9 Grading Tips to Help Reduce Your Grading

Grading tips to reduce your grading and increase your efficiency?  Heck yeah!

Let’s face it: grading can be overwhelming, and we’d all like to reduce the amount of time spent grading

During my years of teaching upper elementary and middle school, I have learned a few great tips for reducing my grading, increasing immediate response to student work, and re-directing the class if the lesson isn’t clear. Here’s the key:

Grading tip #1:  Have a clipboard with a student roster.

Now this grading tip might not seem like a big deal, but trust me and read on. Once your direct teaching lesson has finished and your directions are clearly posted, it’s student work time. This is your time to walk the room and check progress.

But here’s the thing: depending on the standard, more often than not you can get a pretty good understanding of student progress just by walking the room, noting the skills students are showing and paying attention to what it is that’s still challenging. You know the standards you’ve targeted. Write them across the top row of the roster and mark off the kids who are showing proficiency. There’s your grade.

Grading Tip #2:  Grade while you walk the room

Those students who show they have grasped the skill are usually pretty obvious. I will often ask them to point to where they’ve included the targeted skill. I can pull up a chair, kneel down, or look over their shoulder to determine proficiency. If they’re still struggling, I have the opportunity to re-teach right there.

This is MUCH more meaningful to a student than receiving an essay back full of comments and marks for them to read, understand, and change, which can be overwhelming and decrease their motivation to revise and grow. Instead, target a skill or two at a time, set a certain number of minutes for work time, and students will rise to the occasion. You’ll have more time to meet with students rather than monitor discipline.

Click HERE to read a blog post that goes more in depth on Time-on-Task. The knowledge that work time has a limit can increase student productivity. There’s a free graph to help with teaching time-on-task skills.

Grading Tip #3:  You do not need to grade everything

One of the most important grading tips is that there’s no need to always do a final assessment or grade a full piece of work. This is especially true in writing. For example, if you are teaching narrative writing, your lessons target the skills you want students to show, like writing an engaging lead, adding dialogue, building towards a climax, etc. You get the idea.

Have your clipboard ready with the skills you want your students to show and mark them off when you see evidence. I’m not saying you won’t ever read the entire piece of writing. However, if you use the clipboard technique, much of the specific grading will be done and you can then read student work for continuity, flow, or something more difficult to assess during a “Walk the Room” grading session.

Grading Tip #5:  Determine what needs more instruction

When you walk the room with a clipboard, you’ll notice if there’s a point of confusion that’s cropping up repeatedly. This will help you target a lesson that needs more direct instruction. Perhaps it’s a simple redirect during the same period, or this may become your whole-class lesson for tomorrow. You can also immediately gather a smaller group to do re-teaching on the topic and assess right there if the skill is shown.

How does this reduce grading? When students understand the skill they’re being asked to use, it’s easier to see the skill. There’s less wading through student work trying to assess what’s being shown.

Grading Tip #6:  There are mentors in your classroom

Another benefit from “Walk the Room” is that you’ll notice students who’ve mastered a particular skill. Use this information to set up mentor groups for teaching specific skills. For example, if you notice that Hakim understands how to punctuate dialogue, he can be a mentor to a student or two who need more instruction, especially if they respond well to peer teaching. This will free you up to work with students who are in need of your time or to continue your walk around.

One technique I like to use to make our classroom mentor time a productive and efficient part of our day is to first quietly ask if proficient students would like to mentor and if they feel like they’re at a point in their work where they can participate. If they agree, they put their names on the board in front of the room and the skill they’ll help teach.

Students who seem to struggle with a skill will either sign up with a mentor or I’ll assign the student to the mentor. There are many benefits to peer work, but you do need to set clear expectations.

Grading Tip #7:  Plan for early finishers

Early finishers can create distractions, which then draws your attention away from your focus. Don’t forget to plan for those early finishers. Provide an engaging activity that practices a skill they’re focusing on during their work time. I love having task cards ready because task cards can focus in on skills and can be used by individuals, partners, and small groups. Find a selection of Figurative Language Task Cards HERE. Color by code activities are also no prep and versatile. Check out this blog post on why color by code pages serve as great worksheets.

Find the no prep color by codes here.

Grading Tip #8:  Be clear about your target goals

Do the background work for future classroom success

Before you begin walking the room, make sure that students understand the target goals. Keep them visible on the screen or whiteboard. Consider having your students write down the goals for the work period (this can even include behavior goals). This will free up your valuable time.

Grading Tip #9:  Teach students what work time looks like

You’ll also want to directly teach your students how to behave during work time. This makes it to my top 9 grading tips because when students don’t understand behavior expectations, it can hinder your ability to walk the room, assess, and re-teach. Take the time to make sure the class is in agreement on what productive, respectful behavior looks like during work time.

If there’s a student who simply can’t function, don’t hesitate to send them to a buddy classroom (a pre-determined classroom that you and another (buddy) teacher have agreed upon. It’s best if there’s a two-year difference in the buddy classroom, but this isn’t essential). This sets a “get down to business” tone for the period.

So if you haven’t used the “Walk the Room” method, you may want to re-think what YOU do during student work time. Keep that clipboard handy, consider setting obvious time limits for work, and use those mentors. These simple grading tips & tools can make your teaching more successful AND reduce your workload!

I’m teaming up with some fabulous bloggers this month. Click on the links to check out more great posts.