A teacher asked me how she could better manage grading all of the papers she had. I responded and said, “Whew! Let me just take a moment for the both of us and take a deep breath in, hold it, and then let it out.” 

I wish I had the courage to ask this question at the beginning of my teaching career. I blindly accepted that having a mountain of work to grade was part of the profession. Even though it took me hours daily to manage assigning work, grading work, putting the grades in the grade book, passing back work and then dealing with late work, I knew that grading was part of the job. The problem was I didn’t have an understanding of the purpose of the assignments I was choosing to grade. Let’s start there.

As a teacher, we teach, and we hope students learn, you know, the good ‘ole teaching and learning cycle. How do we know that students have learned? That’s where assignments come into the picture. Remember, assignments are only one way to assess learning. We have formative assessments and summative assessments. Summative assessment is when we evaluate what students learn at the end of a unit or a term. The summative assessment encompasses many lessons and skills. Formative assessment is to help keep a pulse on learning and to monitor how learning is going. Assignments is one way to do this.

If you have too many papers to grade, you probably don’t have a balance with the types of formative assessments you are using. Every assessment of learning does not have to be a grade in the grade book.

Let’s say you are assessing your students’ abilities to add two-digit numbers. You could assign a worksheet and grade it. You could give questions, have students answer on a whiteboard, and mark on a post-it or class roster who has mastered and who has not mastered the skill. This doesn’t have to go into the grade book.

Also, consider real-time feedback. As a former English teacher, I expected to see different writing skills in each composition. Let’s say the skill was using a semi-colon to join two independent clauses. I could walk around with a clipboard and mark who had completed the task successfully. For the student, I could make a mark like a check or star to communicate their success. If I wanted to put a small grade in the grade book, I could easily. I just need my clipboard and not a stack of papers.

Also, if your school has technology access, consider some e-assignments. I typically make the assignment multiple-choice with some open-ended responses. Also, who said you have to write feedback? I love to give audio feedback. It is quick and easy, and students love to hear my voice, especially when I say something like, “Look at you being successful. Turn up!” Saying that comes off better than writing that, and it makes feedback fun.

If you can’t stay on top of your grading load, you are probably grading way too many assignments. Look at what you graded last semester. Think about how you could have changed those assignments in a way where you have a pulse on what students know without having to put every assignment in the gradebook.