Man or Machine?

Because my group is presenting Jago's Papers, Papers, Papers this week, the idea of grading papers has been on my mind for the last couple of weeks. In the two chapters we assigned the class, what I found to be particularly interesting rests with the idea of computerized scoring of essays. While at first, I was appalled by the idea that anyone would ever even consider using a computer program to grade their students' essays that they worked on so hard on. If my students are going to put in the effort to respond to a prompt that I have set out for them to answer, the least I can do is read it myself (even if I don't have time to write lengthy comments in the margins) rather than take the easy road and have a computer score the papers. Even after reading Jago, I am still pretty against machine scoring, and am still skeptical as to how a computer can even come close to grading at the same level as a living, breathing human.

Despite my concerns about using computer to grade papers, I can see how it would be beneficial to have some sort of program to assist with the mountains of papers that can accumulate for an English teacher. When we are trying to get our students to write as often as possible, it can be taxing on us teachers, because the more we assign, the more hours and personal time must be spent grading those papers. If we had computer programs to help assess the papers, we could assign more without having to add onto our already heavy load. According to the text, "e-raters and independent readers agree, on average, 87 to 94 percent of the time" (p.34). Since the computer programs wouldn't agree with the grader 100 percent of the time, it would be pertinant that teachers only use this type of program sparingly, and that they don't solely rely on the grades that the computers spit out. These papers should be used as more of a formative assessment, rather than summative because it can help the students get better at writing. "What nline scoring provides is more opportunities for students to write and receive feedback" (p. 41)

All thing considered, if I had the opportunity to teach in a school district that had scoring programs on the computers, I would most likely try it out for myself and see how its grading compared to my own. If I liked the results, I would be more inclined to use the computer grading system to allows students the chance to write more and continue to get feedback when I don't have the time to comment on papers that aren't being graded for more than completion. I can see the pros and cons, and although I am still leaning more towards not using these programs, I won't completely disregard it until I have tried it out at least once.

RESOURCE LINK:

This week's links contains cartoons that English teachers will appreciate!

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/e/english_teacher.asp
http://www.offthemark.com/search-results/key/grammar/