Phil Parker, Learning and Development Consultant at Nimble Elearning, shares his experiences of homework marking in his previous role as a deputy headteacher.
“I hated marking my students’ work, I’m sure I’m not on my own! I particularly disliked marking factual assignments; names, dates, places, events, that sort of thing. Sure you can use peer assessment, but each student’s progress isn’t always evident this way.
Assessing what’s been covered in class in a reflective way is where Nimble can help. Let me illustrate with an incredibly imaginative idea I saw used by a History teacher recently… the course they created using Nimble Author was set out as a takeaway menu! Students could choose the tasks to complete, which assessed their knowledge of what they’d learned in the lesson. Each task (or item) had a ‘price’, a point score that contributed to a summative total; ensuring completion of minimum amount of work. (Main dishes were more demanding, desserts were simple tasks but with fewer points).
By using Nimble, students got results immediately from the quizzes they completed, and they kept track of their running total which was reviewed in each lesson. At the end of the course, there was a reflective exercise where students could identify how they’d performed against set criteria.
It led to students wanting to do homework this way all the time! So I’d recommend Nimble as a way to innovate tired homework methods; rather than D.I.Y. learning, this is M.I.Y. learning instead!”