Mrs. Marsh should utilize rubrics when assessing student work as rubrics provide a guide for students as well as providing justification of teacher scoring.

Mrs. Mash should take this as a sign that the students are not clear about the assignments prior to Mrs. Mark giving it to them. Rubrics are one way to spell out exactly what you are looking for. Depending on the grade level Mrs. Marsh could use edmodo and give students immediate on-line feedback that they can read at any time. It also allows parents to see the feedback.

For the next assignment Mrs. Marsh should assign the project work; provide three examples of what she is looking for, and thoroughly go over each example, preferably out loud and up close on the Smart Board. Being sure to offer feedback on why example 1 does not meet the requirements of the assignment, example 2 meets the standards required by the assignment, and example 3 is an exemplar representation of the expectations of the assignment. In essence the teacher is building up to an assignment rubric, but answering all the students questions prior to the assignment will save the teacher a lot of individual student conferences, or questions. Being pro-active in teaching rubrics is the key when the students are not used to or have never used them prior to this assignment. Finally, when the student believes there assignment is ready for submission, have the students rate their own work with the very rubric the teacher will use. The teacher will complete the same rubric on the assignment writing specific feedback for each rubric score offering immediate feedback.

Mrs. Marsh should include more learning stations in her classroom. One station should be teacher station and she should conference with students about thier assignments, This is essential because students should alwyas be able to clear up any misunderstanding about skills not mastered. A teacher conferenceing with a student about assignments and conducting periodic data talks is vital.

Another solution would be to develop a checklist of issues that you found with a particular set of assignments. When giving a grade sometimes having check list of common problems allows for an objective score to be given for an assignment. Such responses to include on the check list would be: insufficient sentences/length, not using complete sentences, missing key vocabulary terms, inappropriate grammar usage, missing key information. These help when giving feedback to students on homework assignments or even quick writes. This also helps the teacher give feedback that is appropriate for all students.

Not only should Mrs. Marsh use rubrics, but she needs to actually write her commentary on the rubrics. If she is concerned about giving the students the actual paper, she can easily make a copy of it. If it is a project, my students are given a copy of the rubric so that they can see exactly what the expectations are for each aspect of the project. When the students are presenting the projects, I literally sit there and write my thoughts on the rubric so that when I go back to grade them later, I can see my comments and remind myself of what the student did well and what the struggles were with the project. Parents like to see my feedback just as much as the students.