10 Ways to Use your Grading Time More Efficiently

Don’t Grade Everything: 

Sometimes we think that everything we assign must be graded. This is simply not true. Participation points are a real thing and they teach a valuable life skill: you will gain from participation. I have a rubric I call “Work Ethics” that I use to grade participation. I teach this at the beginning of the year. The students have access to the rubric year-round. 

Use Rubrics: 

Speaking of rubrics, use these every time you can. Once you have a rubric established, you can refer students, parents, and administrators to the rubric to justify your grading. Deciding what to assess once saves considerable time by eliminating the need for revisiting it later.

Let students grade each other: 

First, check your school and district policy on student grading. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), students grading papers and announcing scores isn’t a violation. We acknowledge the practice’s upsides and downsides. Here’s my method: A peer-evaluated paper isn’t used as more than a participation grade and the peer does not put a “grade” on the paper. The teacher is the only one to put a grade on an assignment. The assignment is formative and therefore my students use it to grow which should lead to mastery. I teach and expect integrity. When a peer grades a paper, they must end with 3 things that were done well and 3 things they could do to improve. The student does not assign a grade; only the teacher does.

Quality instead of Quantity:

Structure your units in such a way that there is learning expected. I am not a “watch a movie” and be quiet while I grade. However, I have shown a movie in class. There is always a learning objective and a student reflection portion. For example, I have a lesson where my 8th-grade students learn how to identify communication styles in others. We watch an age-appropriate movie with multiple characters, we keep track of communication techniques used by each main character. Once they have finished their chart, they analyze their data and determine the communication style of one character. We do a lot more with this assignment, but you can see that we extensively engage in this assignment, demonstrating genuine learning.

Class Routines: 

Use class tasks like jobs or “ask three before me” to engage students while grading or assisting individuals. I implement a “Day of Grace” sporadically, offering it when most middle schoolers need to catch up. On this day, I expect students to review their grades, complete missing work, make corrections, and set goals for the next few weeks.

Mind Your Feedback: 

Feedback is necessary for growth. Yet my students weren’t using my feedback to improve. So I took time beginning of the year to teach how to use feedback. This is a part of being resilient and having a growth mindset. I want my students to know that any feedback they receive should help them make a change and improve. If feedback shows an error, revise the assignment. For improvements, dare to take risks on the next task.

Grade only what you are assessing: 

My students frequently engage in writing and I wish I had learned this a year ago. Only grade what you taught. When I pick up student writing I am tempted to grade everything; spelling, grammar, sentence structure, you name it. But in reality, these might not align with what I taught. Instead, I emphasize on my rubric writing skill in a section for professional quality, deducting points for distracting errors such as students not capitalizing properly.

Student Mastery: 

Allow your students to become a part of their assessment. Have them explain to you what part of the assignment they believe they showed mastery and only grade that part. For example, if you assign a set of 20  problems to solve, have the students circle the 10 they believe showed mastery.  

Stick to your schedule: 

Sticking to a schedule can look different to each teacher. If you set aside time each week for grading, stick to it. Schedule on your calendar, and protect that time. And if you gave yourself an hour window, when the hour is up, stop grading. The list of what needs grading will never end. It’s part of teaching. Teaching shouldn’t exhaust us to where we lose joy in our work. If we overwhelm ourselves with grading, then we cannot properly engage and instruct our students. You should also consider your school district's grading policy. My district expects 50% of a student’s grade to be major grades like tests and projects, 40% to be daily grades, and 10% to be homework or participation grades. I am also expected to have 4 major grades and 9 daily grades each grading period. This is one daily grade each week, 1 major grade every two weeks, and as many homework or participation grades as I need. I stick to this. 

Use Technology: 

This can be a touchy subject for teachers. As AI expands globally, accompanied by widespread apprehension, the ways students use it can evoke fear. Here is my take on this. AI’s prominence is inevitable, soon to permeate daily life. Education, once reactive to social media, should now be deliberate. Teach students integrity and how to use AI. And use AI for ourselves as well. There are so many AI tools available to teachers. Tools that will help you manage your time and use it efficiently. Some will exploit the situation. Isn’t that always the case though? You can properly name a few colleagues who will let you write the lesson plans and add nothing of significance to the team. Teachers relying on AI to evade critical thinking will face similar consequences. It will be noticeable. But that doesn’t mean that understanding AI and how it can help makes you a poor teacher. It makes you wise. Use AI tools to batch your work, cut down on remedial tasks, generate ideas, bounce ideas off of, and simplify your life. Commonsense.org has a great list of tools that they have reviewed.