Computers Grade Students’ Writing . So sociology professor Ed Brent decided to hand the work off — to a computer. This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Contact wiredlabs@wired. Students in Brent's Introduction to Sociology course at the University of Missouri- Columbia now submit drafts through the SAGrader software he designed. It counts the number of points he wanted his students to include and analyzes how well concepts are explained. And within seconds, students have a score.
It used to be the students who looked for shortcuts, shopping for papers online or pilfering parts of an assignment with a simple Google search. Now, teachers and professors are realizing that they, too, can tap technology for a facet of academia long reserved for a teacher alone with a red pen. Software now scores everything from routine assignments in high school English classes to an essay on the GMAT, the standardized test for business school admission. Though Brent and his two teaching assistants still handle final papers — and grades — students are encouraged to use SAGrader for a better shot at an . And the computer can do the tedious but necessary stuff. Like other essay- grading software, it analyzes sentences and paragraphs, looking for keywords as well as the relationship between terms. Other programs compare a student's paper with a database of already- scored papers, seeking to assign it a score based on what other similar- quality assignments have received. Educational Testing Service sells Criterion, which includes the . Vantage Learning has Intelli. Metric, Maplesoft sells Maple T. A., and numerous other programs are used on a smaller scale. Most companies are private and offer no sales figures, but educators say use of such technology is growing. Consider the reach of e- Rater: 4. GMAT test- takers annually, a half- million U. S. K- 1. 2 students and 4. ETS says an additional 2,0. But it's tough to tout a product that tinkers with something many educators believe only a human can do. 50 Responses to “First Day of School Activities for Second Grade” Michelle Says: July 28th, 2006 at 7:26 am. I just wanted to say that your site is fabulous!! Students will write a personal narrative about a time they surprised themselves or someone else. It's not its suitability. It's the believability that it can do the things it already can do. Officials there decided against using it widely, saying feedback was negative. Not all districts had the same experience. Watertown, South Dakota, students are among those who now have their writing- assessment tests scored by computer. Lesli Hanson, an assistant superintendent in Watertown, said students like taking the test by computer and teachers are relieved to end an annual ritual that kept two dozen people holed up for three days to score 1,5. Some 8. 0 percent of Indiana's 6. English assessment scored by computer, and another 1. Stan Jones, Indiana's commissioner of higher education, said the technology isn't as good as a teacher but cuts turnaround time, trims costs and allows overworked teachers to give written assignments without fearing the workload. Software can also remove a degree of subjectivity. When the University of California at Davis tried out such technology a couple years back, lecturer Andy Jones decided to try to trick e- Rater. Prompted to write on workplace injuries, Jones instead input a letter of recommendation, substituting . He got a five out of six. A second time around, Jones scattered . In Brent's class, sophomore Brady Didion submitted drafts of his papers numerous times to ensure his final version included everything the computer wanted. Work to automate analysis of the written word dates back to the 1. Henry Lieberman, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before long, researchers aimed to use such applications to evaluate student writing. SAGrader, like other programs, needs significant prep work by teachers. For each of the four papers Brent assigns during his semester- long course, he must essentially enter all the components he wants an assignment to include and take into account the hundreds of ways a student might say them. Part of one assignment for Brent's class was for students to pick a crime and explain how it fit into sociologists' categories. Brent had to key in dozens of words in order to ensure all types of transgressions would be identified. What a writer gets back is quite detailed. A criminology paper resulted in a nuanced evaluation offering feedback such as this: . Before Brent wrote SAGrader, a part of his broader data- analysis program Qualrus, he only gave students multiple- choice tests. Do they seem to understand? Are they being creative?
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