Overwhelmed by grading?! I have lots of grading tips for you! Grading student work can be a daunting task for any teacher. As a young science teacher, I embarked on a grading adventure that turned into a misadventure with valuable lessons learned along the way.
I literally used to cart my “teacher bag” back and forth from home absolutely stuffed with papers to grade. Did I ever get them graded?! Of course not!
I’d go home on a Friday with the intention of ‘catching up’ on all of it and come Sunday night, I would have gotten so far as to see that stuffed bag out of the corner of my eye and experience a feeling of dread. Then I’d suffer from a wicked case of Sunday gut before starting all over the next week.
I got stuck in this endless cycle of stress over grading as it accumulated through the marking period. The last week of the marking period, I would be a basket case trying to really catch up!
Not to mention that simultaneously my students weren’t getting any feedback about their work, I didn’t have any current data to reach out to parents about struggling students, and neither my students nor I knew where their grades stood until their report cards were issued! Ugh what a grading nightmare!
I think back on that time and I’m so grateful that I’ve made big changes to how I grade, why I grade, when I grade, and where I grade!
In this blog post, I will share the grading tips and strategies that have helped me streamline, reduce my load, and get my life back!
Grading Tip 1: Don’t Grade Everything
Once upon a time, I was determined to grade every minute detail of every single assignment, believing that being overly meticulous would help my students learn better.
However, I quickly realized that this approach was like trying to trim each blade of grass in a vast field with a pair of nail scissors – laborious and pointless. Now, I prioritize the main objectives or learning outcomes and give constructive feedback that allows students to grow.
This means pick and choose specific parts or questions to grade and don’t grade anything else. Not that you’re not looking at the other work at all — you can still glean effort and make note of that . . . but as far as actually assigning a grade, keep it to bitesize parts!
Grading Tip 2: Give Lab Quizzes
One great way to shave time off of your grading load is this: don’t grade labs.
Go over them with the class, be clear about the learning objectives that they were supposed to achieve, and then give them a short lab check (quiz) that tests their learning of the targets. This lets them work in groups during the lab to practice skills and make mistakes, but still be held individually responsible for their own learning.
Make a quick Google Form quiz for every lab that assesses the big ideas in both the Disciplinary Core Ideas and in the procedure and process.
Grading Tip 3: Establish Check-Ins
One way to “chunk” the grading for yourself is to add in stopping points where it makes sense in a lesson, lab, project, or activity.
At these “STOP SIGNS”, students check in with you and you grade their work along the way. This may be for a worksheet, a part of a digital lesson, after a certain step of a lab procedure, or throughout a multi-day project.
Grab your gradebook and start giving checks as you check in with each student or group!
Grading Tip 4: Use a Check System
Speaking of checkmarks, one biggie that has helped expedite grading for MANY assignments that are graded more for completion than for correctness is using checkmarks. In my online gradebook, I set these percentages to correlate with these checks:
✔️- – = 65%
✔️- = 80%
✔️ = 90%
✔️+ = 95%
✔️++ = 100%
I can zip through 80 assignments quickly when I’m simply assigning the quality/completion of the work with a checkmark rather than with a numerical grade that has to be justified in more detail.
Grading Tip 5: Have Students Give Peer-Feedback
Big one. Middle school science classes should emphasize the scientific process rather than just the end result. Save yourself some grading energy by leveraging the power of peer assessment.
Assign students the task of evaluating each other’s work using criteria you provide. This fosters a sense of responsibility, encourages collaboration, and helps students gain a deeper understanding of the grading process.
One of the most versatile strategies I’ve adopted over the years is to have students complete a “C-E-R” at the end of a lab activity and have them present their results in pairs.
CER stands for Claim, Evidence, Reasoning. I provide a CER Slide (Google Slide) with the research question completed and the students complete everything else.
- The Research Question is basically the big question that the students were exploring during the activity or lab.
- The Claim is the big takeaway that the students are ‘claiming’ using the data they collected.
- The Evidence is the data, measurements, and observations that the students collected.
- The Reasoning is the meat of this! This is where the students connect the Evidence to the Claim and they use scientific principles to support that.
After all students have completed their CER slide, I pair up the students (usually homogeneously — higher kids with higher kids and lower kids with lower kids) to keep everyone more comfortable. In their pairs, they each have to ‘present’ or ‘argue’ their claim and explain their reasoning. I have the students give feedback to each other using a simple checklist — Does their claim answer the research question? Did they provide sufficient evidence from the activity or lab? Does their reasoning justify how the evidence supports their claim?
They “grade” each other. Students get to hear others’ arguments, which fosters critical-thinking. Students all get immediate feedback. Boom. Objectives accomplished.
If you have never tried CER with your students, check out this free lesson that I use to introduce the process.
And if you want to try out using CER for a lab, try my Density Column Lab or my Experimental Design Lab.
Grading Tip 6: Conference With Each Student
Feedback is the key to learning. And feedback seems to resonant with students when they are part of the conversation!
Sometimes writing feedback on work can seem like you’re nit-picking and that everything is negative. When the feedback is a face-to-face conversation, you can share plenty of positives and applaud effort all while pointing out areas of weakness. This is always easier for students to stomach! And, that’s not to mention the time commitment of giving written feedback. So try conferencing with every student for certain assignments.
Something I’ve learned along the way is that students appreciate conferencing with you. Some may not love it, and it may make some nervous or anxious, but I find that if I make the time to check in individually with each student, they each feel seen. And bonus, I can give feedback verbally without writing!
Now, it’s impossible to conference with every student for every assignment, so set a realistic goal like conferencing for two assignments every marking period.
Grading Tip 7: Utilize Formative Assessments for Quick Feedback
Here’s one from teacher school. Give formative assessments but don’t grade them!
Intermittent formative assessments are instrumental in tracking students’ progress and providing timely feedback so students can learn from their mistakes and catch what they don’t understand.
Utilize mini-quizzes (even just 4 or 5 questions on a Google Form!) throughout a unit so students (and you!) can gauge understanding before major assessments. These formative assessments can help identify misconceptions and areas of improvement, allowing for targeted instruction. But you don’t actually have to spend time transferring grades into a gradebook or grade portal!
Grading Tip 8: Give Self-Grading Assessments
Assessment certainly isn’t all about multiple choice tests. BUT I believe that test-taking is an important and valuable skill for our students to practice. It shouldn’t all be left for test-prep for standardized state testing!
I’ll give you an example — my first year teaching in my current district, my counterpart teacher and I didn’t give unit tests to the 8th graders in Physical Science. WOW big mistake. They performed absolutely atrociously on the state science test that year. To the point where there were teacher tears in our data-dig meeting with administration.
Well we totally turned that ship around and now we have the best state test science scores in our county. How?! Well, one piece of that puzzle is giving our kids the opportunity to practice testing throughout the year.
Now, I give a Pre-Assessment and a Post-Assessment for every single unit, with quizzes interspersed between. These tests and quizzes are multiple choice but they give both me and my students a clear understanding of their growth. Students love that they get their scores right away and I love that I can get grades into the gradebook lightning fast.
It’s also really exciting and rewarding to compare Pre- and Post-Assessment grades!
Check out my pre-packaged Unit Assessments here.
Grading Tip 9: Embrace Transparency and Objectivity: Establish Clear Rubrics
As teachers, we can sometimes get caught up in the grading vortex, causing a whirlwind of confusion for our students.
Be transparent about your grading process, explaining to students what is expected of them and how they will be assessed. This will alleviate unnecessary stress for both you and your students and it will be time-friendly for you!
Creating well-defined rubrics can take some thinking on the front-end, but trust me, it will save you from a grading quagmire later. It’s hard to disassociate the student from the work sometimes — but if you have a great rubric, it’s cut and dry and objective. Being objective will save you time grading!
Simply make a table in a Doc with criteria listed down the first column and the ‘buckets’ of mastery going across — I use four columns (Mastery, Accomplished, Approaching, and Beginning). Clearly outline the criteria for your assignment or project. In the Mastery column, specify what is expected and what earns the highest score. Copy and paste that description into the Accomplished column but take out some parts that set apart the cream from the crop. Do the same for the Approaching and Beginning column descriptions.
Provide the rubric to your students ahead of time, while you’re giving the instructions. Not only does this make grading quicker and easier, but it also helps students understand what they need to do to be successful so grades will be better!
Grading Tip 10: Try AI!
Magic School is an AI tool that can help generate comprehensive rubrics and provide feedback on student work, along with doing many other things! Check out the Student Work Feedback Tool or the Rubric Generator to start!
Grading Tip 11: Prioritize Quality Over Quantity
Remember that it’s better to focus on a few well-executed assignments than an abundance of mediocre ones. Design a well-balanced mix of labs, classwork, and projects that allow students to apply what they’ve learned.
Don’t kill yourself trying to grade the little things. Just don’t. It’s a total waste of your time! Prioritize grading lessons, activities, and projects that promote creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, while still being manageable within the classroom time frame.
Sprinkle in the self-grading multiple-choice quizzes and tests to round out the gradebook. And give yourself a break!
Grading labs, classwork, and projects in middle school science is an adventure in its own right. My personal journey taught me the importance of balance, check-ins, formative assessment, transparency, peer feedback, and quality over quantity.
By implementing these grading tips and strategies, you’ll enjoy smoother grading experiences and foster a positive learning environment for your students. Ditch the “teacher bag”!
And if there’s one big takeaway about grading, it’s this: remind yourself that your job is to have your students learn… your job is not to grade papers. Not everything has to be graded. And they don’t need to know that!
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