Online students upload their test papers to the course website and want their knowledge to be tested quickly and objectively. How do I create software that evaluates student essays and short answers? EdX, one of the platforms for mass open online courses (MOOC), has taken up this challenge. EdX is a non-profit organization established under the auspices of Harvard and MIT. Its staff is busy creating a student assessment tool; it is expected that it will be available to all educational institutions, and Montessori vs traditional preschool it will be available for downloading on the Internet for free. Although the new technology is not yet fully developed, it is already causing a lot of controversy.
According to EdX President Dr. Anant Agarwal, the new software will be of great benefit to students. By getting instant feedback, they will be able to polish their knowledge as much as possible. If the work is checked by the computer, it can be rewritten endlessly, time after time to get a quick assessment of their work. This is much more efficient than waiting a few days or even weeks for the instructor to find time to log in and check the student tests.
For MOOC students who can count in the hundreds, if not the thousands, a program that provides a quick assessment of their work is almost ideal. It would also be very convenient for online course teachers.
How does such a program work? One cannot do without a teacher here anyway. It is he who lays in the memory of the program about a hundred answers, assigning them one or another grade. Now, the program has a kind of algorithm on which it can rely, setting https://argoprep.com/blog/montessori-preschool-vs-traditional-preschool/ marks for students. It can also assess whether a student has moved away from a given topic in his essay.
However, the critics of the new technology are not dozing off. Artificial intelligence, they argue, cannot be compared to a normal faculty review of a student’s work. Massachusetts Institute of Technology employee Les Perelman is one of a group of educators petitioning against the use of automated student assessment. “Professionals vs. Automated Student Assessment” – that is the name of this group – have collected over 2000 signatures under their petition.
“Let’s face it. What does “computer evaluates essays” mean? – it says in the petition. – Computers can’t read. They are not able to evaluate the most important elements of written speech – accuracy, reasonableness, sufficiency and persuasiveness of arguments, common sense, ethical position, slender thinking, clarity and credibility of what is written”.
However, this petition does not embarrass the President of ESHD-r Agarval. He still believes in the broad possibilities of artificial intelligence. “We just started to teach the machine to evaluate student works. We have a long way to go,” he said, “and this way is worth it. Yes, the https://argoprep.com/blog/shsat/how-hard-is-the-shsat/ computer doesn’t evaluate an essay the way a teacher does, but two teachers won’t be able to evaluate it in the same way.