My mentor, Mihi, who I teach with, was sick and had a bereavement so I was left with quite a busy few weeks. While I was just trying to keep my head above water with teaching and prep I neglected marking. Once Mihi returned to work I was able to look at all the assignments that had been piling up. In doing this I was able to give great formative feedback to each student and change my next lecture and lab to accommodate the deficits in the students' knowledge that I was now aware of. Because it had taken so long to mark and return the first assignment the mistakes had been repeated for all the other assignments. Now it feels like groundhog day when I mark assignments and correct mistakes that I know students would now not make.
Next year I will make sure, come hell or high water, that I get and give feedback from formative assessment asap. It may mean working harder/longer in the short term but if student learning improves quicker then it will be worth it. Marking the other 15 assessments correct first time instead of having to mark resubmits will be awesome!
You make a good point here Ben. I think it's vitally important to give prompt feedback to students. Without giving them the feedback, how are they going to improve? It showed when they had furher lab sheets to hand in, they contined to make the mistakes that they hadn't been picked up on earlier. Yes it does create work in the short term, but in the long term, the student learning is much better.
ReplyDeleteyes, I agree. We have had a similar delay in giving feedback to students so I took copies of the comments on the marking sheets for the group of students I am working with and went over them individually to look at how they could avoid making the same mistakes again. The result was that on their next piece of work there was a notable improvement in the standard of the work presented and a clear demonstration(through the content) that they understood more of the subject material.
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