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In a notable shift toward sanctioned use of AI in schools, some educators in grades 3–12 are now using a ChatGPT-powered grading tool called Writable, reports Axios. The tool, acquired last summer by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is designed to streamline the grading process, potentially offering time-saving benefits for teachers. But is it a good idea to outsource critical feedback to a machine?
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"Make feedback more actionable with AI suggestions delivered to teachers as the writing happens," Writable promises on its AI website. "Target specific areas for improvement with powerful, rubric-aligned comments, and save grading time with AI-generated draft scores." The service also provides AI-written writing-prompt suggestions: "Input any topic and instantly receive unique prompts that engage students and are tailored to your classroom needs."
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The reliance on AI for grading will likely have drawbacks. Automated grading might encourage some educators to take shortcuts, diminishing the value of personalized feedback. Over time, the augmentation from AI may allow teachers to be less familiar with the material they are teaching. The use of cloud-based AI tools may have privacy implications for teachers and students. Also, ChatGPT isn't a perfect analyst. It can get things wrong and potentially confabulate (make up) false information, possibly misinterpret a student's work, or provide erroneous information in lesson plans.
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there's a divide among parents regarding the use of AI in evaluating students' academic performance. A recent poll of parents revealed mixed opinions, with nearly half of the respondents open to the idea of AI-assisted grading.As the generative AI craze permeates every space, it's no surprise that Writable isn't the only AI-powered grading tool on the market. Others include Crowdmark, Gradescope, and EssayGrader. McGraw Hill is reportedly developing similar technology aimed at enhancing teacher assessment and feedback.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by aafcac on Wednesday March 13 2024, @01:58PM
Teachers don't really want to assign homework. There was a period in the '90s when they thought that copying what they thought was going on in Asia was a good idea. Having lived and taught in China since, it's pretty clear that folks didn't understand the assignment as the Chinese educational system in particular is coping with the issue of too few teachers for the student population and too few university spots for those students. It leads to a situation where they need to weed a lot of students out for lack of abiilty to allow them to go to college and a lack of ability to have smaller classes in most cases. It was pretty common when I was there for there to be 60-80 students per class and for teachers to have so many students that even if they did nothing other than interact with students, they still wouldn't be able to give even 5 minutes to each student on a regular basis.
Hence, other methods like ML get very attractive because time spent on grading and evaluation is time not being spent on developing a more inspiring curriculum and addressing the issues that are coming up in terms of what the students are actually doing.