzes. The quiz problems are similar to HW problems, with different numbers. If students do not score 80% on their homework or quiz, they are required to do Reassigns. There is one HW Reassign & 3 Quiz Reassigns for each lesson. I stay after school for 1.5 hours everyday to help students, because our school day was shortened by that much when we went online. There is a Friday Quiz every week covering the four lessons from that week. Students may do corrections on Friday Quizzes to earn more points after a Reteach with me.
I need more detail on this.
I have a parent who commented on how I was not correcting her son’s homework enough. I told her it is what it is, that’s all he was going to get! As if we aren’t exhausted at the end of Zoom on a daily basis! Next time I will say, it’s practice over what we learned in the classroom., as you suggested above!
It was a very interesting article and it’s very scared growing up there were times when the teachers were correct the papers I wouldn’t even look at it I will throw it away so it makes sense it’s very interesting I really enjoyed reading your article
I hope that you are not a writing teacher.
Did you stop to think that perhaps English is not their first language? This was not a kind comment and did nothing to add to the conversation.
I disagree with you. Correction is important in the practice stages, not just during the tests. Some students will self-correct. Others will not pay attention unless you grade their work and they see what the results would be if it were a test. How you give feedback is up to the teacher. Perhaps teachers may only have time to correct the first part of an assignment, perhaps teachers will only correct some assignments, perhaps teachers may have students correct their own papers in class with a pen of a different color, followed by students taking a few minutes to look at their results and ask questions as needed. But correction is important.
We were living overseas when my son took a math class where there were 2-5 tests per semester. And the teacher did not grade at any time the other assignments. He did not even give the answers during class so that students could be aware of whether or not they did them correctly. How could that help students progress? (And it did not!) While I agree that each teacher has to deal with this in the way that they are able, I certainly do not agree with the premise of not correcting. Sorry!
I agree. If a teacher does not correct, students may feel as if they are on track with their learning. There should be no harm done if a teacher corrects misconceptions. After all, isn’t that what we are here for? To correct misconceptions and help students grow in their understanding?
I like to go over the daily work with the students and have them correct their own daily work. That way they get instant feedback on how well they are doing and can ask questions about what they don’t understand, which helps to reinforce the concepts they are learning. I have students correct their own work in red pen, which they love doing. I also collect them to quickly look at their papers to see what concepts need more reteaching. When I grade the student’s papers, I use any other fun colors, except red. At the beginning of the year, I tell parents that papers corrected in red are graded by the students.
I believe our philosophy is the same. Nicely stated.
Me too!
I agree with this. When homework is not graded, students stop bothering to complete it. When they correct their math homework, they see which ones were not correct. We learn through mistakes and practice but need to know where we need improvement. Also when I correct the writing mistakes, motivated students improve a ton as they continue to practice writing throughout the year. Teaching and modeling good writing lessons is also key, but direct specific feedback matters. Cutesy comments maybe not.
I think it may be important to distinguish here between graded/approved/accepted work that was handed back, and work that is returned with an expectation of student revision/edit. I think feed back has a much more effective and useable place in the latter situation.
My only concern would be that if you don’t correct errors and the students continue to “practice” with the wrong answers, then you are reinforcing the errors. Like taking piano or music lessons. If you continue to practice with errors without correction you reinforce the errors. It makes it so difficult to change without error correction. Does this make sense?
For the most part, I agree our constant impulse to correct every assignment is a waste of time, I usually pick two or three to check especially for those kids that I’m keeping a particular eye on. I am going to disagree with having students toss the work, I think this would undermine the value of their time practicing and send the message that what they are doing isn’t all that important.
I teach in a private school and there are parents that do go over homework with their children. Correcting papers helps me to see where my class is struggling. There are times when I don’t correct a paper. That is usually when I didn’t explain it well enough before turning them loose. Some of my students do take the time and check over their work. I know this because if I make a mistake they bring it to my attention. I do teach in elementary and I do believe that makes a difference.
I work in a parochial school and do you know what we do with the children’s mistakes? We make them fix them in class before they start their next lesson. Our teachers have multigrade classrooms. They present the lesson to each grade in turn and then before the children begin the lesson they do all the corrections for the previous lesson. They do not take any homework unless they fall behind. Its a marvelous system and the children finish 9th grade completely ready for grade 10 online schooling.
Our teachers are very involved in every aspect of the children’s education. They do not just give lectures and leave it at that. We do not use learning centers. We have textbooks, workbooks and notebooks and the children stay in one desk to do their studies. The only time they leave the room is to go for breaks. Its very old fashioned but we have high standards and it works. Correcting is a vital part of our system.
I’m so interested in learning more about this school.
I think it is important to look over independent work, especially the work of struggling students who may be prone to misunderstandings. That allows me to work with a student or group of students to guide the needed practice. What’s the point of practicing incorrectly…….
I don’t necessarily go over all students’ work “with a fine tooted comb though” – of course that’s not feasible.
“Fine-tooted comb” is hilarious. I don’t know if it was a typo or an intentional joke, but I can see third-graders falling out of their chairs at it.
I am not a fan of this article. I am a CTE teacher, in a Nurse Assisting program, where accuracy matters! I believe it is imperative for students’ daily work to be checked by me. Daily assessments are not graded-it’s expected classroom behavior/protocol. I return it the same day, for them to clear up misconceptions. Students return their corrected work back to me, before the next day, to make sure they understand key concepts/objectives. I do this before any new lesson and base my lesson plans upon their current knowledge or lack thereof. Students often make the comment that they can’t believe that I actually pay attention to the work they submit (good or sometimes bad). I actually believe (maybe I am naive) they like it when I hold them accountable.
And all these comments are the reason for teacher burnout! He didn’t say never evaluate!!! Daily work is nothing more than practise…you look it over to red-flag kids for conferencing and guide instruction. To actually mark everything they do is a crazy waste of time. Work smart, people.
Happy Halloween!
I am doing pear deck for remote learning. And I have kids write to text dependent questions. I can see their responses, and mistakes as they create them. Crazy thing is, with a little nudging, their basic writing is improving a great deal. Mistakes that I could never get kids to take seriously and change their writing habits, such as capitals on names, periods, removing excessive amounts of ‘and’.
I think there is a difference between not correcting papers, and not showing kids how to improve. Same thing with grading in standards based work, as in not grading homework, it is NOT that teachers quit assessing work, it is what kind of assessing really changes future work…and what does not.
Yes! Homework is extremely important to consolidate ideas and it’s so strange to read that article when they say children don’t look at the corrections teachers make! Of course they do but it’s up to you, their teacher to make them look at the corrections ! Have you heard of DIRT ???? Good teachers promote the idea of homework and mark it.
I agree. Students generally dont check the teacher’s feedback and neither do parents. It’s true, they want to see grades or final marks. And of course grades dont happen without the preliminary work on the part of the student, parent and teacher but the truth remains, the vast majority of students just want to get it over and done with, so just submit and let the teacher deal with that. So if teachers’ correction and feedback is not wanted, i say dont waste time and your precious life. Instead find ways to show students their areas that need attention. Give mini assignments. Let students use checklists. With respect to writing, if students cannot write a single sentence properly then they will give you a whole story of incorrect statements. So monitor at every stage, so that you will know exactly what is useless and useful to do as a good teacher will.
Excellent article.
Correcting every little error is not helpful, and it is not best practice as some of the previous comments mention.
As a teacher, the goal is not correction, its feedback. Feedback is information given to improve…not just saying something is right or wrong.
Many teachers waste time with focusing on whether something is right and wrong rather than using the information for assessment and reteaching. Assessment is where we get the data, the information. Feedback is when we can constructively help our students improve.
If you assign homework, review it in clas the next day and the majority of the students get it wrong– reteach it. If one or two get it wrong, show them how to fix it.
When you learn an instrument, a good instructor doesn’t ding you every time you get something wrong. They either have you finish, review the errors, and reteach OR make sure relearn the skill/note and then show you how to practice the correct way. Just correcting you doesn’t help.
I usually agree with you, but not this time. As a parent, former student, and teacher, I look at my child’s work, I used to look at my work from my teachers, and now my own students and students’ families talk to me about the feedback that I give on their children’s work. Feedback is meant to help students adjust their path, and it also informs parents so they won’t be caught off guard at conference/report card time. Students might not get it exactly correct next time, but they know what they’re aiming for. Yes, it’s time consuming, and not every student will look, but it also informs us as teachers about what we need to teach differently and better.
This article reminds me of the philosophy at Michaela.
I think people are confusing grading work and effective feedback. People maybe feeling like, “I wrote a novel on this student’s paper! I am so very good at feedback!” but feedback is only feedback as useful as the student uses it (they may not understand it). If they don’t read it, it’s not very effective. I have to agree, most students will never review the feedback on papers. I grade only as much as I’m required to in order to meet minimums. I do feel that having students correct their own work is slightly more effective than me correcting it and the feedback is a lot quicker. I also prefer to review the work and simply provide feedback as soon as possible, some times as I pick up the piece. Grades and notes are only effective for some students but altering your instruction to include what you noticed the students missed or having a discussion or providing support as needed is (more likely) effective feedback for all students. It is significantly less time confusing and exhausting for me the teacher. It also feels like a more organic way to build a relationship with my students.
Michael, if you ever open a charter, I would be very interested in studying or even applying
I wish I had read this article before 6 months of Remote Learning! I agree, with most of the day to day work, it isn’t important. Unfortunately, there are a lot of teachers who are totally OCD about it and it makes anyone else feel they aren’t working hard enough. During remote learning here in Melbourne (Australia) I was giving written feedback on EVERY lesson EVERY student completed, thinking if I didn’t, they wouldn’t bother doing any remote learning. And, do you know what? The vast majority of them kept making the same mistakes I had given them feedback on, day after day! They didn’t bother to read it. I worked harder during the remote learning period than I ever had trying to ‘do the right thing’ and it was pretty much for nothing. If it makes you feel good and improves you own self-esteem, then go for it, but don’t judge other teachers who aren’t so OC about it.
As someone who recently did two degrees retraining from music teacher to teacher librarian, I have to say I was rarely interested in the detailed comments from my lecturers, I just wanted the mark! The delay between finishing the assignment and getting feedback made the comments were meaningless, my mind had moved on to newer ideas and work. I don’t have opportunity to mark much as teacher librarian (I design my teaching that way 😉 but a lot of my colleagues mark only out of fear of parents seeing unmarked books at the end of the year. I’m sure the majority of those books go straight into the recycling pile on the last day of school!
I disagree. I correct formative assessments and exit slips. It takes 20 minutes, I give it back before we start class and watch the students go over their mistakes. I agree abt most assignments being practice but if the practice is wrong, I want to catch it before it’s internalized.
Hi Michael,
My method is to break writing assignments down into small parts. For example students may be taught how to write topic sentences. Then they write three topics sentences independently in class and hand in the work. I then, after class, do one of two things. I write red symbols that highlight their main mistakes (They have an error correction symbol key given in advance) and then I return their work in the next class. Next, if most of them had serious problems with their sentences I will tell them all to rewrite the whole assignment again, in class, this time correcting all their mistakes. This time when they hand it back I give a grade. The alternative method is not to write any symbols on their work but to quickly scan for the most serious and common mistakes without grading or using any symbols.
Back in the classroom I will use blackboard examples to explicitly teach examples of how most of them went wrong and how to correct. Then as in the previous example, make all them rewrite the whole assignment again, in class, correcting the major and common mistakes. Students who got it write first time will have to write more challenging new examples. I will then grade after the rewrite. This is not time consuming for me because my students rarely write more than a few sentences in each assignment, and I do not have a lot of students in each class. In this way every piece of writing work is evaluated and students know that. I do understand that this method may still be hard for teachers with bigger classes, though.
Do you think the above methods are useful, Michael or are they a waste of time? Could you give a follow up article, soon, outlining your method of feedback and how you make students rewrite? It would be very useful.
From my perspective, this advice is very practical to me. First, my students barely did their homework. Then, I decided to assign activities to do in class, individually or groups. Most of the time we worked in groups so that in that moment I realized if they mastered the topic or needed more explanation or feedback. By the way, my class had 46 students.
After a 38-year career in teaching, I would lean more towards than away from Michael’s advice on this one. I would correct nearly all tests myself that would go on the report card. I would have students correct their own math homework and ask questions or request to see problems worked as needed. Most students who needed help would be willing to come to small groups for help.
I did not take the time to sit and write comments on papers, other than to do what was required for my evaluation, where I had to do a massive and ridiculous portfolio documenting 59 different areas of teaching competence. That’s one reason I left in June.
As for essays, I would scan each essay, mark a couple of things based on the rubric for the assignment, and give it a grade. There was never time to go over hundreds of essays and mark every little thing. I wasn’t willing to spend every evening correcting papers for hours on end.
After nearly four decades in the classroom, I say keep it simple, or you won’t survive with your mental and physical health intact.
I am saving your advice and will implement it in my classroom. Thank you so much for your many years of service, Carol. Yes, I agree we must keep it simple in teaching and do only what matters for our students or all teachers would burn out. I am going to remember that 1. Kindness, pleasant firm rules and good classroom management and
2. Engaging lessons and assessments that fit that objective are all that matters in teaching.
Everything else is fluff and stress.
I disagree entirely. I teach at the university level. In my classes, when they turn something in, I tell them what to correct. Then they have to correct. If it still isn’t right, they correct it again. They keep correcting it until it is absolutely correct. It surprises them at first, but after a while they realize that doing something poorly isn’t good enough. I see dramatic improvement in their final products in even a single semester.
Do or do not, there is no try.
That is what I do with math test corrections. I do a reteach, then students keep correcting the problems until they are all correct. It doesn’t matter how many times they have to attempt them. All corrections need to be correct.
Correction is only effective if there is RELATIONSHIP. We need to earn “correcting every little thing.” If students don’t believe that we love them and want them to succeed, then correcting them matters very little.
Spend your time loving on your students. Then, you may have earned the PRIVILEGE of correcting them.
Thanks, Michael. You are a true lover of students.
K
Michael,
What grade are you teaching this year? I am just curious.
Under the category of error analysis together with prompts from the teacher Math students are able to gain more from correcting their own daily practice (and also on occasion tests) than if another student or the teacher corrects. Small group and class discussions about problem solving strategies and solutions to problems leads naturally into greater work completion and learning success.
Yes, checking that work is complete helps with student responsibility but teacher marks on an assignment adds little to student comprehension of the work practiced.
I totally disagree. The students need to see where they have made mistakes & correct them. I check all papers & work individually to help each child see where/why the mistake was made. And, yes, my parents DO look at the papers. They appreciate that their child is correcting what is wrong.
You are spot on! We are like thinkers. I teach first grade and can easily see skill deficits by quickly assessing their daily practice work. I give a formal assessment after students have had enough practice on the required skill. It makes sense to me.
Students do need feedback on their practice, but not all feedback has to come from the teacher. In my 8th grade math classroom, I would always post answers on the back board (or use a self-checking online program) for any assignment that was not an assessment. I taught students how to self-check and how to give each other feedback. And no, they didn’t cheat, except for those few that cheat no matter what. They still had to show HOW they got the right answer to get credit for the assignment.
Students often told me how much they appreciated being able to check their work themselves instead of having to wait for papers to be returned to know if they were doing it right. Reluctant students, especially, need that encouragement one problem at a time.
The timing of feedback is very important. Being able to check answers as they work makes feedback immediate. Delayed feedback is much harder to apply to learning. Finding out hours or days later that they got something wrong–when they may not be able to remember what they were thinking as they made the mistake–is much less helpful.
Over 13 years teaching math, I went from grading every little thing to grading only quizzes and tests. I quizzed frequently, short ones 2 or 3 times a week, so I always knew how students were doing. My students scored well on the state exam, my teaching life was happier, and my classroom was a calm and safe place to learn.
Resist the peer pressure and stop geading everything. Working longer hours didn’t make me a better teacher. Grading less was the best thing I ever did.
Thanks, Michael, for all you do to spread the gospel of working smarter and not harder.
Practice makes perfect, if and only if it’s perfect practice.
Homework in general is a waste of time. Especially applying it to elementary age students. If I am being asked to assess my children and their elementary aged homework I better see it graded by a teacher. If grading is not worth a teachers time who is getting paid… Imagine how parents must feel! About my child has been doing work in class and there’s no kind of correction to their work I do not like it. It’s a teacher’s job to guide a student in learning and that is what they are getting paid to do. There has to be some level of correction. But of course teachers are not even “Essential workers”- left students and families hanging dry during Covid. Especially in the democratic run states. Getting out of their jobs as much as possible I’m not surprised this article is now promoting not even grading work.
I live in a democratic run state & all of the teachers in our state who worked in the Spring will be receiving COVID pay. Better late than never.
I think the teachers are talking about looking assignments over for students who do not understand the concepts, then doing remediation with those students, rather than correcting every single assignment that a student does. I teach math & I give assignments every day. I believe that in math, students must practice the concepts they learned in class that day. Luckily, assignments are corrected by the computer. Even with that, online teaching takes so much extra time that I wouldn’t get ANY sleep if I tried to enter every assignment into the grade book. There are usually 3-4 lessons on a topic, like graphing, so I pick out 1-2 assignments from each topic to put in the grade book. Trust me, there is no classroom teacher who is lazing about with nothing to do.
also true. Parents have incredible expectations and demands of teachers. your response in this situation is exactly what is required. Having said that, there are times and ways to assess or give feedback without having to mark everyone’s work
“Check” that the Homework is done, of course, but you don’t have to painstakingly grade it. The most important thing (in math and science, for example) is to go over, on the board, the problems with the students. Ask the students which problems they had trouble with— or you pick some challenging problems—and then explain the problem and it’s solution on the board— not on PowerPoint— explain it, with a marker or chalk, on the board. Go over it several times, if necessary.
I think a lot of teachers are misunderstanding…giving feedback and grading are two different things. I can check a student’s work and have them go back and correct what they did wrong and still not grade it or punish them for the mistakes they made if I am giving feedback and making them go back to correct it.
I am really struggling with this while teaching ELA in a full-time remote program. I spent so much of first quarter giving specific feedback that went ignored by nearly every student. For the times that it’s possible I would love to give students the answers to check themselves. But when do I release the answers for them to check? We’ve been told to give them so much grace; assignments are generally due 4-5 days after they’re assigned. Then I still have about 1/3-1/2 of my students turning things in late. I want to give students who are engaged the time and feedback to learn, but I’m having trouble balancing that with the allowances we’ve been told to make for everybody.
Of course our district has chosen to hold live classes, and I think this might all be easier if all (or most) of our instruction were asynchronous because all those live meetings are eating up so much time. I’m essentially doing the same short lesson 3-4 times a day, when I think the more productive option would be to have students access that lesson on their own time and attend discussion groups a few times a week. If the students are going to work at their own pace anyway, what’s the point of having live classes.
1st Quarter I took late work with no penalties, almost any time. It was so time-consuming & difficult to keep up. This quarter, I post a due date for full-credit, and a due date for late credit for each assignment (with a penalty for the late work, about a week after the full-credit due date). After the late credit date, a permanent zero goes in the grade book.
I informed all parents & students via email. I teach 6th grade math.
I also agree that we need some clarification of terms. With that said, I had a daughter who almost failed a high school math class because the teacher looked only at the assignment for a completion grade. My daughter was doing the majority of the assignments wrong and never knew it until she flunked the tests. To me, this is not teaching!
At the Christian school where I taught 4th grade, the majority of the parents DID carefully look at the grades! I used the ” I do, we do, you do” approach in teaching and believe the saying, “Don’t expect what you don’t inspect.” Although I didn’t grade every single paper, I graded the majority of them, usually ten selected problems – not all the problems on an assignment. I tried to send home a graded review or a set of graded quizzes before each test to use along with the study guide.
I teach middle school math. I will circle incorrect daily work but not correct it and let students go back to find mistakes and correct. I do not put a grade on it but that puts it back on the students, if they care they fix it and most do! Very few don’t care! If I put a grade on it I never see it again. If they miss a lot I might pull a group if they were really struggling and re teach yo clear up misunderstandings.
All those disagreeing with this article need to read it again. It’s ironic that their disagreements just validate what Michael wrote, but also miss the fact he has in no way suggested that feedback is to be avoided.