13 Grading Tricks to Maximize Your Time
Time. We only have so much of it. And if you’re a busy K-12 teacher or a professor in higher ed, you’re got very few minutes to spare.
You probably spend far too many of those minutes grading.
Grading students’ assignments can be a huge time-suck, and a tedious one at that. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, there are some truly ingenious ways teachers just like you are grading faster than ever before.
If you’re interested in cutting your grading time in half — and maintaining your sanity while you’re at it — here are thirteen tricks to help you save time on grading:
1. Give fewer, more meaningful assignments
Cutting back on your assignments might sound like a cop-out, but it’s really the smartest place to start. Why waste time assigning mindless busy work that isn’t teaching students anything anyway? Each time to draw up an assignment, take a good long look at it and ask yourself, does this add to my class? Is this teaching a skill my students’ need? Will this paper help my students think in a new way? Only assign work infused with meaning, and you’ll spend way less time grading while your students learn way more.
2. Call in the apps!
Technology is your friend. There really is an app for everything, including a shocking number of apps built specifically for harried teachers. Need to grade some essays? There’s an app that can help. Tracking attendance automatically? There’s an app. Keeping in touch with students who have questions? Apps. Recording grades faster and better? You guessed it: apps. To find apps you’ll love, check out this awesome list of from BestCollegesOnline.com: 20 Time-Saving Grading Apps that Teachers Love.
To read the rest of our time-saving grading ideas, check out our original article: 13 Time-Saving Grading Hacks from the Experts.
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