A Sense of Doubt blog post #1764 - Grading Robot Powers Down
Though I am posting this blog entry almost an entire week late, after about a week of almost total inactivity because of how hard I worked to meet all these deadlines, it was this day, Tuesday December 17th that was the last day of my grading period for Fall semesters in 2019.
I had one grade deadline yesterday, Monday December 16th at 14:00 hours that I missed by three minutes. I was in the system loading the final grades when the deadline struck, and so I managed to get the grades done and was not kicked out.
I call this work being "grading robot." It was a term I invented myself, but then I decided to run a Google search to see if anyone else had coined the term, used the term, or created memes, like the one I found shared below.
I love that the article I found was posted on a blog that looks cool and I wish was current: SCHOOL OF DOUBT, which is a title that readers of this blog should recognize as very close to my own SENSE OF DOUBT.
In any case, me, Grading Robot, has machine-powered through six classes worth of grades meeting three deadlines in two days. I had two more today at 17:00 and midnight.
But what if I had an actual robot that did the grading?
This seems even more ideal than imagining that I am a robot.
And so, I am done with grading for the year. But I do not yet own a robot.
https://schoolofdoubt.com/2013/04/06/where-do-i-get-one-of-these-fancy-essay-grading-programs/
According to The New York Times, I might be able to reclaim my weekends soon: New Test for Computers: Grading Essays at College Level.
My initial gut reaction? Bring. It. On.
I hate grading essays. I hate just almost every single thing about it. The liberal arts college where I teach is small and teaching focused, so we don’t get the two courses per term that research profs get; we teach four classes every term. My load usually looks exactly as it does right now: two literature classes, a freshman writing class, and a team-taught auditorium humanities course with 60 students. This minute, as I sit here, I am in possession of approximately 75 papers, ranging in length from 950 to 2000 words, that need grading. And finals are in two weeks. It’s the absolute WORST, you guys.
The article linked above cites arguments from skeptics, mostly claiming that a computer program cannot actually “read” an essay. As a committed posthumanist waiting impatiently for my cyborg body, I have less of a problem with the concept than those detractors. It would not surprise me so very much to find that a computer program could determine whether a standard academic essay were well organized and supported. But that’s only half the battle of essay marking. The computer would not know, for example, if an argument that seemed out of place in an essay derived from a conversation we had in class. The computer would not have worked with a struggling student on draft after draft and thus recognize improvements and effort that indicate so much more than the final product alone. Basically, my problem isn’t that the computer isn’t a person, but that the computer wouldn’t be me. If I don’t read my students’ essays, I have very little idea what they understand or think about the material we’re studying, and thus little idea how to adjust my instruction. Moreover, the ones who refuse to speak in class–whose names I often have trouble learning until I get a feel for their writing–would remain ciphers.
Ultimately, when the brief (but delicious) fantasy induced by the article faded, I had to conclude that a program like this might be useful for students trying to write tighter academic essays in general but was unlikely to be useful to me as a grader, especially in literature classes where arguments are based on interpretation rather than statements of fact. I can see myself using a program like this to tutor students in basic essay construction but, alas, I don’t think it’s going to take any grading off my hands anytime soon.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1912.17 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1627 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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