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The automatic grading has a huge advantage: It is nearly real-time, and improving the solution and re-submitting improves your score. Having been a teaching as

The automatic grading has a huge advantage: It is nearly real-time, and improving the solution and re-submitting improves your score. Having been a teaching assistant who corrected programming assignments (and also a student), I always wondered how many of the students would read my comments, would go back to their solution and actually improve it. Probably none. If I (as a student) received a comment about a solution I submitted two weeks ago, I often didn't instantly know what the corrector talked about. I had to go back to look at my code. I'm not sure I always did that when I was busy. Additionally, I think even if I acknowledged the comment, I wouldn't actually go ahead and fix my solution. I'm taking the scala course right now, and when I submit a solution and something is flagged, my thoughts are right in the code, I still have all the files open in vim, sbt running... so I can instantly go and fix it. And there is a real incentive to do that, because my score will improve.

lostnet 14y ago
I agree that the real-time advantage is much more important than the "comprehensive" feedback of a human grader. For style problems that are really a detriment, students will drift toward better style to save themselves time when correcting and resubmitting.
bheklilr 14y ago
I agree wholeheartedly with this. I find that I learn more and engage more with my online courses than in a traditional lecture because I am able to watch a few minutes of instruction, then work an example and have it validated. It breaks the lecture up into small incremental building blocks, whereas in a classroom you normally get the entire lecture, then work the homework several days later. By having real time feedback, you learn better and more quickly. Also, since most programmers learn by example, if the instructor uses well structured code, the students likely will, too.

lostnet 14y ago

I agree that the real-time advantage is much more important than the "comprehensive" feedback of a human grader. For style problems that are really a detriment, students will drift toward better style to save themselves time when correcting and resubmitting.

bheklilr 14y ago

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I find that I learn more and engage more with my online courses than in a traditional lecture because I am able to watch a few minutes of instruction, then work an example and have it validated. It breaks the lecture up into small incremental building blocks, whereas in a classroom you normally get the entire lecture, then work the homework several days later. By having real time feedback, you learn better and more quickly. Also, since most programmers learn by example, if the instructor uses well structured code, the students likely will, too.