Teaching and Learning Bulletin
Issue 9
Last issue, we focused on how to develop more productive use of peer assessment by moving towards peer critique. This issue we'll look at teacher feedback; what works well and how to ensure students actually do something after reading your comments.
I'm drowning in marking - help!!!
His top tip is to set tables out in a horseshoe for half a lesson. He sits in the horseshoe with the students and everyone has one minute to find one thing to change or comment on after reading the work. By the end, he has commented on every student's work and got a good flavour of how his class is doing. Plus, students have lots of other comments to consider from the class.
For other great ideas like this, read the full blogpost: http://www.classroomtm.co.uk/marking-is-broken/
All the work I'm marking features the same mistakes - I keep writing out the same target for improvement!
Once you get you've collated your errors, you can number them. Write this number at the end of their work and then display the errors on a slide. The students can see what level of errors they are making and carry out a follow-up task linked to their error. Much more time efficient and useful!
For more detail on how 'Taxonomy of Errors' works, read his full blogpost: http://canonsbroadside.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/using-taxonomy-of-errors-to-enhance.html
I've marked their work but they never do anything afterwards - I spend so much time marking, but for what?
David Didau, a.k.a. 'LearningSpy, refers to this as dialogic questionning in his blogpost 'Making feedback stick'. For more details on this approach to marking, read his full blogpost: http://learningspy.co.uk/2012/07/16/getting-students-to-act-on-written-feedback/
What if I want students to think for themselves about their own strengths and weaknesses?
After, students can move onto another task whilst you check their comments. You can follow up with a quick post-it note identifying if they're on the right track or not.
I've got three year 8 classes all doing the same task - what's a quick yet effective way of marking their work?
What role can technology play in improving the way I give feedback to students?
Take a picture of their work using your iPad; this will save to your camera roll. Open up Explain Everything app and import the image of their work into the frame. Press play and record your audio feedback, making use of the annotation tools to draw their attention to key parts of their work.
Students then watch your video; after, they keep a written record of their teacher's feedback. They then make the necessary changes in the next redraft.