I am a BIG fan of quality
marking. I am pretty much a teacher that
believes if we are expecting children to complete something in their books then
we should be marking it and rewarding it with an appropriate response. Not just
a ‘well done’ or ‘good’. And yes I know it is sometimes near impossible to mark
work every day but then I also raise the question ‘why do we have to have written
work in books every day?
There has been a big shift in
the way we mark and many teachers have taken to using a whole range of methods to
assess. Used properly, marking and feedback are essential tools for ensuring
that children learn more effectively and understand what they are aiming for,
and they can provide strategies for success and ways to move forward.
Research (‘Inside the Black Box’
Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, 1998)
has shown that there has been a
tendency to mark for quantity and presentation of the work, rather than for
quality. We have all been victims of that red pen scrawling’ please keep your
work tidy’ or ‘you must write more’. The problem is how does that help the
student? What do they gain from comments like this?
Mathematics is one area I think we undervalue quality
comments. We tend to only mark these books with a tick or a cross (or a dot)? Why are we not asking student’s
questions based on the lesson? Next step questions to move them on? Solve a problem, another question to cement the
learning? Ask them what their next step would be? Or a range of HOTs (higher order
questions) to get them really thinking.
Children need to be given a clear idea of how to improve their work, move forward in their learning and achieve their goals. If we continue to just tick, write ‘well done’ or ‘good’ how are we as teachers moving them forward? What we need to learn to do is have manageable and effective ways of marking and provide feedback to pupils so that they can move forward in their learning. Children need to understand their achievements and know exactly what they must do next to make progress.
Children need to be given a clear idea of how to improve their work, move forward in their learning and achieve their goals. If we continue to just tick, write ‘well done’ or ‘good’ how are we as teachers moving them forward? What we need to learn to do is have manageable and effective ways of marking and provide feedback to pupils so that they can move forward in their learning. Children need to understand their achievements and know exactly what they must do next to make progress.
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