The trouble with giving back marks

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Imagine you work in a corporate job and your manager has some important feedback to give you. 

Your manager books a conference room. They send you some agenda items — ahead of time — of what they want to discuss. They dedicate a significant portion of the meeting to hearing your side of things. 

Following the meeting, your manager sends you a summary of what you’ve discussed and specific ways for you to improve. 

Now imagine you’re a Year 12 student receiving an assessment task back. 

You’re one of many nervous students in a classroom. Your teacher has given you no prior warning of your result. Your teacher gives a long preamble about how certain things were done well but there are many areas to improve and that, if you’re all serious about success, you should be…and so on.

Then you’re given your exam with the mark on it. Remember: you’re still in a room with many peers. You might get the chance to briefly discuss your performance; you might not. 

You might also have to wait for the teacher to start going through the whole exam before you can get to the question you’d like to clarify. 

This whole process is not ideal for students or teachers.

Can we do this differently?

It’s very difficult to give individualised feedback to students on their assessment tasks. 

I once got students to book times with me to receive their assessment task and get personal feedback. The only reason I could do this is that I had a class of 10. Clearly this is not feasible with a larger class.

I feel great tension when giving back marks. I know how important the marks are to students, particularly in Year 12. Personally, I know how valuable individualised feedback is, especially when it’s delivered one on one. Yet the opportunities to do this are rare and will likely impinge significantly on teachers’ time. 

I can hear your voice in my head: what’s the alternative? 

Remote learning forced a change

During 2021, we returned to remote learning during the Trial Higher School Certificate examinations. These are the big practice exams before the actual HSC. They are also assessable. 

Due to remote learning we had to conduct the trials and deliver feedback online. I had to scan all the marked papers and email them to students. I liked the process. I emailed the exams in advance of the class so they had a day or so to read over them and consider my feedback.

It also allowed them to do all the noisy comparing of marks BEFORE we got to the classroom. This was a huge relief for me. 

We’re back to face-to-face learning in 2022 but I’m continuing this process. For my most recent Year 12 task, I’ve marked and then scanned the papers. I’ll then upload them to Microsoft OneNote and email all students that their marked work is ready to view.

I’ll do the regular exam review once we get to class, going through key questions and providing general feedback. I’ll also dedicate some class time to individual queries but I use a formal review process for assessment tasks (which I’ll share in another blog post).

Does this process work?

I’m not sure of the precise answer to this question. 

What I do know about the process:

  • It’s less public. If students don’t want to share their marks, they don’t have to. 

  • In fact, it’s private. Students can read over their responses and my feedback by themselves, outside of the pressure of the classroom.

  • It changes the nature of the class. It’s less about getting marks back and more about discussing their answers. 

  • It’s time consuming for me. I’ve got another step of scanning and emailing.

I’m collating some student feedback so I’ll have that to share in time. But this process might be worth a try if you’re looking for another way of giving back marks at school.