8 Best Grading Tips to Save Time

The Importance of Grading

We want to give students fair assessments. We want to be accurate in our grading.

Also, we need to make sure students are getting good feedback on what they're doing well, and where they need to improve. So how can we be excellent in grading?

Now we are not talking about shortcuts that are going to make us less effective. Rather, we want to be excellent in grading for God's glory, but also stewarding our time well. In light of that, we can free up some of the extra time that we are  spending on grading to be used in other ways, either in or out of the classroom, where it can have a bigger impact.

Strategies for Effective Grading

1. Prioritize Grading Tasks

The first grading tip is to prioritize what is worth spending time on. While this might seem a little counterintuitive to saving time, it is actually an important way to start with thinking about grading.

There are certain times in grading where investing this planning time is absolutely worth it.  Taking intentional time means we are are being purposeful about giving our students fair, accurate feedback.

What is important to properly assess students in your subject? What is worth a little bit of extra effort? For example, giving partial credit on math exams for correct steps or work. Another example might be commenting on long, important writing assignments. 

Decide what assignments need your extra time and attention. This can look different across disciplines and across classes. To sum it up, prioritize what is most important and plan your grading time around those assignments so you can give your students the effort their work deserves and the feedback that will help them the most.

2. Don't grade everything

Next we have our second grading tip:  don't grade everything. This is so important. Teachers fall into the trap of thinking we have to grade every piece of every paper we assign. And that's just not true. Our students need practice more than they need grades.

Instead of grading everything, create a policy in your classroom that anything you do could be graded, but don't actually grade everything. By having this policy, you keep that motivating factor. Students aren't primarily motivated by grades most of the time, but they do help.  We all know that in reality if students know an assignment is for sure not graded, that can sometimes be demotivating to them.

So, how do you know what to grade? Well, obviously, tests and quizzes need to be graded. But then for homework and classwork, you choose assignments that are good reflections of students' mastery. If you give an assignment and it's something really tricky and half the kids are struggling, that's not the one to grade. Let the students' reward be figuring it out.

Pro tip: Collect assignments even if you aren't taking them for the grade. It increases the validity of the assignment in the students' eyes when they still pass it in.  On your end though?  Have them pass it in,  and you can take it right from your inbox and put it right in your outbox.  (It will be our secret!)

3. Don't Correct Everything

Now onto our third grading tip. Is feedback important for students? Yes. Absolutely. But, maybe not while you are grading assignments,tests and quizzes. The fact is,  this isn't necessarily a super helpful way to give feedback, especially if you're simply writing in the correct answers.

Sometimes it's worth it, if you want to give them little bit of explanation on an essay or a more complicated problem. But if you're simply writing in the correct answers, it would be better to have them go find the answers themselves.

Many times, we spend time and effort fixing papers, then the students just throw away the paper or  don't pay attention to it. So have students correct their own work is much more effective anyways!

4. Use Forms to Give Feedback Quickly

Our fourth grading tip is for larger grading tasks like writing assignments, papers, or projects, where you want to give students a lot of feedback on what they did well, what needed to be improved, and why their grade was what it was.

Rather than having to write out a ton of things, use either a rubric or a checklist grading sheet. So in other words, on this rubric or checklist, you should list all the specific requirements you're looking for. And then you can simply circle what was poor, what needed improvement, and put check marks or smiles next to everything that was really well done. This gives lots of feedback in a short span of time without needing to write out comments.

Use Your Time Efficiently

5. Batch Your Grading

For our fifth grading tip, we want to do the same kind of grading in one sitting. When you do this, your brain gets into a rhythm and you become naturally more efficient. One of the most obvious examples of this is when you're grading either a test or a large packet.  It's actually best to grade one page at a time in these situations.

So let's say you have a three page test. Don't grade three pages of student one's work, then three pages of student two's, and so on. Instead, grade all the page ones, then grade all the page twos, then grade all the page threes. Your brain can often hold the answers to one page in your working memory, so you almost don't even need to look to the key after the first couple of pages.

This also works well if you have  short answers or essay questions. You might even just do them one at a time. Even if they're on the same page, you might grade all of essay number one for every single student and then grade all of essay number two. This helps because your brain isn't task switching. Every time you have to switch thoughts, that takes time.

6. Grade in Small Pockets of Time

For grading tip number six you might think this seems like the opposite of batching, but it doesn't have to be. What we want to do is redeem  little moments here and there that aren't necessarily used effectively your classroom. 

You can get a surpising amount of grading done simply by keeping a stack of work handy and grabbing it whenever you have a few minutes. For example, if students are working and you're walking around the classroom just keeping an eye on them, you could have a few papers in your hand and just kind of work on them as you circle the room. 

Obviously, this won't work for larger assignments where you really need to focus, but just using a minute here or there, you'll make progress. It will feel really nice when you sit down to grade later and see that your stack is smaller!

7. Schedule Grading Retreats

Now, grading tip number seven might seem like the opposite of the previous tip, but all of these strategies work to compliment each other. What you do here is you schedule a block of time to really focus on grading. Not every day or every week, necessarily, but when you are behind or you anticipate having a lot of work to grade. This frees up your focus at other times, knowing you have a grading retreat scheduled. 

8. Have Students Self-Grade

Finally, grading tip number eight is to have students self-grade. Now obviously, this is one of those tips that will not work in every situation.  It is dependent on the age of your students and your school environment. But when you can, have students grade papers for you.

This is especially good for practice or formative assessments that you're not actually taking for a grade. So remember, we said we don't have to grade everything, but you can still go over it in class and have students grade it. If it's allowable in your school, you can also have students exchange smaller assignments to grade for one another.

Grading Tips Review + More Help

All right, let's review our eight time-saving practices for grading.

1. Prioritize what is worth spending time on. 
2. Don't grade everything.
3. Don't correct everything.
4. Use forms to give feedback quickly, particularly for papers and projects.
5. Batch grading by doing the same type of thing together.
6. Grade in small pockets of time.
7. Schedule grading retreats.
8. Have students self-grade when possible.

If you would like more time-saving advice and tips, we encourage you to check out our free training 5 Time-Saving Practices to stop feeling overwhelmed.