Should schools consider outsourcing homework abroad? Or using computer technology to mark work? Your thoughts

[JaneMumsnet]

Hello,

We're a little flummoxed by a request we've had to comment about an education expert's suggestion that schools should consider sending pupils' work abroad to be marked, to help free up teachers' time.

Rebecca Allen, director of Education Datalab and reader in economics at UCL's Institute of Education made the suggestion at a conference.

She said that outsourcing marking can be "incredibly reliable" and also
went on to say that in the United States, there are people who are looking at using computers to mark texts, using the same types of technology used for online language translation apps and programmes.

What do you think? As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks, MNHQ

[BoffinMum]

I don't know why peer assessment isn't used more. I've seen it done really well.

[Cloclo15]

Thank you Boffinmum, that has really encouraged me.

However my SIL (another history teacher) just today showed me the A3 sheets she will be expected to fill in for each of her pupils at KS3 in 'life without levels'. There have got to be a hundred assessment foci on it just for one subject - it is so wordy it is meaningless! And I can't decide who it has been designed for exactly? It has been provided by a company called Pixl. In a subject with only two hours a week of lessons, they expect two assessments per half term to be completed! When are they supposed to actually be taught to enjoy the subject?

If this is where my own school heads in 'life without levels', I may finally have to give up and throw in the towel. I am prepared to work hard, but not spend hours on this type of pointless admin activity.

[ReallyTired]

I think that there is a place for in depth marking of a piece of work by someone who is not the child's teacher. It gives a third mind where the child can improve. The difficulty is finding someone talented enough to do that kind of marking well.

[BoffinMum]

Cloclo, you sound like a fabulous teacher. Quality beats quantity every time. If kids are learning, and assessment is transparent, then it's an excellent arrangement.

[merrymouse]

I would have thought the kind of work that could be successfully marked abroad would be things that have clear right or wrong answers - but there are already loads of on-line homework sites that fulfil that function.

[nooka]

I'm in my forties and so grew up with old fashioned As and Bs type marking and found it incredibly disheartening to be expected to spend hours writing an essay or other piece of work and then get a letter grade along with some cryptic comment, especially in subjects where I invariably got 'B's regardless of effort. The effect was that I put in only the bare minimum.

So I think schemes which provide feedback based on the work you have done which give some real insight to what was good, what was bad and how you can improve are a good idea. I often hadn't a clue where I was going wrong, and I was a bright child at a selective school.

On the other hand I think homework is mostly a waste of time. It seems to me that primary school workload could be cut very easily be getting rid of homework completely. As a parent I hated forcing my reluctant child to do his spellings and utterly pointless project work. I would have been extremely angry to be told I had to mark it too!

My children don't go to school in the UK any more, and they generally don't have homework. They are expected to review their work, and to complete anything they didn't finish in class. This is at secondary (they are 14 and 16). The school system performs well internationally, and I can't say that they seem particularly disadvantaged compared to their UK cousins.

[Cloclo15]

I am a secondary history teacher though I happen to have just gone off on mat leave, and can honestly say that by Christmas just gone I was so worn down by marking that I was seriously thinking about leaving the profession. And I am part time! I was spending hours FAR marking and writing comments left, right and centre. On receiving their books back, unless it had a grade most kids weren't interested and getting them to make corrections was a painful process. Several of them couldn't read my handwriting (which is neat, but joined up!) This was all being done so that when the books were taken in for book trawls there was evidence that I had given specific feedback and that a 'marking conversation' was taking place with the child (as evidenced by corrections being done in green pen).

Before I had a nervous breakdown, I decided something had to change. I decided that I would only write extensive comments on assessed pieces of work e.g. Essays. For other lessons, the pupils might write something like a paragraph summing up their response to the enquiry question in some way. I looked through the books and highlighted three SPAG errors and then put a coloured dot/stamp in response to their paragraph. I then designed a slide which would be put up at the start of the next lesson, with directions for how to improve based on their coloured stamp e.g give more examples, explain point etc or an extension question. Pupils did their corrections based on the slide.

This system worked fantastically! The pupils could read/understand the directions, the knew how close they were to meeting the lesson objective, and I could quickly check and re stamp their work based on corrections either in the lesson or next time I looked at their books.

I actually found myself marking the books more often and getting to know my pupils better. I combined this with an app called iDoceo which I downloaded for my iPad - it allowed me to very quickly record the coloured stamps the pupils had received, and allowed me to show to pupils so they could see their progress etc.

Despite the clear benefits to my pupils, it took confidence to introduce this system in my marking. The current culture appears to be that the more you write, the more beneficial it is. But who for? The more instant feedback I'm able to give my pupils with this method had a direct impact on their performance, but it is going against the prevailing message (which I know was introduced as a direct response to Ofsted criticising another local school for not enough marking conversations in evidence). I had to check with my boss that I could continue with it having shown her what the outcomes were, and then I encouraged other teachers to take it up. I feel like I have some life back and actually enjoy marking as a chance to see what my pupils are achieving.

I also have a TLR in charge of year 8 curriculum and regularly have to do book trawls because my boss tells me to - I have to really fight against the view that more red pen automatically means more effective marking.

Outsourcing marking is not the answer - i need to know my kids and what they can do, what I don't need to do is write an essay in their books every two lessons to prove that I do. We need to be more efficient and effective in our feedback, and perhaps most importantly, return to the idea that teachers are professionals who can be TRUSTED to plan and mark and don't need to be monitored every two weeks. Where has my professional autonomy gone? I had more as an NQT!

I feel that teachers are under ridiculously high levels of pressure now with no consideration of the extensive effort they are putting in. The levels of scrutiny are unbearable. This is a massive change to when I entered the profession ten years ago and felt supported and nurtured and leaves me in no wonder at the large amount of teachers leaving the profession, especially if some schools are as prescriptive in their marking policies as some of the descriptions above! This is combined with an expectation to attend more (normally pointless) meetings and provide regular after school intervention sessions. When is all the planning/marking supposed to happen, let alone seeing our families?!

[chibi]

This is also problematic.

An education system which depends on the work/ability/involvement of parents will fail those children whose parents are unable to support them - there will be a whole host of reasons why they can't

Is it ok to say to those children, rough luck, your parents can't help you, so you are born to fail? It is so deeply unfair to actively throw burdens up in front of children who need the most support

[ReallyTired]

Primary homework is homework for the parents as very few children under the age of seven can complete homework independently.

[ltk]

I teach primary and homework is a poor use of a teacher's time and energy. Parents should be frequently encouraged to read to their children and listen to reading. They should help the child practice addition, subtraction and times tables, and something as simple as writing a few sums on a sheet of paper is fine practice for 10 minutes a day. Nervous parents could use a calculator to check the answers. This practice at basic arithmetic and reading would be the best help for most dc.

[boatrace30]

As a teacher (who is currently 35 weeks pregnant). I can genuinely say I HATE marking. I was up till 11pm last night marking and am back on it now (although evidently also surfing mumsnet). It's not going to be a fun Bank Holiday!
However, there is NO way this can work. I teach History and cannot see how it can accurately be done by computer. Similarly it is an absolutely vital part of my teaching. I cannot teach properly if I do not understand what my student's needs are. And, at this time of year, just weeks before GCSE/A-Levels I am turning around work in 24hours so that students can practice and improve.
A lovely idea... but ludicrous!

[elfreda69]

I really think that PARENTS should be asked to mark PRIMARY children's work. I say this for the following reasons:

any errors/misunderstanding could be corrected immediately
children can receive immediate feedback
this encourages parental involvement
it encourages children to ensure that homework is of a high standard

As a primary teacher, most of the homework I mark and correct HARDLY EVER gets amended or improved by the child. It is also often poorly completed.
As homework should only be used to revise or consolidate, I believe that its role is to help the child practise the skills learnt in class. Homework should never be used to learn new skills.

I am happy to hand parents an answer booklet at the beginning of the year or simply to ask them to ensure that they monitor the quality of homework if they are not able to correct/amend.

As a teacher, I teach around 4 separate lessons each day, with each lesson requiring around 1 - 2 hours to quality mark. Not to mention setting up and preparing for the next day. I take work home every day and work up unitl midnight.

Something has to give and I think that it is homework!

[TheFallenMadonna]

To answer the OP... I would happily outsource the marking of internal tests and exams, as long as the markers were trained in the style of (or better than!) exam board markers. A quick turnaround of exam papers, with a question level analysis, would be hugely beneficial, and free up my time to concentrate on the marking I find useful to do myself. That would be great! Given the huge cuts that will need to be made by schools thought. Order to accommodate unfunded pay rises and increased employer pension costs, it won't happen.

[TheFallenMadonna]

I don't mark everything my students write, and I am not expected to. I mark every 6-8 lessons. I do make sure that when they are answering questions, in class or at home, someone marks it, usually them, because I think they need to know if they are on the right track. The work I choose to mark is carefully planned, so that how they complete it will tell me something about how their skills in my subject are developing. I tell them what was good about their work and why, one key way it could be improved, and then they improve it. I'm pretty sure that is the basis of most secondary school marking policies now, and I absolutely disagree that it is a waste of my time. Colour coding everything does rather seem to be gilding the lily though... I am awfully glad to be a secondary teacher when it comes to marking.

[keepitsimple0]

They are MANAGERS. Even the ones that once stood in a classroom in the dim and distant past have been little other than managers throughout their whole career.

that sucks. I don't know much about ofsted, accept that they produce red tape. not even teachers?

Ironically, as a supply, one of my main engagements is to do marking! You wouldn't believe the crap that some schools and departments have come up with. has to be marked in purple, has to be marked in green, has to be marked in red, cannot write a cross to indicate something is wrong, ticks must be right handed, targets have to be in format A because format B has been proved ineffective, move to the next school, and targets have to be in format B, because format A has been shown not to work, you have to praise someone twice before you criticise, you have to praise someone three times before you criticise, you have to praise someone 4 times before you criticise....etc etc etc.

I can see every one of those things being some rule decreed from high. it's incredible here that everything gets turned into a box ticking exercise and sight of the ball is lost.

As I said above, I find it incredible that the suggestion to help with teachers' workload is to reduce front line activity (which is what I consider marking), so that bureaucratic tasks with dubious value can be completed. What's next? Outsource the actual teaching so that teachers have more time to fill in forms? Perhaps then we will see this has gone too far.

I find it sad and telling that teachers are leaving the profession. pay them more and/or reduce their non-essential workload. don't outsource an important part of the job.

[ReallyTired]

Not allowing teachers to enjoy their bank holiday weekend is very wrong. Its no wonder that teachers are leaving the profession.

My children find the feedback in their books helpful. I am grateful for their teachers taking the time to mark the books well.

[chibi]

It is asinine.

[Stitchintime1]

Because now it is not enough that something has been done, it has to be seen to have been done. I've seen stamps saying "verbal feedback given" and the kids has then scribbled something underneath. Because we cannot possibly believe that in the course of a lesson, a teacher might have spoken to a child about his or her work.

[Charis1]

And the worst of it, almost nothing on their agendas, and very little of the moderation actually has any other point beyond being able to prove to ofsted it has been done.

[Charis1]

90% of what teachers are forced to do is a waste of time, chibi.

I'm not a teacher now, but I'm still working in schools, and with children. I get so angry with the abuse teachers put up with. In the borough where I am doing consultancy, one of the departments I was with this week were planning their meetings and moderating, 8am-4pm sunday ( they will be there right now) and 8am-4pm Monday ( bank holiday) several of them have babies and toddlers, and will have to bring them in.

[chibi]

What kind of person scrutinising work expects to see inauthentic stuff which is clearly happening only for their benefit?

What a wasteful, cynical and just wrongheaded approach to education

[chibi]

Why is it necessary to do things which are pointless to appease a book scrutineer?

This feedback could not be read by my son. I was unlikely to see it. And yet, there it was, on every bit of work. This doesn't seem like a waste of time to you?

Would her time not have been better spent actually doing things to help my son learn, I.e., her job?

[pickledsiblings]

I'm interested Charis1 that you think this damages students and makes them over-reliant on input from the teacher. The intention with all this is obviously the opposite but the road to hell and all that...

[Stitchintime1]

It's for whoever is doing the book scrutiny.

[chibi]

My son who was in reception last year had ebi/www written all over his books when I went in for parent teacher meetings.

He was pre literate, and I only saw the books that one time.

Who was his poor teacher writing all of that for?

Fwiw she was fantastic, and I know she gave him verbal feedback, knew him well and knew how to get the best from him. But why was her time wasted writing feedback that he couldn't read, that I was unlikely to see?