8 ms·

Why do you need to plan/grade ? Why isn't that automated?

jedberg 4y ago
Ah, the engineer who thinks everything can be solved with software. To automate grading you first must create a general AI, because if you just do multiple choice exams, you aren't really testing or measuring someone's ability to perform the task, you're just measuring their ability to make a good guess. And some teachers do that. But not the good ones. As for planning, some senior teachers have filing cabinets labeled by day. They just reach into the file and pull out the lesson for "day 82". But any good teacher will realize that they have to customize the learning to that year's kids, and constantly update with new teaching methodologies, new information, etc. And sometimes the school adopts a whole new curriculum, and then you have to start all over.
- acjohnson55 4y ago
  > Ah, the engineer who thinks everything can be solved with software. Just as a bit of feedback, starting your comment like this may have turned off the original poster to the rest of your thoughts, which I agree with.
  - azemetre 4y ago
    Sometimes we all need to be slapped with a fish in the face in order to see how credulous we are with our biases.
    - acjohnson55 4y ago
      My comment is net -1 right now, and I don't believe I made any assumptions about the person I responded to in the feedback I tried to offer. If people don't think my feedback is useful, that's fine, but if I had started it off with something like "ah, the presumptuous teacher", I'm pretty sure it would be been received even worse. I read the initial comment as asking a naive question, but I think that's great, as long as they are open to answers that contradict their assumptions. People should be able to do that and get earnest answers without backhanded comments. Asking naive questions is a big part of how I learn, personally.
      - galaxyLogic 4y ago
        "ah, the presumptuous teacher" . That is a perfect example of bad discourse. Why is it bad? Because it is "Ad Hominem". It attacks the person making the comment, not the reasoning in the comment. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
        acjohnson55 4y ago
        Right, that's my point.
  - closewith 4y ago
    Maybe it will cause the OP to reevaluate whatever absurd worldview led them to posting a ridiculous comment?
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      The point, I think, is that it almost never leads to this outcome. Humans respond very poorly to [perceived] antagonism from anonymous strangers. I know I do, and it’s why I’m working on removing all my snark from internet comments. I’ve also found that you can usually rephrase the snark (“do you really think…?”) into a straightforward question in a neutral tone.
  - Uehreka 4y ago
    Not GP, but I frequently start comments like this if the comment I’m replying to isn’t just slightly off, but reflects a deeply unexamined prior. It’s a signal that “The thing that’s wrong with your comment isn’t even in the text of the comment, it’s in the worldview that led you to think this in the first place. Simply reacting to the text of the comment would be insufficient.”
    - dnissley 4y ago
      The problem is that this type of reply reflects your own deeply unexamined prior (e.g. that software can't play a part of solving this issue, or that anyone who said X believes Y, etc.), and so sets up an antagonistic interaction with the other person where you are each arguing from atop your ladders of inference, rather than climbing down those ladders and deconstructing those priors in more detail.
      - archduck 4y ago
        On the other hand, some contributions to a conversation are simply beyond the boundaries of common sense in such a way (blindingly obvious, unacceptable, dangerously naive, etc.) that ridicule is appropriate. Even if the contribution was made in good faith. Ridicule has numerous powerful social functions: it helps social groups self-govern, transmits knowledge from one generation to the next, enables social groups to circumscribe what is acceptable in a bottom-up way, and so on. Sometimes a little public skewering is exactly what's needed to give everyone something to think about. It's an online comment. Real names weren't used. There appears to be an overwhelming consensus as to the quality of the contribution (it's so light I can barely read it). No one's suffering any undue injury.
        acjohnson55 4y ago
        I personally don't think ridicule is ever necessary or appropriate. Even if it results in compliance or submission in the moment, it's very likely to produce resentment. In an organization, it produces a culture of fear, rather than curiosity and initiative.
  - soderfoo 4y ago
    Wish I had this much tact. I usually abstain from saying anything or respond reflexively, which never helps. Great job communicating here.
- sseagull 4y ago
  Also, I will add, there is an element of good teaching that involves building a relationship with your students. Getting personalized feedback (encouragement, small corrections, etc) can mean much more to a student than a simple green checkmark/red x somewhere. Good educators can know when to apply the right amount of pushing or backing off that can help a student succeed. Ideally, of course. Lots of bad teachers out there…
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    100% agreed. On the other hand, automated grading would remove a lot of the biases. For example, it's been repeatedly proven that girls get graded higher than boys.
    - adotbacon 4y ago
      Source? Maybe I'm clashing with the specific phrasing since I haven't heard of a bias in the grading itself (i.e. a bias of the teacher), but rather a bias of the system. Schooling as a whole aligns more with girls' strengths as they're more consistent in the day-to-day (ex: organization, planning, homework) whereas boys tend to test better [0]. The weighting of assignments in a particular class could tip the benefit in either direction. I could believe girls 'get graded higher' on written assignments due to generally better handwriting. I had poor handwriting (though recall at least one girl classmate with worse) and certainly received no credit on some correct answers as a result. I imagine a frustrated teacher reading through a chicken-scratch essay might dock some points - whether directly with a note calling it out (also happened to me), discreetly, or subconsciously. [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/why-girls-get-better-grades-than-boys-do/380318/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/why-gi...
- dionidium 4y ago
  > But any good teacher will realize that they have to customize the learning to that year's kids, and constantly update with new teaching methodologies, new information, etc. I mean this seriously: why? High school math is not a rapidly changing field. Sure, you might have to slow down or speed up, depending on the class -- although, is even that true? Is the average student really changing all that much from year to year? -- but that means taking out the file for day 82 on day 87 or whatever. That's not a massive adjustment. The material is unchanging. The students aren't going to be all that different from year to year. What's going on that it seems like common sense to so many people that teaching high school math requires a bunch of novel planning?
  - jedberg 4y ago
    > High school math is not a rapidly changing field Are you sure? Here is a list of 16,000+ papers written about teaching high school math since 2018: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2018&q=pedagogy+upper+grade+math&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2018&q=pedagogy+up... Also, as a teacher, you have to adopt the district standards, which change every few years. Certain areas are removed, others added, some things are more important, some less. Those standards are changing to meet new standardized testing requirements. There is a lot of change happening. Just like in programming. People who learned Cobol still need to learn new languages once in a while, because things change, even though the principles stay the same. It's the same data structures, same algorithms, but yet software engineering is rapidly changing.
    - andrewprock 4y ago
      Most of this change is driven by something other than need. The high school mathematics curriculum is a bit of a funny beast in the US, but it is certainly not the weak point in the system.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - HighPlainsDrftr 4y ago
- d0mine 4y ago
  Software is a tool that can be used effectively in education (e.g., Khan Academy). Nobody says it is the only tool that you should use. If you are saying that 100% of grading must be manual, it implies 0% effectiveness of Khan Academy (false). In practice, even if just a half of the tests can be automated, it would free the time for teachers to do the work that can't be automated. Software can provide a great leverage.
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    > If you are saying that 100% of grading must be manual That's not what was said though; I don't think anyone has a problem with some grading being automated (e.g. multiple-choice), and software has been used for decades for this kind of thing. But there are serious limitations to this. If I solve a math problem in the correct way but made a silly mistake in the arithmetic leading to the wrong answer, then this is still a "correct" answer in a way, worth of some points. And grading math is easy; how would you automate the grading of a question like "describe two reasons why the American settlers declared independence"?
acjohnson55 4y ago
Planning needs to be responsive to how the prior lessons went. You can't simply pre-plan a whole year and expect those lessons to be effective. Eventually, you can get close to that point, if you are lucky enough to teach the same subject for years. But much like you can't expect a standup comedian to perform someone else's routine effectively, as a teacher, each individual has to figure out what's effective for them. Teaching is dynamic and interpersonal. Grading is not just a matter of right/wrong, even in fields like math, where questions can be given that have one correct answer. It's providing the student feedback on where their misconceptions were that led to an incorrect response. And of course, the most meaningful schoolwork assignments don't have a single correct answer.
- simonw 4y ago
  This is one of the many things that I find so interesting about effective teaching. Your students are forming a mental model of how something works. Your job is to help guide them to the correct mental model. If their mental model goes wrong, you have to debug it: you need to figure out exactly what they've misunderstood (which could be anything, and could be from years before your lessons with them started) and help them correct. Here's a really good detailed write-up of this idea: https://teachtogether.tech/en/index.html#s:models https://teachtogether.tech/en/index.html#s:models
  - acjohnson55 4y ago
    Yep, done correctly, it's a lot like debugging. Although, maybe in reverse. When I'm debugging, I'm trying to learn from the infallible machine how my assumption of how my own code works is incorrect :)

Ah, the engineer who thinks everything can be solved with software. To automate grading you first must create a general AI, because if you just do multiple choice exams, you aren't really testing or measuring someone's ability to perform the task, you're just measuring their ability to make a good guess. And some teachers do that. But not the good ones. As for planning, some senior teachers have filing cabinets labeled by day. They just reach into the file and pull out the lesson for "day 82". But any good teacher will realize that they have to customize the learning to that year's kids, and constantly update with new teaching methodologies, new information, etc. And sometimes the school adopts a whole new curriculum, and then you have to start all over.

acjohnson55 4y ago
> Ah, the engineer who thinks everything can be solved with software. Just as a bit of feedback, starting your comment like this may have turned off the original poster to the rest of your thoughts, which I agree with.
- azemetre 4y ago
  Sometimes we all need to be slapped with a fish in the face in order to see how credulous we are with our biases.
  - acjohnson55 4y ago
    My comment is net -1 right now, and I don't believe I made any assumptions about the person I responded to in the feedback I tried to offer. If people don't think my feedback is useful, that's fine, but if I had started it off with something like "ah, the presumptuous teacher", I'm pretty sure it would be been received even worse. I read the initial comment as asking a naive question, but I think that's great, as long as they are open to answers that contradict their assumptions. People should be able to do that and get earnest answers without backhanded comments. Asking naive questions is a big part of how I learn, personally.
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      "ah, the presumptuous teacher" . That is a perfect example of bad discourse. Why is it bad? Because it is "Ad Hominem". It attacks the person making the comment, not the reasoning in the comment. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
      - acjohnson55 4y ago
        Right, that's my point.
- closewith 4y ago
  Maybe it will cause the OP to reevaluate whatever absurd worldview led them to posting a ridiculous comment?
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    The point, I think, is that it almost never leads to this outcome. Humans respond very poorly to [perceived] antagonism from anonymous strangers. I know I do, and it’s why I’m working on removing all my snark from internet comments. I’ve also found that you can usually rephrase the snark (“do you really think…?”) into a straightforward question in a neutral tone.
- Uehreka 4y ago
  Not GP, but I frequently start comments like this if the comment I’m replying to isn’t just slightly off, but reflects a deeply unexamined prior. It’s a signal that “The thing that’s wrong with your comment isn’t even in the text of the comment, it’s in the worldview that led you to think this in the first place. Simply reacting to the text of the comment would be insufficient.”
  - dnissley 4y ago
    The problem is that this type of reply reflects your own deeply unexamined prior (e.g. that software can't play a part of solving this issue, or that anyone who said X believes Y, etc.), and so sets up an antagonistic interaction with the other person where you are each arguing from atop your ladders of inference, rather than climbing down those ladders and deconstructing those priors in more detail.
    - archduck 4y ago
      On the other hand, some contributions to a conversation are simply beyond the boundaries of common sense in such a way (blindingly obvious, unacceptable, dangerously naive, etc.) that ridicule is appropriate. Even if the contribution was made in good faith. Ridicule has numerous powerful social functions: it helps social groups self-govern, transmits knowledge from one generation to the next, enables social groups to circumscribe what is acceptable in a bottom-up way, and so on. Sometimes a little public skewering is exactly what's needed to give everyone something to think about. It's an online comment. Real names weren't used. There appears to be an overwhelming consensus as to the quality of the contribution (it's so light I can barely read it). No one's suffering any undue injury.
      - acjohnson55 4y ago
        I personally don't think ridicule is ever necessary or appropriate. Even if it results in compliance or submission in the moment, it's very likely to produce resentment. In an organization, it produces a culture of fear, rather than curiosity and initiative.
- soderfoo 4y ago
  Wish I had this much tact. I usually abstain from saying anything or respond reflexively, which never helps. Great job communicating here.
sseagull 4y ago
Also, I will add, there is an element of good teaching that involves building a relationship with your students. Getting personalized feedback (encouragement, small corrections, etc) can mean much more to a student than a simple green checkmark/red x somewhere. Good educators can know when to apply the right amount of pushing or backing off that can help a student succeed. Ideally, of course. Lots of bad teachers out there…
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  100% agreed. On the other hand, automated grading would remove a lot of the biases. For example, it's been repeatedly proven that girls get graded higher than boys.
  - adotbacon 4y ago
    Source? Maybe I'm clashing with the specific phrasing since I haven't heard of a bias in the grading itself (i.e. a bias of the teacher), but rather a bias of the system. Schooling as a whole aligns more with girls' strengths as they're more consistent in the day-to-day (ex: organization, planning, homework) whereas boys tend to test better [0]. The weighting of assignments in a particular class could tip the benefit in either direction. I could believe girls 'get graded higher' on written assignments due to generally better handwriting. I had poor handwriting (though recall at least one girl classmate with worse) and certainly received no credit on some correct answers as a result. I imagine a frustrated teacher reading through a chicken-scratch essay might dock some points - whether directly with a note calling it out (also happened to me), discreetly, or subconsciously. [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/why-girls-get-better-grades-than-boys-do/380318/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/why-gi...
dionidium 4y ago
> But any good teacher will realize that they have to customize the learning to that year's kids, and constantly update with new teaching methodologies, new information, etc. I mean this seriously: why? High school math is not a rapidly changing field. Sure, you might have to slow down or speed up, depending on the class -- although, is even that true? Is the average student really changing all that much from year to year? -- but that means taking out the file for day 82 on day 87 or whatever. That's not a massive adjustment. The material is unchanging. The students aren't going to be all that different from year to year. What's going on that it seems like common sense to so many people that teaching high school math requires a bunch of novel planning?
- jedberg 4y ago
  > High school math is not a rapidly changing field Are you sure? Here is a list of 16,000+ papers written about teaching high school math since 2018: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2018&q=pedagogy+upper+grade+math&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2018&q=pedagogy+up... Also, as a teacher, you have to adopt the district standards, which change every few years. Certain areas are removed, others added, some things are more important, some less. Those standards are changing to meet new standardized testing requirements. There is a lot of change happening. Just like in programming. People who learned Cobol still need to learn new languages once in a while, because things change, even though the principles stay the same. It's the same data structures, same algorithms, but yet software engineering is rapidly changing.
  - andrewprock 4y ago
    Most of this change is driven by something other than need. The high school mathematics curriculum is a bit of a funny beast in the US, but it is certainly not the weak point in the system.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - HighPlainsDrftr 4y ago
d0mine 4y ago
Software is a tool that can be used effectively in education (e.g., Khan Academy). Nobody says it is the only tool that you should use. If you are saying that 100% of grading must be manual, it implies 0% effectiveness of Khan Academy (false). In practice, even if just a half of the tests can be automated, it would free the time for teachers to do the work that can't be automated. Software can provide a great leverage.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  > If you are saying that 100% of grading must be manual That's not what was said though; I don't think anyone has a problem with some grading being automated (e.g. multiple-choice), and software has been used for decades for this kind of thing. But there are serious limitations to this. If I solve a math problem in the correct way but made a silly mistake in the arithmetic leading to the wrong answer, then this is still a "correct" answer in a way, worth of some points. And grading math is easy; how would you automate the grading of a question like "describe two reasons why the American settlers declared independence"?

acjohnson55 4y ago

Planning needs to be responsive to how the prior lessons went. You can't simply pre-plan a whole year and expect those lessons to be effective. Eventually, you can get close to that point, if you are lucky enough to teach the same subject for years. But much like you can't expect a standup comedian to perform someone else's routine effectively, as a teacher, each individual has to figure out what's effective for them. Teaching is dynamic and interpersonal. Grading is not just a matter of right/wrong, even in fields like math, where questions can be given that have one correct answer. It's providing the student feedback on where their misconceptions were that led to an incorrect response. And of course, the most meaningful schoolwork assignments don't have a single correct answer.

simonw 4y ago
This is one of the many things that I find so interesting about effective teaching. Your students are forming a mental model of how something works. Your job is to help guide them to the correct mental model. If their mental model goes wrong, you have to debug it: you need to figure out exactly what they've misunderstood (which could be anything, and could be from years before your lessons with them started) and help them correct. Here's a really good detailed write-up of this idea: https://teachtogether.tech/en/index.html#s:models https://teachtogether.tech/en/index.html#s:models
- acjohnson55 4y ago
  Yep, done correctly, it's a lot like debugging. Although, maybe in reverse. When I'm debugging, I'm trying to learn from the infallible machine how my assumption of how my own code works is incorrect :)