There's no way around it, reviewing and responding to student work is challenging, but important work.
Why challenging?
First, it takes time. Correcting a set of papers that involve students' deep thinking and problem solving can take up to two hours or more.
Next, it requires a lot of thought. You don't only have to think about the student work itself, but you have to think about the individual student including what he/she accomplished and where the remaining needs lie. And it's likely that the needs across the class will vary greatly so you also have to think about when and how you're going to fit in the reteaching.
Reviewing and responding to student work is beneficial too.
As I correct, I learn a lot about a student. I may notice a quick student who makes a lot of careless errors, errors I wouldn't pick up through his/her class participation. Or I may notice that a student has missed an entire section of the unit and I'll wonder why which will lead me to greater investigation and a meeting with that child. Further, you may notice that the whole class missed a point which really means that you didn't teach it well enough and that requires reteaching and greater practice.
As roles in schools are considered, the time for review and response of student work needs to be considered. This is an important part of the job for many educators, and adequate time to review and respond needs to be built in. If teachers have to get up in the wee hours of the morning to respond to student work, there probably needs to be a shift in duties since getting up in the wee hours may not result in the most energized or positive teaching possible.
Who in your teaching organization has the responsibility to correct and respond to work? Who has responsibility for review and response work that lasts long after that time-on-task school day and who does not? How is time allocated across roles in an organization?
These are important questions to consider as we rethink schools-- important questions because good oversight of student work and learning leads to better learning. If teachers have to cut corners when it comes to correcting and reviewing students' work, it's going to be the students that loose out.
Historically, the role of review and response has just been accepted as a downside of the job due to the little time allocated for it, but if we want to make schools better, we need to consider this issue with depth, and think about how we may make changes to better support this work.
In the meantime, I'll think about ways that I can shift my time and work to make space for greater review and response. Onward.
