I Just May Have Figured Out This Grading Thing

Dear teacher friends and friends of teachers,

I think I've figured out how to not let grading take up every ounce of my free time but still give students meaningful and useful feedback. Here's what I've been trying in our classroom:

1. Keeping a classroom blog - Every Sunday evening, I update a blog with the week's plans, free writes, and homework. Using the page views function of Blogger, I've been able to see that most students actually check the blog at least once a week. Not only have the rates of work completed skyrocketed, students (and I) are much more organized. This organization helps with the next change.

2. Students keep track of their own work - For our most recent units, I've given each student a handout that lists the unit's essential questions, objectives, and assignments. At two points during the unit, I have a day or two of student-teacher conferences where students show me the work they've completed and explain how the work has helped them work toward the objectives. I can then grade the work on the spot with the buy-in of my students.

3. Grade one class a day - I have five classes and there are five work days in the week. For those larger assignments (such as our upcoming research paper), I plan to grade one class a day. If I get behind, I can use the weekend to get caught up. So far, however, I haven't had to do that.

I still think there are a lot of systemic issues that prevent me from giving the number of assignments and assessing them exactly how I think would most benefit students. Schools, classes, and teacher caseloads should be smaller. We should have more time with students on a daily basis to assess work more holistically, but I think these new systems are addressing those issues in the most immediate way I can. What do you use to keep your classroom humming and students receiving feedback that helps them grow?  

Teacher to Teacher

I know I've neglected my blog shamefully. In my defense, the second half of 2013 was full of a lot of life in the third dimension. Before I get back to the nitty gritty of showing my teaching work, I want to make sure you dear readers know some things that kept me from you.

In the very beginning of June, I was biking to brunch, and a car hit me as the driver made a right turn. I broke my elbow, and it was a long, slow road to recovery. Last week, I had my (hopefully!) last follow-up with my bone doctor. I am now back to pulling chaturanga dandasanas though I've yet to get back on the bike.

I've come to realize the importance of the asana part of my yoga practice to my teaching practice. My school is starting a yoga and mindfulness meditation class for teacher on Thursday. I'm so excited (and grateful)! Teachers, what are the healthy treats you give yourself to keep sane, active, and mindful in the classroom? Or is that feeling like a pipe dream for you right now?

In October, my wonderful C and I decided to get married. That's happening in October of this year, and I think I could write an entire blog on getting married with a big family on a teacher's budget, but that's not why you came here. Later this week, I'm going to share some tips I've (finally!) picked up and made my own when it comes to the grading game. I'm happy to report that I've managed to spend the last two weekends not doing any work but catching up on e-mails and posting to my classroom blog, and I don't think that classroom learning has suffered. If anything, students are taking more ownership over their work, and I'm just a happier teacher person to be around. More to come!

There is So Much Grading

Today is Friday. On Friday, I collect journals from about half of my students. In addition to the formative assignments I have tried to review over the week to inform instruction, I will take these journals home with me. I also have some essays students have polished and turned in for a re-grade. We will talk about the philosophy of the last part later, but I find all of these assignments resting in my bag to be pedagogically useful.

But goodness there are a lot of them. I have roughly 190 pages to read this weekend. I also will chaperone prom and spend some time sprucing up my classroom and creating writing prompts and notes on semicolons for the week to come.

Then there are the non-school things I'd like to do this weekend. I hope to perfect my recipe for gluten-free, vegan pizza. I'd like to go wine tasting with some friends and celebrate another friend's successful dissertation defense. I have to get my car inspected. Atticus wants to spend some time in the woods, and so do I. These activities feel important to rejuvenate and refresh myself so I can be a good teacher to my students (well, maybe not the car inspection). But there are only so many hours in a day.

Honestly, sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by all of the grading that I dream of becoming a guidance counselor because I'd still get to help students grow academically and personally, but I wouldn't have to read as many essays. I love working with my students so much, but I am definitely lacking a system for dealing with student work efficiently. Teacher friends, how do you manage your grading load? What tips do you have for those of us still trying to figure it all out? 

Class Size Matters

Here I am at the end of the first quarter, extending deadlines, and grading what students should have done weeks ago. I don't mind. I don't think I'm doing my students a disservice because in "the real world" you get an extension almost every time you ask for it (and is their world not real till they graduate?).

But goodness, I wish I had fewer things to grade. 

How can people say class size doesn't matter? I love to go to their games, call them in the evenings to chat about behavior issues, and learn who they are outside of the classroom. Those are some of my favorite parts of my job. But I can't do those things all day every day for over one hundred people. I cannot.

I could do it for fifty. I definitely did it for fifty kids last year. Maybe if I taught only one class I could see that adding more students into the physical space wouldn't matter as much (although the fire marshal might have something to say about that at this point). But I cannot understand how I can do the things that need doing or would be nice to do for my students and have a life at the rate I'm going now. Smaller class sizes would equal smaller caseloads for teachers which would in turn lead to more and more meaningful behavioral and academic interventions. How is the class size doesn't matter canard surviving? And why aren't we talking about the issue in terms of caseload rather than bodies in a room?