One of the things that I struggle with most as a teacher is getting to all of my students when they need me. I know that for students to benefit from feedback it needs to be immediate, and when you have 25 (or more) students that can be extremely difficult.

Now, what I have noticed over the years is that some kids just need to check in, and see if their work is correct, while others need a large amount of my time to correct a conceptual mistake that they’re making. When this undoubtedly happens, it creates an ever growing line at my desk and kids start to lose their attention and my classroom volume level begins to rise. (INSERT STRESSED OUT TEACHER HERE). 😅

Something that has been the best fix for me, in my classroom, has been implementing the “Am I Correct?” folder. All you need is a folder, and any old folder will do. You can get fancy and add vinyl letters but I used Sharpie and it worked just as well. Inside you will see a place for past work and a place for the work that students are doing that day. For math, it is easy because I include the equation and the answer with no work. We spend a lot of time talking about how the correct answer means nothing if your work does not prove the answer to be true. There are always a few kids each year who test the boundary and change their answer but when their work doesn’t support the answer I tell them to go back and try again.

It has given me so much freedom to work with the kids who need me the most. And for most other students they get to see that their answer is correct and move on by themselves to the next task, or they see that their answer is wrong and they go back and troubleshoot. No one comes to the teacher until after they have tried to fix an incorrect answer by themselves first.

Have you ever tried something like this? If so, drop it in the comments and tell me what you loved most about it. If you have any questions about using this management system let me know!