Marking books quickly and effectively is something I have struggled with and am keen to work on. I do not have time to sit for two hours writing individual comments. I tend to get a bit carried away and have often not managed to pay the same attention to each book. Most schools require books to be looked at, and a formative comment given every 6ish lessons. In Maths, this is every two weeks. The comments then have to be read by students and acted upon. I believe this is extremely useful in students progression but very time consuming and often not possible for me to do. I have tried getting into routines, but then we have half termly tests or year 11 homework papers to mark and I start to feel that my marking pile never goes down. This is something I am keen to work on so I did some research.
I found a great blog article by Joe Kirby & Kris Boulton.
http://back2thewhiteboard.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/5-how-can-i-mark-books-without-burning-out/
They have come up with the idea of using icons to set targets. The book is quickly scanned after the lesson and the teacher draws an icon under their work. The following lesson the students write down the relevant formative comment and/or target and respond to it. I am giving it a go with my year 8 books. We have just had a lesson on ratios of lengths and areas. I am going to take in their books and time how long it takes me to mark all 22 of them. I have created the following PowerPoint slide for tomorrow lesson:
I found a great blog article by Joe Kirby & Kris Boulton.
http://back2thewhiteboard.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/5-how-can-i-mark-books-without-burning-out/
They have come up with the idea of using icons to set targets. The book is quickly scanned after the lesson and the teacher draws an icon under their work. The following lesson the students write down the relevant formative comment and/or target and respond to it. I am giving it a go with my year 8 books. We have just had a lesson on ratios of lengths and areas. I am going to take in their books and time how long it takes me to mark all 22 of them. I have created the following PowerPoint slide for tomorrow lesson:
Feel free to steal this file. Icon Template.
Done!
Ok, so it took me 24 minutes (with a couple of interruptions) to get through all the books. I really had to stop myself from writing comments that I was already setting, but it was a lot quicker and I fell better know they are done and that students will respond to them tomorrow.
I will update you when I have allowed students to respond. I have a set of red pens for them to respond to, so it is clear that they are acting upon comm
Done!
Ok, so it took me 24 minutes (with a couple of interruptions) to get through all the books. I really had to stop myself from writing comments that I was already setting, but it was a lot quicker and I fell better know they are done and that students will respond to them tomorrow.
I will update you when I have allowed students to respond. I have a set of red pens for them to respond to, so it is clear that they are acting upon comm