According to Caralee J. Adams (2014) in “Essay-Grading Software Seen as Time-Saving Tool,” the use of essay-grading software has increased throughout the years; however, some believe there are flaws in the technology. First, Adams supports her opinion by pointing out that teachers have increased their use of essay-grading software because of a push for students to become better writers and to meet Common Core standards (pg. 1). Although it takes hours for teachers to read and grade students’ essays, teachers know that the only way students can become better writers is to write often. To assess deeper thinking with Common Core standards, there has been a shift from assigning multiple choice questions to assigning essay questions. Essay-grading software can help teachers read essays more quickly. Then, Adams says “over the years, the capabilities have changed substantially, evolving from simple rule-based coding to more sophisticated software systems” (pg. 2). The …show more content…
invention of the internet and hard-disk drives in the 1990s supported the evolution of essay-grading software, which was first created in the 1970s (pg. 2). Now instead of only counting words, essay-grading software can also assess language and grammar. Furthermore, Adams continues his or her argument about the software being flawed by claiming that “it relies too heavily on counting words instead of analyzing the content” (pg. 4). The former director of the MIT Writing Across the Curriculum program proved that essay-grading software could not replace human readers when he was able to get a high score an essay with gibberish content (pg. 3). The software is unable to detect a writer’s voice or understand the meaning of the content, which is an essential portion of an essay. The most interesting concept presented by Adams is that even though the software is flawed, “improvements have been made in the technology's ability to evaluate language, grammar, mechanics, and style; detect plagiarism; and provide quantitative and qualitative feedback” (pg. 2). Ultimately, Adams argues that even though the essay grading software has the potential to save teachers time, the software is not good enough yet to replace humans when analyzing and grading an essay. In my experience as a kindergarten teacher, I have also noticed more emphasis for students to become better writers. Adams’ statement about teachers using essay-grading software to save time resonated with me because it can sometimes be overwhelming to meet rigorous writing standards. Although I cannot speak for secondary state standards, I know the primary elementary standards have become more rigorous. Kindergarten students are expected to write sentences by the end of the year, which many years ago would have been a standard at the end of first grade. I empathize with secondary and higher-education teachers who are looking for ways to help them with higher demands and more rigorous standards. To help teachers meet these new standards, there has been an increase of writing instruction professional development in my district. These professional development opportunities have been extremely beneficial for me. Education standards are not the only things that have changed over time; technology has dramatically evolved throughout the years.
Technology is an essential addition to my instruction and is constantly present in my students’ everyday lives. It only makes sense that educators are using technology for assessments and standardized tests. Adams stated that because essay-grading technology has improved throughout the years, some standardized tests have used it to analyze the essay portions (pg. 3). I feel that not only could this save time reading and analyzing the essays, but it could possibly even prevent bias or human scoring errors. Some essay-grading technology can be used to provide feedback to students before they submit an assignment. This technology seems beneficial because it could help ensure that a student is submitting a high-quality essay, which would allow the teacher to provide meaningful feedback on craft and arguments instead of focusing on grammar and mechanics
mistakes. Adams’ last point about the flaws in essay-grading software struck me the most. I believe technology is capable of powerful things, but it cannot replace humans. When I investigated the essay-grading software called PaperRater, I noticed that it only analyzed spelling, grammar, word choice, style, and vocabulary. It even provided a reminder that it could not grade the meaning of the words. In my opinion, this is the largest flaw of essay-grading software. When reading an essay, a teacher has the ability to analyze the content, arguments, craft, mechanics. Teachers also can provide authentic feedback to students unlike technology, which often provides canned responses. From my experience, students learn best from authentic feedback rather than canned comments. To meet the rigorous writing standards, teachers must provide informative feedback to their students. I agree with Adams’ argument that even though the essay-grading software capabilities have increased, it is still not good enough to replace a teacher’s expertise on analyzing a student’s writing. An essay is not only about grammar and sentence structure; it is mostly about the content. Adams states that essay-grading software is not yet able to analyze the essay content and writing nuances (pg. 2). If teachers want to use this technology to save time, they should not depend solely on it, but with their own analyzing and expertise. This could help ensure that students become better writers and meet Common Core standards.
Teachers would share information and research as well as their own experiences to support and develop the grading reform. An English teacher had shared her experience on using the method of practicing and retaking for her assessments. Students who didn’t do well in a section the first time had the chance to put their practice into extra work for the second time, and the grading of that work had replaced the first. As a result, more than 65% of her students scores had increased and they were able to master the skill. This development had strengthen their grading.
In conclusion I feel that using effective assessment methods throughout any course allows tutors to give feedback at the right time to allow the correct progress for the learners to achieve. I have experienced feedback many times as coach and more recently as a teacher and feel it has only helped me to improve and to keep wanting to improve so I can inspire others to achieve.
In other words, two teachers may give the same assignment two completely different grades based on their own grading style. This puts an incredible amount of stress on a student because they need to complete assignments that will satisfy their current teacher, whose expectations and grading style could be very similar or very different from the student’s previous teacher. Alfie Kohn believes that the influence grades have on a student’s life doesn’t help this situation, and may even make it worse by providing students with a false sense of security about their knowledge. In her article “From Degrading to De-grading”, she states that scores on tests can be largely based on how the test was written and what skills were tested (Kohn 240). Therefore, it is up to teachers to identify what topics students must master in order to be proficient and score well on standardized tests. But when the class is not structured with a consideration for the material used on such tests, students enter the test blind to the skills that they will be expected to know and use. Anyone can memorize a list of facts off a study guide and score well on a multiple choice test the next day, but skills such as analyzing literature and interpreting a handful of graphs containing data from a scientific experiment are skills that require time and hours of instruction to master.
We see a constant struggle between students and professors when it comes to the grading scale. These differences make learning a hassle. “I am placed in the position of having to figure out new ways to trick them into learning by designing ingenious new ways to grade,” says Vogel (339). The present grading system pushes students to take easy classes. Students on scholarships are afraid of taking hard classes because they run the risk of loosing financial aid if their grades don’t meet the average (Vogel 339). Farber agrees, “Getting graded turns people away from hard subjects,” (334). He offers his readers a utopia free of grades. This new...
A person could clearly see that by simply looking at the grades that I have made on my final essays. On each essay so far this semester I have been able to earn a higher grade than the previous essay. One thing that I was able to correct by looking back on was usage of the word “it.” As stated by Schwartz, “It is a pronoun, so it must be replacing a noun or pronoun, what is it replacing?” By reflecting to my previous essays and reading this comment I was able to further understand the usage of the word it, and along with this I would be able to correct it in essays after that. Along with getting better grades on my final papers, I was able to further understand the purpose of pre-writing assignments. In the beginning of the year I would look at pre-writing assignments as almost a waste of time, but as I progressed through the course I would see just how much of an impact they could have. Whenever I would do badly on a pre-writing assignment it would usually translate over to a mediocre rough draft. Whenever I realized this I was able to grow off of previous mistakes and spend more time on the pre-writing. The more time I spent on the pre-writing the better grade I would get on that assignment as well as the rough draft. Despite me constantly reflecting to my previous essays, it is still one thing that I need to work on. During one of my essays I was making the same mistakes that I had made in previous essays, so much that my professor stated “See comments in previously graded assignments and apply them to the writing in this one” (Schwartz). I was making so many of the same mistakes that I had to go to my previous paper to see what I was doing wrong. After I read this comment I realized how vital it was to assess the comments made on my papers and apply it whenever I am writing. During the final parts of the course I was able to comprehend comments made by
John F. Kennedy once said, “A child miseducated is a child lost.” As educators it is our job to teach all students to the best of our ability in order to prevent children from becoming lost in the educational realm. We can do this by adequately familiarizing ourselves with the current demands of the United State’s educational system. These demands consist of implementing a rigorous and relevant framework into every classroom along with knowing and being able to meet the new Common Core State Standards. Throughout this paper, I will discuss the Rigor and Relevance Framework and how it relates to the Common Core, the new demands of the Common Core Standards, how these standards provoke new means of assessment, the shift towards more informational-based texts, and the new ways of assessing writing through performance.
Originally this category was titled technology and assessments, but I needed to make the category larger in scope to fit in some of the more “specialized” articles. This article was published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009 by Edy S. Quellmalz and James W. Pellegrino was simply titled, “Technology and Testing”. Although the focus of this work centered on large-scale testing, there was some helpful dialogue surrounding classroom-based assessments that proved useful. The main idea of this article was that besides the obvious advantage of quick, accurate scoring and feedback, technological applications can be used to provide “rich, authentic tasks that challenge the sorts of integrated knowledge, critical thinking, and problem solving seldom well addressed in paper-based tests” (Quellmalz & Pellegrino, 75). In other words, these two authors strongly feel technological based assessments are superior to paper-based assessments, and thus will yield greater results. They go on to say that this shift in assessment is a crucial part of 21st-century learning and will continue to improve and develop. Already this can be seen within districts as they struggle to implement the PARCC throughout their schools. In their discussion of classroom instructional uses of technology-based assessments, the authors reaffirm the benefits of formative assessments if they
Some teachers only think of summative assessments that are used for reporting grades. When used this way, assessments do not lead to learning. If teachers will effectively use formative assessments to provide students with timely feedback and individualize instruction based on assessment feedback, it will result in enhanced learning (Brink & Bartz, 2017). In order for this to happen schools need to develop a culture of formative assessment. Teachers need to be trained in the use of formative assessments and administration will need to cultivate this change in culture (Brink & Bartz,
Assessments are an important part of teaching. Assessments are a good way for teachers to monitor students’ learning and understanding. Knowing students’ level of understanding can help teachers improve students’ learning and guide their instructions. In the future, I plan to continue assessing students in multiple ways such as, asking questions, illustrations and writing to adjust my instruction. I also plan to encourage students to assess their own work so they are involved in their own learning as well as look for ways to “employ technology to support assessment
By nature, most students are brought up in an academic environment motivated to get A’s and B’s on their report cards. Those grades sometimes don’t thoroughly report how much a student has learned or gained knowledge in each topic. Some instructors throw in factors totally unrelated to learning, when the main objective of academic institutions is to learn. In order to clearly demonstrate how much a student has learned in the classroom, schools should change their current grading system and teach students how to learn.
The new and improved Automated Essay Writer automatically writes your assignment, essays, articles, research papers for you. All you need to do is enter your assignment requirements and the Automated Essay Writer will present you with a unique and original essay within just few seconds. The only problem is that it has not yet been developed.
So what’s the big issue with traditional testing methods? They’ve been instituted for years and no one seemed to have a problem before now. Well, in the past decade, the nation’s citizens have become increasingly compassionate towards students and their individual needs. President George W. Bush has gotten generous praise for his No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 as a result of popular concerns among communities across the country. While the act may still have areas in need of improvement, it illustrates that educators, parents, and students alike have been desirous of reform within school systems. “The number of calls complaining about high-stakes exams coming from parents...are increasing, and is a reason for concern” (Report, 2001). The recent act caters to the actualization that students are different from one another, and in order for teaching and learning to take place in a non-discriminatory manner, adjustments must be made. According to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), “Alternative assessment is any form of measuring what students know and are able to do other than traditional standardized tests. Alternative forms of assessment include portfolios that are collections of students' work over time, performance-based assessments, and other means of testing students such as open-ended essays with no single correct answer, and project work that involves collaboration with peers” (2000). Students learn in many ways. Some learn by listening to lessons and may prefer an environment with the aid of music and rhythm. Others may be visual learners who gather information by looking at photographs or watching videos. There are still others that learn kinesthetic...
With the rapid growth of technology in America’s society today, the use of computers in school classrooms has increased tremendously—an action that certainly has become beneficial to students, educators, and parents. The use of computers has positively skyrocketed over the past ten years. Not only are computers utilized daily in large companies across the world, but the everyday use in classrooms has also become prevalent. Using modern technology to assist school instructors with his or her daily lessons should definitely be regarded as a positive, acceptable method of instruction and not definitely does not prohibit students from understanding or critical thinking.
Technology properly used in the classroom has many advantages to a student’s learning. Technology can help students become more involved in their own learning process, which is not seen in the traditional classroom. It allows them to master basic skills at their own rate rather than being left behind. Teachers and students alike can connect to real life situations by using technology in the classroom; this can also help to prepare students for real world situations. Technology can be used to motivate students as well as to offer more challenging opportunities. It can also be used as a visualization tool to keep students interested in the subject that is being taught. When technology is used effectively, students have the opportunity to develop skills that they may not get without the use of technology (Cleaver, 2011). Assessing and monitoring students is easier on the teacher because of the ability to use technology in the classroom. When technology is used correctly it offers limitless resources to a classroom atmosphere.
Technology have changed the way teachers are now accountable to teach, and the way students are learning. During this course I have learned key implications of new