3 Tips for Reducing Your Teacher Workload by @RichardJARogers

2. Use ‘Live Marking’

Live marking is a brilliant and simple technique that I picked up far too late in my teaching career. It would have saved me many a late-night had I have conceived of it earlier.

You see, I now know that feedback only works if it is relevant, specific and somewhat emotional. How do we achieve this? – we must mark student work with the students. They have to be involved too.

As soon as I started doing these things, my impact skyrocketed:

1. Simply walk around the classroom with a coloured pen in hand. Tick, flick and mark student work as you walk around. 
2. For larger pieces of work, set the kids on a task and call the students to your desk one at a time. Sit with the student and discuss the work, adding written comments in front of the student along the way. Use praise effectively and remember – praise only works if it is sincere, specific and collective (tell your colleagues and get them to praise the student too). 
3. Use peer-assessment and self-assessment, but don’t do this for everything. Students still need to receive an acknowledgement from their teacher.

Here’s a video I made about live-marking: