Ms. Melissa uses TeacherMade to teach her ELA classes that effort is directly related to outcome.

Help your students meet your school system's rigorous demands with TeacherMade

I've been a middle school ELA teacher for ten of the past 15 years. If I had a dollar for every time I told my students that effort is directly related to outcome, I could retire early. It almost felt like my students could smell things that take sustained time on task due to my district's rigorous demands. This makes my job tremendously difficult. Ever try selling a ketchup popsicle to a person in white gloves? Me neither, but hopefully, you get the idea. 

Create engaging assignments that challenge your students

I started teaching because I like challenges, and I love working with and motivating people, but I won't lie when I say that getting my most difficult learners to take a second look at their work can be like getting them psyched for a dentist's appointment. I love to be facetious, but, in all honesty, it is a major struggle to get my Title 1 students to care about their work. I make every effort to make the learning meaningful. I use and create engaging assignments. I spend time on my hooks and use videos and grabbers. But I just needed something else on certain English language arts topics in my primarily Spanish-speaking student community. That's where TeacherMade came in.

Provide instant feedback to your students for completed assignments

TeacherMade allows students to see their initial work after it is graded and returned to make better choices. They can take a grammar skill that I've created an assessment for, review a resource, and try again. Isn't finding your areas of weakness and getting back out there the most important part of self-advocacy? The student's work is completed privately, and I can comment /give feedback and reopen/assign as needed. I usually only reopen an assignment for students who receive modifications or if they need it and aren't meeting or exceeding expectations. I look at the graded scores and determine which learners I'd like to try harder. In turn, the students have a vested interest in work when they see the outcome of their efforts in a timely manner. I usually show only the score and not the correct response, as this helps to keep the sharing of answers at bay. When they know they get a second chance, I find they also cheat less. It's not a one-and-done deal. You don't have to be perfect at this the first time around. They also learn that the correct response sometimes doesn't come easily with the higher-level thinking and analysis questions. I love that with TeacherMade, my students can learn resilience and not the correct responses. They come to me when they're dissatisfied with their score. I don't need to hunt them down or ask them a self-assessment question about how they think they're doing as they walk out the door in an exit ticket-like fashion. I even have the option with TeacherMade Pro to omit the score for my poor coping mechanisms. 

Let students retry assignments after reteaching a lesson

In these ways, TeacherMade has helped me tremendously. It's not just an assignment that won't count or they won't get back. It's a real show of their ability after a lesson, and if it doesn't meet expectations, they have an opportunity to get back on the horse and keep going. I can try another teaching method, use a scaffold, and say it and show it differently. Then reopen it. You can also reset it completely. I'm happy to report that thanks to this awesome platform, every time they choose to complete the assignment again, they feel more confident and that always leads to growth. It praises student effort, not outcome, and shows them the importance of not giving up. It puts the responsibility of their ability to do well in their hands, which has greatly affected my lower-level students. It has leveled the playing field and created friendly competition between my higher-level students. Furthermore, I have saved hours and weekends working, checking, and reassigning. My family and I are truly grateful. 

Lower student anxiety with TeacherMade's discrete auto-grading feature

The discreteness of the program is also another reason why I love TeacherMade. They have no idea who else struggled because they don't need the embarrassment of grading their own work or the anxiety of a partner switching paper-graded assignments. I frequently ask myself how we made it through that time period. 

TeacherMade helps students build confidence. Provide instant feedback and lower student anxiety with TeacherMade's discrete auto-grading features.