Ever feel like you're drowning in a sea of student papers, unsure of what to grade or how to keep up with grading? In this video, I spill the tea on how to keep up with grading BEFORE report cards are due. From deciding what to grade to a genius filing system, we're diving deep into three game-changing strategies (plus a bonus tip) that transformed my grading game.
Ever feel like you're drowning in a sea of student papers, unsure of what to grade or how to keep up with grading? In this video, I spill the tea on how to keep up with grading BEFORE report cards are due. From deciding what to grade to a genius filing system, we're diving deep into three game-changing strategies (plus a bonus tip) that transformed my grading game.
Can I share a secret with you? I used to be terrible at grading papers. So this is a true story. But when I first started teaching, I was teaching in a kindergarten classroom and what I would do is, when my students completed their work, I would have them go turn it in into their mailboxes and then I would pull all the individual papers out of the mailbox to then sit down and grade everything and input them in and put a star on each paper to then send them home. But there was just one problem I wasn't good at keeping up with the grading. It got so bad that one day my principal came in, looked at the messy work and asked when are you grading all those papers? Yeah, it got that bad, and the problem was I was trying to grade everything and I didn't know what to grade and I fell behind because of it.
Speaker 1:Well, today we are going to dive into the secret strategies of transforming from that teacher who struggles to keep up with grading, like I did, who's staying up the night before report cards are due to try to get caught up, to now being that teacher who has everything caught up, is grading papers weekly and sending work home weekly and never has to stay late or stay up late. So today I'll be sharing three strategies to help you stay consistent with grading papers, plus a bonus one. That's the most important one, and I'm going to save that for the end. So make sure to stick around, because you won't want to miss it. Hey, teacher bestie, my name is Helena and I'm the creator of the present teacher podcast. I'm a first year teacher coach and in this podcast you are going to learn everything from simple, actual classroom management, social learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom, or we're going to make it happen here.
Speaker 1:The first strategy you want to use while trying to keep up with grading as a teacher is to decide what you're going to grade ahead of time. You see, one of the biggest mistakes I made when it came to grading was I tried to grade everything. When you try to grade everything, it is so easy to fall behind. Instead, come up with a plan on what you want to grade ahead of time, check with your district or school for specific requirements and your team lead. So, for example, at how one school we had a requirement that we had to have one to two grades per week per subject as an elementary teacher. But either way, it's a good idea to check in, like I said, with your principal, your front office or your team lead to see if there are any requirements for your school. Then decide how many assignments you are going to be grading a week.
Speaker 1:And here's what I did, especially as a second grade teacher. I decided to grade our end of unit assessments and weekly work and use our weekly work as an overall participation grade. So I took assessments and I graded those and inputted them as they were and then I would give weekly scores based on overall participation in their weekly assignments. So let me give you an example. Let's say I'm teaching math as a second grade teacher and I'm going to give them five weeks or five points for the week of assignment each day. So let's say that they get one point for each day. Let's say they miss an assignment or they don't do the work. They get four out of the five for that week. And then you know continuing on, you don't have to do it this way. It's just an idea. And you also want to think to yourself or ask yourself do I believe in using participation points in the class or using weekly work towards the grade, or do I specifically just want to use assessments and then also ask yourself how many grades per week, per subject, are you doing? Ask teachers in your grade level or in the building for more ideas on what they do to more grades and what they specifically count in their grade book for assignments.
Speaker 1:Now, the second strategy you want to use in order to get ahead of grading is you don't want to use mailboxes or turn in boxes. Now, this is going to be an extremely unpopular opinion, but I don't recommend using mailboxes or turning baskets, and here is why Mailboxes collect papers and, especially if you work with those primary grades, they crumple really easily and they tend to pile up. Students need to be taught to vary thoroughly the procedure of putting their papers gently in their mailbox or cubby, and especially at the primary level, this could take a lot of work. The second thing is turn in baskets. Now I use turn in basket, a turn in basket my first year of teaching second grade and the problem was is that the work would continue piling up and, no matter how long I felt like I was sitting there grading all those papers, the work never seemed to end. That and I was trying to filter through and find the assessments that I really needed to input into the gradebook ASAP. So here's what I used instead.
Speaker 1:Instead, I had my students filing away by name in a milk crate yes, that's right, a milk crate. So what I did is I put file folders inside the milk crate with the student's name. Whenever they completed a work that was just for participation or practice for an assessment, I had them file it away. Now, instead of having them file away assessments, I would then collect all the assessments so I could grade them at one time. So this made grading assessments easier because, like I said, I could sit down and grade the same assessment 20, 25, 30 times, depending how many students I have. And it makes grading participation for the week easier, because then I can go per student and just grade all of their assignments for that week and see if they have the enough amount of assignments to get their points. So this honestly saved me so much time and it's definitely been a time saver. And it was easier to send work home by by student because it's already filed that way.
Speaker 1:So let's say I have a student named I feel like Johnny is used, so much. We'll say Athen, I have a student named Athen. I pull out her stuff, I grade all her participation work and then it's ready to go. When I am ready to send it home, I could just put in the folder or give it to her to put in her folder. So, as a recap, the first thing you want to do to grade more effectively and faster as a teacher is you want to figure out what you are and are not grading ahead of time. The second thing is you don't want to use mailboxes or cubbies or a filing basket per se or a basket turn in basket to grade or collect assignments.
Speaker 1:The third strategy I recommend that you do is to send work home weekly. Like I said at the beginning of this of today is that I would let the work pile up and then I had family who's message me wondering why they never got work sent home. So instead I recommend picking one day out of the week that you are going to be sending work home. So for me this was Fridays, because I don't give my students homework on the weekends. So when they have their folder that goes back and forth, I could just send their papers home with them for that week. So this helps me grade all of their participation work at once, and then I could send it home with them the next day. So every week, families got to see where their students were and how they're, much they're working in class and things they can work on and help keep the students accountable. And, better yet, it kept me accountable because I knew I had to send work home by that specific date. So that's why I definitely recommend picking a day that you are going to be sending work home weekly to your families. So, as a recap, the way to grade faster or more consistently as a teacher is to one, to figure out what you're grading ahead of time, to avoid using mailboxes or turn in baskets.
Speaker 1:Three, send work home weekly to keep you accountable. And now number four, this is a bonus idea or strategy that I want to invite you to use, and that is to pick a day and time. So here's the secret strategy to finally keeping up with grading before part cards, and that's picking a grading day. So for me, thursdays, I would grade everything from participation to assessment, so I could have them ready to send home by Friday. This helps me keep up with grading and for this I use one focus for the day, and so Thursdays, no matter what was going on, that was my focus for that day during my prep. It kept me accountable because I had to send work home, like I said, to the next day. So I want to invite you to ask yourself what day of the week can you designate as your grading day? Let us know in the comments or send me a DM to help keep you accountable. So that wraps up the secret to keeping up with grading before report cards are due.
Speaker 1:As a recap, the first one was to figure out what you're grading ahead of time. The second strategy was to avoid using mailbox or turn in baskets. The third thing was to send work home completed and graded work home weekly, and the bonus tip was to pick a day and time that you are going to be grading work to then send it, send home later that week. For me, that was Thursdays. If you want to learn more, I want to invite you to check out the ultimate new teacher guide on how you can save time in your classroom with more systems. I will make sure, more systems like these. I'll make sure to put that link in the description.
Speaker 1:And then I also want to invite you, if you want, to take this a step further and you want to learn more about time saving strategies like this, I want to invite you to join the present teacher circle. So I created this community for teachers to learn how to save time on items like grading, lesson planning, communication with families, admin and co-workers for prepping and organizing their resources. If that is something that you are interested in, where I walk you through all of these different pieces on how to save time with each of these different aspects, I will put a link in the description down below, and I am so excited to have you join us inside the present teacher circle if that sounds like something that you're aligned to. What questions do you have about saving time as a teacher? Let me know by either sending me a DM or putting it in the comments below, and I might just answer your question in the upcoming weeks in upcoming content. As always, remember we are stronger together and I will see you next time.
Speaker 1:Teacher Betsy. Bye. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and out of the classroom. It would mean the world to me if you could take 5 seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials to let me know you're listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together with All the Love in the World. Helena, aka the President Teacher. See you next time, teacher Betsy.