There are many reasons to reconsider the amount of money we all spend on grades and to think about methods to make them less important. Many of the purported advantages of grades, including their impact on student motivation and their ability to fairly represent learning, have been questioned by research conducted in the past ten years. Concerns around grading responsibilities and methods have also caused teachers to doubt the viability and logic of standard procedures such as gathering, reviewing, and commenting on each assignment. Read on to understand how educators who have pursued teacher training courses can streamline their grading practices.
Why Should You Go Gradeless?
Teachers rob themselves of the time they must teach when they grade assignments for excessive periods. Everybody has experienced a backlog of assignments, therefore they assign the class a chore to help them find the time to grade. It’s incorrect. Furthermore, it needs to be reversed. Creating grade books and entering grades should be secondary to teaching and learning. One of the main obstacles to teachers becoming more creative in their instruction has frequently been identified as the time and effort required for grading.
In certain instances, instructors feel that the responsibilities of grading take up so much of their time that they have little time for thought on the design of a course or for goals of pedagogical development. There are many opportunities for faculty members to make assessment and evaluation more productive, better aligned with student learning, and less burdensome for faculty and students, which lie beneath the less encouraging news about grades.
5 Good Reasons Why Teachers Should Grade Less Frequently
Here are 5 reasons why you should not spend much time in grading and make it a less frequent practice:
1. Less Feedback Is Better Feedback
Your students will probably shrug off the hours you spend grading and commenting on each assignment and quiz. Make an effort to give more focused, less general feedback. Students frequently see too much input as ‘ignored, misunderstood, and of low value.’ Understand not only what mistakes they made, but also why they made these mistakes and what they can do to avoid them the next time.
Given that students often scan input, it is best to focus on a small number of high-impact areas that require work. First and foremost, good feedback is helpful; it stimulates the learner to refine the learning of new skills and is timely, precise, and practical in scope in addition to correcting mistakes.
2. Fewer Grades, Lesser Stress
One of the main causes of teacher stress is the fact that grading time is frequently unpaid. Teachers frequently decide to spend time outside their contracted hours engaging in activities that could help them educate students more effectively, in contrast to many other professions where work and personal life are clearly defined. Reducing grades also improves the well-being of the students.
Research suggests that grades, tests, and other assessments were the main causes of stress, far outweighing workload, homework, sleep deprivation, and college preparations. Consider reducing the stakes and giving students more practice exams rather than assigning grades for each assignment. You can also encourage students to think in rough drafts and use formative assessment techniques rather than high-stakes ones.
3. Grading Obligations Reduce Teacher Creativity
The key to effective teaching is coming up with interesting methods to teach a subject, which takes a lot of planning. Almost equal amounts of time are spent on lesson preparation, grading, and collaborative planning techniques that might lead to a school’s best teaching practices.
The time and effort required for grading have frequently been identified as a major obstacle to teachers becoming more creative in their instruction, depriving enthusiastic teachers of the chance to consider the format or subject matter of their course, create engaging learning activities, or formulate thought-provoking, challenging questions for discussion or debate.
4. Grades Are Unstable Indicators
Grading accuracy varied widely: almost two-thirds of the course grades were inflated, meaning they were at least one letter grade higher than the standardized exam result, while one-third were far lower, suggesting that the professors had understated the students’ level of understanding.
Having good intentions won’t solve the problem. Bias of all types infiltrates grading procedures, taking advantage of the cognitive shortcuts that we all employ to reach difficult conclusions in the real world. It is probable that multiple-choice tests, which can be graded with great consistency, have the potential to provide misleading information on student knowledge. Moreover, written documents such as essays, reports, and other written assignments offer greater opportunities for subjectivity.
5. Grading Offers An Artificial Sense Of Completion
Grades may serve as a signal to pupils that their learning is over and can also feel like a mark of approval—or condemnation. Try postponing grading until after students have had an opportunity to go over their work, consider your criticism, and how they might do better in order to urge them to reflect carefully on their development.
According to the study, students frequently become overly fixated on grades, and removing the grades system, even for a short period, allows them the opportunity to improve and submit better work in the future.
Are You Willing To Go Gradeless?
Feedback keeps the discourse going, but grades tend to terminate the student’s interest in the work. Teachers must advise and coach, but when it comes to grades, they become judges. Most instructors who have pursued Teacher Training Courses and students despise grades, yet they believe there is no other option. The majority of people appear to be aware of the issues with the existing system and have hopes for a better one, but they don’t believe that anything more is feasible.