Don’t Grade Student Work On-Time? Shame on you!
Such a critical topic, I can’t wait until Wednesday to post! Please comment and let me know what you think!
If you are not grading student work (tests, quizzes, homework, classwork, projects, and yes, essays) immediately, and then recording them in your electronic grade book (EGB) so that students, parents and admin had immediate access to them, then you are not doing your job. Shame on you! There is no other way to say it. You are dropping the ball and have only yourself to blame when students disengage because apparently grades don’t matter. So if your students are missing the importance of school, look in the mirror.
As you might say to your classes, “I don’t want to hear any excuses – your dog was hit by a car, your grandmother is sick, you left the work at home, yada, yada, yada… I don’t want to hear it.” And teachers, if you are not grading and recording on the same day I don’t want to hear excuses either, “I have 5 classes with 32 kids each class!” “Essays take so long to grade.” “I don’t have time!” Seriously?
Here’s a quarter, call someone who cares.
As a teacher, who taught you it is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to take more than one day to grade and record any assessment you have given to students? In which one of your education classes (sic) were you taught grading should take up to a week? Where is that rule written? Here’s the truth: The rationale to grade on-time should have been right up there with the first day Student Procedures and Protocols with the script sounding something like this:
“Assigned work is the only way I have of evaluating your progress in my class. To make sure this happens, we each have a job. Your job is to complete any work I assign on the same day it is assigned. Period. So, if I give you an online quiz on Monday, it is due on Monday night. My job is to make sure that the quiz is graded and recorded on (your EGB) so you and your parents can see how you did on Monday night. Does that sound fair?”
Using an EGB, like JupiterEd, grading, recording, and uploading 150 quizzes or tests online would take all of 7 minutes. On-time grading/recording is a cardinal element of real Professional Development. Its purpose is to make everyone’s lives easier and more productive. Here is my take regarding doing work “on-time”.
My understanding of marriage has come hard won. It didn’t come with a book (not that I would have read it anyway!) and outside good-intentioned suggestions did nothing as well (because I hate being told what to do), but we live and learn. What have I learned makes a better husband? Aversion therapy (a type of behavior therapy designed to make a patient give up an undesirable habit by causing them to associate it with an unpleasant effect) did the trick!
Most of us believe positive reinforcement will fix everything, right? We love clapping, cheering, high-fives, hugs, pats, a simple thumbs up or, my very least and most disingenuous phrase, “Good job!” But these didn’t work for me (maybe because I’m a guy) and they accomplished nothing. For me the solution was to be nagged. Don’t think of nagging as a negative. I was probably asked to do something nicely the first or second time. So nagging is just “ratcheting it up” a bit!
“Take out the garbage!”
“Pick up your clothes and put them in the hamper!”
“Could you put the laundry on if the hamper is full?”
“Clean the garage, I can’t walk through there!”
“Don’t put all your stuff on the dining room table.”
“Put your dishes in the sink!”
“Put the dishes in the sink into the dishwasher!”
“Is it so hard to empty the dishwasher when the dishes are clean instead of just taking out your coffee cup?”
Several years ago, I decided to use the Scientific Method to see if there was any validity to all this nagging. Is it me? Could I be deserving of all this nagging? So, the scientist in me did an experiment.
Leaving all other variables constant, I chose a single Independent Variable to test that I was being nagged about. So instead of waiting to hear my better half ask me to take out the garbage multiple times, I began taking it out on my own. I’ll show her! Just watch me take this garbage out. What was the result? Nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. What happened was that I realized it was a dirty job, I really didn’t mind doing it and I was actually pretty good at taking out garbage. So, what did my wife say? Nothing. Not a word. But… the nagging stopped.
Change didn’t happen overnight. It took years before I realized that making changes from items on the “nagging list” vastly improved my life! It was amazing! Not only did most of the nagging stop, but it seemed that the house was cleaner and more organized. I learned what is meant by, “Happy wife, happy life.”
So, what does this have to do with grading papers? Here’s where I get to nag you:
Finish all your grading and record all grades so they can be seen by all students, parents and administrators… Now! NO EXCUSES!!
I am nagging you so that you can have a neater, more organized and well-run classroom.
How long should it take to grade student work?
One day. Homework, worksheets, quizzes, tests, everything! We all get lazy and let tests cool off on our desks before grading them. We might even lose a paper here and there. Not grading on-time is every teacher’s Achilles heel. If you don’t grade and record the same day, then you won’t have timely and reliable data for your students to use when setting goals, and reliable student data is what goal setting and the School Goals Work program is all about.
In addition, on-time grading is a show of respect. If students are motivated to study for a quiz or test and you do not provide them with the grade the same day they take it, then that is just plain discourteous. How many times have you heard from a parent, “My son took that test last week and I still don’t see the grade online. Have the tests been graded yet?” There is no good response to this. They are trying to be nice, but in reality, they are not happy. Would you be happy if it was your child? There is absolutely no good reason why tests cannot be graded and recorded the same day/night. I have coined the acronym, PAT (Pedagogical Aversion Therapy). “Happy parents, happy teacher!”
Here’s how doing work on-time works in the real world. While in practice, if we did not have a patient’s Initial Report completed (with x-ray interpretation) and submitted electronically or by fax before midnight, some insurance companies would not pay for any of it. Period. No money, honey.
When subbing, I would ask students, “If you take a test, when do you expect to find out your grade?” Their first answer is “about a week”. Then someone else says “a few days”. Then I ask if they would like to have the grade that same day. They all say, “Yes!”
After all, is there any competition, academic or otherwise, where you don’t find out the results at the end of the event? “Great game today team! We’ll tell you who won next Thursday!” And no, it is not different. It is the same! Students need closure on the material to get ready for new stuff. In addition, it is impossible for a student to set goals if they do not have timely data! Gathering data (grades) is a two-way street. We assign work and students return work. They are doing their job. Do yours! Your life as a teacher will improve exponentially once you figure out how to make on-time grading a regular part of your life.
Non-negotiable. Student “A” takes a test and is excited to learn how they did. This is important to them. This is big! If you do not let them know right away, why would you expect them to be enthusiastic about your class? You hold their level of passion for school in your hand!
By not grading student work right away you are telling them, “I don’t care.” Isn’t this what you think about doctors who don’t return your phone call or let you know what your test results are as soon as they get them? You think, “You don’t care.” And they don’t!
But you do care, you just forgot how important grades are to students. Maybe because everyone is “incorrectly” telling you that teaching is not about the grade. News Flash - The end result is only about the grade! The good news is that we can change. Teachers can change, but only if you stop saying, “That is not how I do it!”
Here’s the fix to have all assessments graded and recorded on the same day they are assigned:
Assign assessments/homework online to be done at home – There is no reason why 99% of your work (tests, quizzes, worksheets, etc…) cannot be given online in an “electronic format”, taken at home and where all answers are submitted online.
Lots of quick “low stakes” assessments - Let’s be honest, students’ attention spans have taken a beating, so here is how to build back endurance. I suggest 2-4 weekly quizzes (3-5 questions each) and one test weekly. All to be completed at home and online. JupiterEd makes this so easy!
Time Management – Plan to use your preps and part of lunch more effectively. Use this time to create your online quizzes/tests for the week. This makes life super easy!!
Prioritize – Try to get closure on what you can do in school. Take home everything else.
Give them until 4am the next day – or whenever you wake up. Go online, upload all grades, and fill in all incompletes with a “missing”.
Add a comment – Do not take points off, but instead add a comment, “Quiz not taken when assigned”. Copy and paste to all missing for all classes. This takes about 7 minutes.
Grading Labs, Essays or Projects – These can be done starting in school and finished at home if necessary. Choose a single criterion from a set of parameters to grade (hypothesis, graphing, thesis statements, conclusion, etc…) and grade the rest holistically. Be honest with students and parents from the start. Let them know this is how you will be grading. Never tell them what part will be graded and change it every week. For example, for the NYS Regents you should have almost 30 labs collected by the end of the school year. There is no need to go through every single lab with a fine-toothed comb. Absolutely not! It is much more important that students receive immediate feedback (next day!!) on a holistically (+ one fine-toothed) graded lab or essay. They need immediate feedback to be able to understand what they did right or wrong and to improve! We will talk much more about this later!
Once you have uploaded grades and added comments, you are finished!
“But that’s not how I do it!”
I get it. Really I do, but change is good! If you are happy putting in extra time to needlessly grade and input grades while sticking it to the kids by not grading on-time, that is your choice. But eventually, “That’s not how I do it!” will not work in your favor. On-time grading will give you happy students, happy parents and a happy administration. A hat trick! The trifecta! Does it get any better?
Imagine having a Tuesday after-school PD about on-time grading where you would actually learn new skills that will make you a better teacher? No ice breakers, No scavenger hunts. Learning how change = growth for teachers. That is what the School Goals Work is all about! Call me. We’ll do lunch :)
Thank you as always for reading and learning more about how Real Practice Management produces Real Professional Development! Please feel free to comment or ask any questions you may have about on-time grading. Until next Wednesday!