From The Desk of The Grading Guru and Why “Good Job” Isn’t Enough

We all know that teachers spend endless hours grading. The time invested in grading outside of school hours is tremendous. The amount of grading that teachers bring home each night/week surely takes time away from family, relaxation, and hobbies. As a student, I can remember myself anxiously waiting to receive my grades either on a test, essay, or report card. Receiving just a letter grade or one-word comment like, “Excellent,” on an assignment that I spent hours, if not days on, didn’t tell me much except whether I passed or failed or if my work was satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Sure, if the grade or comment was positive that made me feel good, but it still didn’t tell me specifically what was “excellent,” or what my strengths were to capitalize on, or where I could or should improve. Personally, I couldn’t stand a letter grade followed by a minus, like an A-, B-, or C-. There was something about that minus that put that letter grade to shame. I would cringe when I saw it. And don’t get me started on checks, smiley faces, and stars. But I admit that in my early years as a teacher, I thought it was ok to put such things on graded papers too.

As I became more of a mindful educator, I realized that putting all that time into grading meant I had to invest my time wisely by giving students feedback that was meaningful and valuable to help students reflect and to think critically about their work. What’s the point of spending all that time on grading if I didn’t do that? When reading through lengthy writing pieces, essays, and detailed long answer responses that require analytical thinking and more thought processes, I didn’t do any justice to my students by responding with, “Good job,” “Good thinking” or “Well done.” This wasn’t the kind of feedback that my students needed to help them reflect or make revisions. I mean we all like to be told we’re doing well, but what if we’re not? Getting a poor grade or a comment that says, “Do over” or “Not your best effort,” leaves students feeling confused and discouraged. In both cases, students need to know specifically what they are doing well or where they can improve, providing constructive criticism to support student growth, progress, and success.

Feedback Sticky Notes

My students and I were always using sticky notes, especially when giving and receiving feedback. So, I created Feedback Sticky Notes to use in a few ways:

• Teacher giving feedback to students

• Students give feedback to each other (peer feedback) during writing conferences, small group work, projects, and during museum walks

• Students give themselves feedback in order to reflect and to set goals

Teacher Giving Feedback to Students

I gave the most feedback to students during writing conferences, after published work, or when an assignment or project was completed. I like these 3 simple, yet effective ways to give meaningful and valuable feedback to students.

• 2 Stars & a Wish

• Give Me Kind, Specific & Helpful feedback

• Give Me Five (stars, wishes, questions, goals, tips, strategies)

Here are posters that describe each feedback strategy. These posters are helpful for student reference. Post them in your classroom and/or give a copy of each one to your students.

 

Here are a few writing samples from my son, who was a first-grader, and how I use the feedback sticky notes to give him meaningfully, constructive feedback.

I always remind my students that feedback is meant to be constructive, not critical. They are still learning, so feedback should be taken with an open mind and are suggestions for improvement.

Peer Coaching

Many students felt that conferring with peers was not valuable because after sharing their work, their peers would say, “Good job” but didn’t specifically say what was good. On the flip side, if a peer thought the work wasn’t good, they didn’t share specific feedback about what wasn’t “good” either. This led to little or no revising, one of the most important steps in the writing process. This is when I knew I had to train my students to become peer coaches. Once they knew what kind of feedback was meaningful and valuable they were able to use sticky notes and give this kind of feedback to their peers. After that, conferences were much more productive and the feedback given was helpful and specific. Peer conferring became an effective part of our school day not only in Writer’s Workshop but in anything we were working on in class.

Reflection

When it was time to self-reflect or help our peers reflect, these sticky notes came in handy. They also helped us to set goals moving forward.

I hope this encourages you to give more feedback to your students and feels less intimidating. I know that grades are important to student and parents and giving number and letter grades are necessary for those short answer assessments, like multiple choice or just check-ins, and for collecting data, but I don’t want students to get stuck on the “grade.” When it comes to helping students improve and reflect, giving meaningful feedback is far more effective. These little sticky notes make it a bit more manageable to give the feedback students need to improve. And best of all, your students will appreciate it too!

When you create a class community where feedback is just as important as the grade, you’ll see that your students find value in it. Give them time to swallow the feedback and to make revisions. The process of learning is always ongoing so your assignments should be open to continuous revisions.

A question I get often from teachers is, “Do I have to give feedback on everything? I just don’t have the time for that.” No, please don’t. I suggest giving feedback on your most important work: tests/exams, published writing, essays, and long answer responses. Some things like homework may be checked for effort and completion. Glance over exit tickets to check for understanding. Some work may need to be looked over for taking some notes to plan small groups or share during parent-teacher conferences. So, please use your judgment and invest your time wisely in giving meaningful feedback on select work that will truly help your students improve.

You can check out my Feedback Sticky Notes and Posters here.

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