By ‘live’ feedback and marking, I mean teachers giving students feedback and marking their work as a matter of routine during lessons.
I prefer it when teachers do their feedback and marking ‘live’ in class as far as possible, for four main reasons:
- Feedback and marking should happen as close as possible in time to the creation of the thing being fed back on/marked. It would be pointless saying to a student, ‘Remember the piece of work you did on Oliver Cromwell last May, well I want to say…’
- It’s much better to give feedback, or mark something, with the student in front of you. Research tells us that a lot of written feedback is ignored; much better if the teacher is standing there looking at you, saying, ‘Just check you have added that fraction together correctly’ or ‘Look directly at the audience when you are delivering your line…’ or ‘Have you missed a question mark here?’ Face to face feedback is powerful, and much harder to ignore.
- Live feedback and marking provides an opportunity for a teacher to have a one-to-one conversation with a student and no matter how brief, these conversations are invaluable. Individual attention is important both for supporting students with their work and for creating and maintaining good working relationships in the classroom. Students understand that their teachers have very limited time and appreciate the one to one attention they get – especially where it is positive!
- It reduces teacher workload. Teachers spending hours and hours wading through students’ books at home, trying to write something meaningful on each one, will surely exhaust themselves and there is very little evidence, if any, that copious written feedback and marking improves students’ attainment.
I recognise that some marking is hard to do in class – marking a set of mock exam scripts might be hard in class, for example. I know too that teachers routinely give verbal feedback as part of their teaching, so my point is mostly about taking that walking-around opportunity to look at their books and mark a bit as you go. Get into the habit of walking round with your red pen in your hand! Everyone wins.
