MAKING IT EASIER TO BE A BETTER TEACHER

NOTEWORTHY NEWS

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world. Click each link to learn more:

• Daylight savings time isn’t just about your alarm - here’s how last week’s time change negatively impacts student mental health.

• Two high school students are academically published - and they just turned a centuries old math problem on its head!

• Could your class survive without a garbage bin? This school board thinks they should.

TECH TALK

“I have too many students to grade!”

For teachers managing large classes (which lets be honest, is most of us these days), personalized assessment can feel impossible. With each student at a different point in their learning, it’s essential to give consistent feedback—but there’s often just not enough time.

This week, we introduce an app to help tackle this via assessment AS learning. This method integrates assessment with the learning process, where students actively engage in evaluating their peers’ work, promoting a deeper understanding of the material while also reducing the teacher’s work load.

The Solution: Peergrade

Peergrade is a digital tool that enables students to evaluate each other’s assignments through structured feedback, empowering teachers to incorporate assessment as learning without you having to grade each student individually. 

Teachers set up assignments with custom rubrics, and Peergrade ensures that students give and receive balanced, constructive feedback through an anonymous, structured process.

Teachers can monitor students’ reviews, ensuring feedback is accurate and supportive, and track patterns in understanding across the class. 

By allowing students to critique work thoughtfully, Peergrade transforms them into active participants in the learning journey and helps teachers manage a large group with fewer individual assessments.

How About YOUR Classroom?

No one is saying to use an app like this for every assessment, however, the skills that can be taught via assessment as learning (and with a tool like this) make it a no-brainer to incorporate into smaller assignments. 

With Peergrade, teachers can focus more on fostering learning and less on grading papers. It enables assessment to become part of the lesson, empowering students to reflect on concepts and assess their peers constructively, leading to better retention and understanding.

Strategies:

• Practice Makes Perfect: Introduce Peergrade with a practice assignment to help students become comfortable with the platform and understand constructive feedback.

• Rubric Clarity: Create detailed rubrics that help students understand what to look for in their peers’ work. This guidance is essential to ensure fair and consistent reviews.

• Promote Reflection: After students receive peer feedback, encourage them to reflect on it in a follow-up exercise or assignment, deepening their learning and enhancing critical thinking skills.

Peergrade is accessible with a free trial for basic use, while a paid version costs about $5 per student per year, which might sound steep. However, many teachers spend about 5 hours/week grading - that’s up to 200 hours (or 25 work days) back in your pocket each year. 

Thus making it a valuable investment in large classrooms where individualized feedback is otherwise, unfortunately impossible.

BRAINY BITS

When does class size stop mattering?

Does a smaller class size always mean better learning? This week, we look at a 2020 study that investigates class size and its impact on student success. 

What makes this study interesting is that we’re looking from primary right up to Grade 12 for this one to see if class size actually always matters.

The Study: Does size really matter in English language classrooms?

This study used a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods with eight English classes, split into elementary and secondary levels. Class sizes varied from 21-24 (small) to 43-46 students (large). 

To make it fair, all eight teachers involved shared similar qualifications and experience. Researchers analyzed and compared final grades, teacher reflections, and student-completed surveys to see the benefits and drawbacks of each class size.

The Results:

Let’s tackle elementary first. Smaller class sizes here won the academic battle, with these classes scoring nearly 16% higher on average in regular coursework and unit tests. Surveys showed that this may be due to that fact that teachers in smaller classes can provide individualized attention and feedback.

Interestingly, at the secondary level, class size showed no significant impact on performance, suggesting that the individualized benefits of a smaller class decrease as core skills are mastered and as students get older.

In Your Classroom:

Keep in mind - this is just one study and may not apply to every single classroom - it may not even apply to your classroom!

What does apply however is the fact that smaller groups can boost engagement and performance, especially at beginner levels, where students often need extra feedback and support. 

Small classes aren’t always possible, but studies like this shed some light on structured strategies that can mimic their benefits in larger settings.

Strategies

• Flexible small group work: Rotate students through focused, small-group activities for better one-on-one time.

• Frequent formative feedback: Use peer review or tech tools to ensure students get meaningful feedback in any class size.

• Independent progress check-ins: Equip students with self-assessment rubrics to encourage ownership of their learning.

The debate over classroom sizes is far from over in most parts of the world. Balancing research and  strategies like this lets teachers provide personalized support regardless of class size and keep engagement strong in any classroom.

REFERENCES

This week’s issue adapts information from the following sources:

Tech Talk:

Peergrade. (2024). Learn by giving feedback. Retrieved from https://www.peergrade.io/

Brainy Bits:

Jones, W., Gallagher, K. & Midraj, J. (2020). Does size really matter in university preparatory English language classrooms? Issues in Educational Research, 30(3), 988-1004. http://www.iier.org.au/iier30/jones.pdf