Technology has transformed the modern-day classroom. Students bring their own devices, and teachers have the power to leverage technology and revolutionise their teaching methods. Teachers can take students on virtual tours of museums and art galleries, introduce them to poets and playwrights through captivating interviews, and even stream live on-air debates.
The one thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the mountain of marking that English teachers face every week. Assessments and marking remain real time suckers.
The book, The (mostly) English Teacher’s Survival Guide to Marking, by Kate McCaffrey, offers a game-changing solution for reducing the marking workload for English teachers.
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The Answer is Coded Marking and Feed Forward
The Coded Marking system has been proven to save teachers up to 35% on their usual time spent marking. The concept presented in Kate McCaffrey’s comprehensive guide offers English teachers a much-needed lifeline, allowing teachers to restore a healthy work-life balance. Not only that, but this marking technique will yield tangible and profound improvements in students’ academic achievements.
Unlock the advantages of adopting a fresh approach to marking and delivering feedback to students, as highlighted in Kate McCaffrey’s, The (mostly) English Teacher’s Survival Guide to Marking.
Below, we unveil the top 5 benefits that await educators who embrace this transformative methodology:
- Reduce marking time: 40% less time spent marking sounds great, but what does that look like exactly and what does it mean for English teachers? If the average English teacher spends a minimum of 10 hours per week marking homework and assessments, then a 40% reduction equates to 3.5 hours, with a new weekly average of 6.5 hours spent marking. Imagine what teachers could do with this time back every week!
- Increase consistency: The toolkit provides a standardised coded marking framework. The framework allows teachers to give meaningful and constructive feedback that is also consistent from assessment to assessment and student to student.
- Identify gaps: Working within a framework provides consistency and assists teachers in identifying focus areas of the curriculum where knowledge gaps exist. Teachers can quickly identify recurring codes that pinpoint recurrent difficulties in a class.
- Feed-Forward: Time is now dedicated to student reflection and students are obliged to engage with their feedback. Some teachers may allow students the opportunity to improve on their initial results.
- Gain valuable insights: Feed-Forward provides insights to teachers. Parent-teacher interviews are now more transparent with visual data available, clearly identifying and isolating areas requiring improvement. How can my son/daughter improve? They ask. It’s all in the codes!
Revolutionise Marking with MarkSmart
Following the success of Kate McCaffrey’s, The (mostly) English Teacher’s Survival Guide to Marking, the concept of Coded Marking and Feed-Forward has been developed into software; the first intuitive online assessment platform, MarkSmart.
The Coded Marking and Feed-Forward system is now digitised and easier than ever to implement.
MarkSmart is offering schools a 3-month FREE trial. Dive deep into our software with comprehensive expert onboarding and training. Start with a product presentation and explore the demo with zero cost or obligation.
About the Author
Kate is an award-winning author, published seven times nationally and internationally. Her novels are used as texts in schools across Australia, with five of her books listed on the Curriculum Council’s Recommended Reading Lists for secondary students. Kate has 28 years of experience teaching English and Literature, giving her valuable insights into the challenges faced by English teachers.
As the world of teaching quickly evolves with advances in technology, the one thing Kate realised had not changed, was the marking burden on English teachers. In 2019, Kate published her first non-fiction book, The (mostly) English Teacher’s Survival Guide to Marking. Kate created a coded marking system that would not only allow teachers a greater work-life balance but would greatly benefit students, showing them how to improve and Feed-Forward to their next assessment.
In 2020, after hearing that the coded marking system was saving teachers up to 40% of marking time, Kate and Nick decided to develop an online application that would transform the current marking practices. In conjunction with a team of software developers MarkSmart was born.