¡Hola profes!  Can you relate to this?  My first year of teaching, I had about 200 students, and I was DROWNING in grading.  I left school every day with a bag full of student work and I spent hours upon hours of my nights and weekends marking papers.  It was overwhelming, to say the least, and was certainly not sustainable. 

If this resonates with you and you feel like you are spending too much time grading student work, don’t despair, because there are still ways to assess your students’ work and provide them with feedback while also getting more of your time back!  Here are 4 of my favorites:

#1: Spot grading

With spot grading, you choose a specific section, or certain question numbers, or a set skill that you want to evaluate.  For example, if students complete a five-section worksheet, you  might only grade section 2.  If you have students finish 10 sentences, maybe you’ll grade numbers 1-3.  Perhaps your students completed a speaking activity and you’re evaluating their pronunciation and intonation.  Spot grading is great because it gives you a snapshot of what students are able to do without having to grade a large volume of work.  I usually vary the type of activity that I’ll spot grade (i.e. fill-in-the-blank sentences, open-ended responses, etc.) or the skill that I’m assessing so that, at the end of the marking period, I’ve evaluated and given students feedback in numerous areas.

Should you tell students which sections, questions, or skills you’ll be evaluating?  That’s totally up to you!  However, I usually do not.  I have found that this helps ensure that students are giving their best effort on all the sections.

#2: Assigning self-correcting activities 

Self-correcting activities are AMAZING for saving time and giving your students immediate feedback.  Using sites or apps with automated grading, students can know right away what they did well and where they can improve.  It’s a win-win for everyone!

I regularly use these sites, apps, and programs to help automate my grading:

• Google Forms.  Google Forms are easy to create and share with your students via email or your LMS like Google Classroom or Canvas.  You can create various types of questions and can automate answers.  As soon as your students submit the Form, you will receive data about how they did and you can choose to let students see this data too!  
• Blooket and Gimkit.  These sites are not only fun for students, but they provide them with feedback about how they are doing with course material!  If you have premium memberships, you can keep track of this data yourself as well!
• Quiz feature on my LMS.  I use Canvas and using the quiz feature with auto-grading has been a game-changer!  To reduce instances of answer-sharing, you can randomize question order and use question banks so that each student will be presented with a customized set of questions!  If your LMS has such a feature, it can save you HOURS of time grading! 
• Boom^TM Cards.  Boom^TM Cards are digital task cards which tell students immediately if they have the correct answer!  Students can retry until they get the answer correct.  You can use Boom^TM Cards for free, with advanced reporting features available with upgraded memberships. 

Want to try some Boom^TM Cards in your classroom? Check out these ready-to-use sets and save some time grading!

#3: Including more rubric-based activities 

Creating a strong rubric prior to giving students an open-ended assignment can be a real time-saver when it comes time to grading those assignments.  I recommend creating a rubric with 4-5 categories with well-defined criteria pertaining to the assignment in question.  Then, when you are grading your assignments, simply circle the appropriate boxes on the rubric and add up the points!  The more specific you are in your criteria descriptions, the less time you will have to spend explaining where points were lost – it will be clear for students to see for themselves!

I use rubrics the most with projects, interpersonal speaking assessments, and interpersonal writing assessments.  Since answer keys are not an option because every student will turn in different responses for these assignments, using rubrics to clearly outline the success criteria has been so helpful, because it takes the guesswork out of scoring open-ended responses.  What qualities would an assignment worth 100% have?  How about 90%?  60%?  If that has been defined from the start, it will be much easier for you to determine and, therefore, you will not need to spend as much time scoring your students’ work.  Here are some of my favorites that have saved me TONS of time when grading:      

#4: Having students evaluate their own work

Hear me out on this one, profe!  I used to be skeptical about this one too, but after having implemented this practice over the past few years, I have noticed that my students are pretty honest, and their self-evaluations are typically quite similar to what my own would have been.  I tell my students that, if their self-evaluations are really inaccurate, they have to meet with me outside of class time to plead their cases.  My students do not want to do that, and so they are usually quite truthful in their responses! 

Note: I typically have my students evaluate themselves on open-ended assignments.  Usually, I will give them a blank copy of the rubric and ask them to rate themselves.  For each category, they provide evidence from their work to support their ranking.  Students do the heavy lifting for you, as they identify exactly why they deserve their scores.  I also have them reflect on how they could improve their work on future assignments, adding a metacognitive element!  Not only does this save you time, but by identifying areas of improvement, students can put a plan in place to improve their future work as well. 

I hope this was helpful!  Do you have any time-saving grading practices that you use in your classroom and would add to this list?  Leave me a comment and let me know!  Have a wonderful week, profes!