Math Is Fun Forum

hi Math_Den

Welcome to the forum!

Sounds like your pupils have a lot for which to thank you.  That's a lot of commitment! 

If you are preparing quality lessons, there are no short cuts because only you know exactly what your classes need.  But it will get easier as time goes by, because you will find you can re-use ideas and materials and you'll begin to carry stuff around in your head that you can trot out at a moment's notice.  Some of my best lessons occurred when I had to make it up as I went along.  For one Ofsted (inspection regime if you are not in the UK) I had my carefully prepared plan (which I'd spent hours over and given a copy to the inspector).  When I began with a recap of what the class should already know, it was clear they didn't.  So I changed tack and concentrated on getting that sorted out first.  Which very much meant making it up as I went along.  It took the whole lesson!  I was quite worried about what the inspector would make of that.  Thankfully he praised me for it.  He said if I'd carried on with the clearly inappropriate plan, he'd have given the lesson a 'fail'.  Phew!

As for marking you need to think about what you are doing it for.  I can think of 4 possible reasons:

(i)  To prove to anyone looking at the books that you are doing your job.  Huh!  That's the reason of lowest importance!

(ii) To find out whether the members of the class are learning what you are teaching. That is important but there are other ways of achieving it.  Question and answer for instance.  And there's another which I'll deal with next.

(iii) To give the pupils feedback about how they are getting on.  Again there are other ways of achieving this.  You could get them to mark their own work from an answer sheet (OK if you trust them not to cheat) or they could assess each other.  This has lots of benefits.  It gets them more involved in the education process; gives them an element of control; promotes useful discussion about an answer and who is right;  reinforces the understanding of the pupil who 'knows' the right answer as they try to explain it to their friend.  .......

(iv)  To give encouragement.  Again there are many other ways you can do this;  it doesn't all have to be 10/10 Well Done! written in their exercise book. 

So what I'm suggesting is,  maybe you could explore alternatives that don't cost you time and yet still achieve the purpose.  You'll never get away from all traditional marking but you could cut down without losing anything and perhaps gaining something.

Good luck and stay in touch, 

Bob

Hi;

Welcome to the forum!