Usually, it falls to us to decide what to mark.

And, invariably, we decide to mark most things, if not all.

While we might not give equal weight to all elements – prioritising some over others, for example – we tend to at least make sure we’ve covered all the work a learner has done.

Selection, though, is often a good thing.

We might decide to only mark certain pieces of work a learner has produced – those pieces that give us the most useful access to their current knowledge, understanding and ability.

Or we might turn it over to our learners and ask them to tell us what we should mark.

The aim of this approach is to place the onus on the learner.

They must analyse their own work and make a reasoned judgement about where teacher feedback will be most useful.

We encourage them to look critically at what they’ve done, and to discriminate between different aspects of it.

For example, learners might be writing poems over the course of three English lessons.

Let us imagine that, on average, each learner creates five poems by the end of the third lesson.

The teacher doesn’t want to mark all five poems every learner has created.

In part, because this would not be an efficacious use of their time.

So, they say the following:

• ‘In the next five minutes, I want you to look through the poems you’ve written. Select one that you want me to mark. This might be your best, or the one you feel it would be most useful to have feedback on. When you’ve selected your poem, write me a brief paragraph explaining why you choose it and why you think it will be worth my while marking it and giving you feedback.’

With these words the dynamic of the classroom changes.

Learners are now in control.

They must look with discrimination at what they have produced, make a judgement, and then justify this to the teacher.

In turn, the teacher finds themselves in a different position.

They no longer have to look through learner work and mark everything – or decide what to mark.

Instead, this has been done for them.

They can focus all their attention on giving useful, relevant feedback on the poems that learners have identified.

And if they feel something is wrong with a learner’s choice, they are still able to select a different poem and give feedback on that.

Here are two further examples of the technique in action.

Example 1: Art

After several weeks, learners have filled up twenty or so pages of their sketchbooks.

The art teacher wants to take these in so they can mark them and give some feedback.

They set aside the last ten minutes of the lesson.

Learners use this time to look through their sketchbooks and select three pages on which they would like feedback.

They mark these pages with a small cross in the top right-hand corner.

The teacher takes the sketchbooks in and can quickly find the pages each learner wants them to look at.

Example 2: Dance

Learners are putting together a video portfolio of self-choreographed routines.

These are stored on the school’s VLE.

After a few weeks, most learners have amassed several videos – some recorded in lessons, some outside lessons.

The teacher sets learners the following homework task:

• ‘Look through your portfolios and select one video you want me to watch and on which you would like me to provide detailed feedback.’

Learners bring their decisions to the next lesson and the teacher makes a note of these.

They subsequently watch the videos requested by the learners and give detailed feedback focussing on what is good and how the routines could be improved.