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Marking metacognitively

Marking gets such a bad rep; it’s seen as something we essentially get our knuckles rapped for not keeping up with as opposed to a valuable tool to both measure and facilitate progress. But what also gets too quickly forgotten is that it’s not just for the teachers. Feedback can and should make students better learners and provide opportunities for self-reflection so they can develop and understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind what leads to that development. This entire post is how I’ve adapted my marking system after reading @funkypedagogy’s Metacognition book and @Xris32’s blogs on feedback. The main thing I took away from them was how important it is to provide students with the opportunity to reflect instead of taking it for granted that because I had told them how to progress, they understood how to.  One of the many things the Metacognition book demonstrates is how exam or assessment wrappers can be used to help students understand their strengths and shortcomings. I’ve made a few
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Managing the markload

There is no way to dress it up - marking is and will always be one of the biggest burdens in teaching. The other things like planning, training, meetings and emails all push themselves to the top of the to-do list - their turnarounds are short and they can’t be left. You can’t not plan your lessons, not turn up to meetings (tempting as it may sound) and the emails demand responses. So marking, despite being an incredibly valuable teaching tool, gets left to the wayside. It causes a great deal of anxiety for so many as the pile continues to grow or is something that forever needs doing. It is also one of the biggest reasons so many work well beyond 8-5 and spend so much of their holidays working instead of relaxing and recharging. It will always be a challenge, particularly if you too teach essay subjects like English but there are some tools that have helped me to avoid bringing marking home and to some extent staying if not on top of it, at least afloat. Marking codes The most mundane
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Toothless Lionesses

  Does the “aggressive” Woman of Colour trope lead to a generation of toothless lionesses? Women of colour have to navigate the western world with careful footing. Sidelined and stereotyped within the media and underrepresented at leadership tables, conducting herself in offices, classrooms and meetings is a difficult, political affair. Managing standing up for herself, being heard, demanding a seat at the table all the while not being deemed too aggressive, requires strategizing but at what cost? Surely this lack of freedom to express herself honestly and fully has detrimental effects on her confidence, self worth and identity as a whole?  Blog post for Diverse Ed
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4 outdated teaching trends we need to ditch - article for tes

  4 outdated teaching trends we need to ditch  - tes article There are so many aspects of teaching that are time- and labour-intensive: it comes with the job. And when we’re told that these aspects are “good practice” that will lead to progress, it seems reasonable to invest hours and effort into them, no matter what. 
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Pre-made teaching resources and lesson activities – A shared blessing or collective curse?

  An article for Teach Secondary on the benefits and pitfalls of collaborative resources and how we can best use them. Pre-made teaching resources and lesson activities – A shared blessing or collective curse?
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Teaching during a pandemic: six lessons I’ve learned and how they'll make me better this year.

There is no denying that for a lot of us, the last academic year was tough, possibly the toughest of many of our careers. But now we’re on the cusp of a new start, it’s worth reflecting on the lessons learned from the challenges the pandemic brought and how they can prove useful going forward. The Coronavirus pandemic has meant teachers have been running all over school sites hopping from classroom to classroom, dragging all our resources around with us, frantically logging into computers, confining our teaching to 2m distanced boxes at the front, juggling the needs of the audiences in front of us as well as the remote ones while still formatively assessing, ensuring pupil progress and keeping top of marking. And on top of all that, there was avoiding staff rooms due to limited numbers, lack of face to face contact with our teams and the horror that was TAGS. However, while much (no, most) of it was awful, through difficulty we build strength; here are my six positive takeaways from co
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Diversification: more than an educational token - post for Diverse Educators

My post for Diverse Educaters on the need to diversify our curricula and show students real reflections of themselves in the stories we tell: Diversification: more than an educational token
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