Computer Essay Grading v. Student Journals
The beauty of being an English or language arts teacher is helping students develop the skill of writing. Next to learning how to read, learning how to express your ideas through writing is a valuable form of communication. And in today’s world, being able to communicate and relate to others is more critical than ever.
But if you want a taste of the future, with Common Core PARCC writing and assessment, an article by Les Perelman in The Boston Globe last April, told how Pearson is using student essays to train their “robo-grader” to replace human readers who grade test essays. There is no sign that this is anything positive…no research to indicate it works to improve writing. It sounds like it is being done for efficiency. The robo-graders are trying to match human scores, looking at the essay length and counting particular words.
There are problems the article identifies:
- Three MIT computer science students have shown this machine doesn’t measure “human communication.”
- There’s a lack of transparency of the private vendors and their resources.
- Using computers to score is not as effective as real teachers.
- Machines are involved in corporate secrecy.
This sadly reminds me of student journal writing which I first learned about through a teaching workshop with the National Writing Project. Students write their thoughts and ideas in a journal, usually at the beginning of class, and teachers can directly respond. Journal writing is more pointed and values the thoughts and ideas of the student. Journal writing, in general, is being criticized by the Common Core enthusiasts as not incorporating critical thinking skills. Really, it doesn’t tidily fit with having a robo-grader scorer.
College Board President and Common Core English Lang. Arts developer David Coleman’s disregard for this kind of writing (“no one gives an ‘expletive’ about narrative writing”), most of us saw as reprehensible, because it is indicative of the coldness Computer Essay Grading v. Student Journals:
