3 Ways Teachers Can Use Rubber Stamps to Save Time on Marking

When you add up all the hours it takes to mark students' work, teaching becomes more than just a nine-to-five job. If you're tired of spending so much time on this menial side of teaching, rubber stamps could be a huge help to you. Self-inking stamps, in particular, take less than a second to use and can cut down on time spent writing repetitive phrases. Here are three ways you can use stamps to cut down on how long it takes you to mark work.

1. Use Stamps to Give Praise

One of the most common ways stamps are used in classrooms is to praise students for a job well done. Phrases like "well done" and "good job" may be short, but having to write them over and over again can waste more time than you'd think. Many teachers choose to use printed stickers instead, but even stickers can take longer than necessary when you account for the time you spend peeling them off the backing and placing them on students' work.

Stamps, on the other hand, take up no time at all. Consider investing in a variety of small, cheap stamps embossed with phrases like "great work", "star speller" or "job well done". That way, you can give students the praise they deserve in a split second without using up all your precious time.

2. Use Stamps to Give Feedback

Another great way to use stamps is for giving out feedback. If you're like most teachers, you probably have a lot of 'key phrases' you use when marking work—whether you've come up with them yourself or they've been assigned by the head of learning. But why spend time writing out phrases like "next time try to …" or "you did well in …" by hand when you could use stamps to write them in an instant?

There are two main ways you can use stamps to cut down on feedback time. The first is to buy stamps that simply say the common phrases you use. All you need to do is stamp the phrase at the beginning of your feedback, then write your comments next to it. This works great if you teach subjects where feedback needs to be highly personalised. Your other option is to buy 'checklist' stamps that list a number of feedback points—for example, "use capital letters" and "check your spelling" for an English class. After stamping it on a student's work, you can check off the points that they need to follow next time.

3. Use Stamps to Track Progress

Finally, stamps can also be used to track a student's progress in a particular area. Does your class have reading journals, for example? Perhaps you keep track of each objective they achieve in a particular subject. Whatever the case, a stamp can cut down on the time you spend recording progress.

For example, stamps can be used in reading journals to quickly note that a student has reached their weekly reading quota, changed to a new book or moved up to a new level. Likewise, stamping a syllabus to show which topics a student is confident or lacking in takes far less time than writing by hand.

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