Rick is swamped.  I haven’t seen him in a couple of months, and the first thing we talk about is how overwhelmed he is.  He has a newborn baby at home, and after having taken some time off for paternity leave, he has returned to school to classes that are behind schedule and chaotic;  having classes run by substitute teachers for several weeks will do that, no matter how skillful or well-intentioned they may be.  Rick is sleep deprived and buried in a huge backlog of grading;  when I visit his room, he points to large stacks of student work piled up on his desk, on top of his filing cabinet, on the window sill.  It is a daunting sight.

We have been talking for months now about how to rethink his job.  Anyone who knows Rick knows that he is a decent, thoughtful person.  He has been teaching History for eleven years, the last three of which have been at this high school.  He is good at his job.  His students trust him - he is dedicated to their success and they know it.  

From the beginning of our conversations, he has made it clear that has become dissatisfied with the status quo.  He knows his students can be much more effective, and he wants to find a way to make that happen.  At the moment, however, he feels like he can’t keep his head above water;  all he is doing is grading and trying to stay a little ahead of his students.

Give the sense of state of things, we start talking about how he can streamline the workload and get caught up with the grading.  The first task is to staunch the flow of new work.

“Have you thought about having your students self-evaluate some of their work?” I ask him.

“I’m reluctant to do that right now,” he says.  “They are just learning some basic research skills, and many of them are at a really low skill level.  I missed so much of this quarter, they need every bit of feedback I can give them.  If I don’t grade their work and communicate to them what their problems are, they won’t learn how to do the research.”

“Rick, I agree that they need feedback from you.  But grading and feedback aren’t the same thing.  We need to look for new ways for you to give them feedback orally, since that’s so much faster than in writing.  It’s also important to recognize that some of your students need much more help from you than others, so if you can direct your time towards their needs, you would use your time more effectively.  Are there times when they are working independently as a class and you could talk to one or two students at a time?”

“Yes, we have regular discussion periods where they work in small groups.”

“How disruptive would it be to pull individuals out, talk to them for a few minutes, and have them rejoin their groups?”

“That would work - the group could catch them up pretty quickly.  So you’re saying talk to them, rather than write comments on their papers?”

“Absolutely.  I happen to think it will mean more to them in any case.  In my experience, students don’t always take written notes too seriously, and sometimes they don’t read them at all.  If you’re talking to them, it’s more personal and you know they’re hearing it.”

“But what about the work they’re doing - shouldn’t I at least read it?”

“In general, yes.  You need to read what they’re writing so that you know how to respond when you talk to them.  The reading part is the same effort, but you’re saving hours by not writing your responses out longhand.

“But I’m guessing there is some work that they need to do - say practicing a certain skill - where they can evaluate how well they did on it themselves.  In my classes, students learned specific problem-solving skills.  Once they got into groups and saw answer keys, they could get the feedback they needed from their peers, and could evaluate how well they did the homework on their own.  Is there anything like that in your classes?  Tasks that don’t require your intervention?”

“Yes, there are.  They practice lots of small steps in the research process before putting them together to do a whole project.  Those would work well in group conversations.”

“Right, and that way lots of conversational learning can go on around learning those skills.  Meanwhile you have been freed up to have meaningful talks with individual students, to give them the feedback they need.”

“Okay, I can do that.  But it still leaves me with all these piles of grading.”  He looks at the stacks scattered around the room with an expression of mock despair.  

“So let’s see if we can’t take it one step further.   When you think about all the various assignments that are piled up here, are there some that students are capable of evaluating on their own?  You have to teach them the criteria, of course, but you already know the criteria - it’s how you grade them.  You also have to establish the culture that will cause them to take the task of self-evaluation seriously, and you’ll have to monitor it for a while to make sure they’re doing it accurately and honestly.  Given your working relationship with them, do you think that’s realistic?”

“Absolutely.  We’ve already talked about it, but I just don’t know how to get started.”

“Well, here’s something I’ve done in the past that serves two purposes;  create a form that describes all the attributes of good work.  I don’t like to call it a rubric, although it’s serving the same purpose.  Instead, I just break up all the parts of the grade, say the format, completeness, specific qualities that should be included, and then for each facet list all the aspects that make up excellent work.  

“When you are grading their work, this form serves as a cover sheet that explains how you came up with your evaluation.  Since you’ve listed all the attributes you are evaluating, when there is a common mistake being made you just underline it on the cover sheet, rather than writing the same comment over and over again.  This is a huge time saver.

“And when they are evaluating their own work, the same lists of attributes serve as a check-list for what should be included.  If you hand the cover sheet out before they do the work, they can look at it as they are writing so that they know if their work is complete before they turn it in.  And if you’re checking their self-evaluations, if you disagree with them - say they left something out but gave themselves an excellent grade - you can again just underline the things they missed to give them the necessary feedback.”

“This sounds really doable.  I’ll get started on creating the evaluation form today.”

“Good.  That’s the first step.  Then go through these piles and sort out anything they could evaluate themselves.  When you are ready to hand that work back to them, you need to be honest about the backlog, but also about the legitimacy of their self-evaluating that work.  They need to know this is useful for them, and not just you dodging work you should be doing for them.  Also, I would definitely play on their sympathy for you having a baby to take care of and being sleep deprived.  It’s a real factor, and it humanizes you in their eyes.”

We work through a few details on what should be on the sheet.  I tell him I’ll email him examples of the forms I used.  Using the format directly will give him a head start, and he’ll be able to write out the attributes in a short time.

Over the next few weeks, he introduces the form and the individual feedback sessions during group work.  He still has those piles of grading, but now the rate of new work is less than the rate at which he’s grading, and the piles start to get smaller.  And, more importantly, his students are beginning to assume more responsibility for their own learning process.