In "The Church of Google" of Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, Carr opens up by giving a brief history of Frederick Winslow Taylor and his methods of maximum efficiency, output, and speed to put together an effective work force. Neil Postman described Taylorism according to these six assumptions: "the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency; that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment; that in fact human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity; that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking; that what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value; and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts." Google follows this ideology that "design has become much more of a science than an art." states Google executive, Marissa Mayer. "Because you can iterate so small differences and mathematically learn which one is right."
In the epilogue of the book, "Human Elements," a British essay-grading software called Edexcel is brought up. This program is designed to "produce the accuracy of human markers while eliminating human elements such as tiredness and subjectivity." Along with loosing the human elements of tiredness and subjectivity, it also looses the human elements of wisdom and discernment. How would Edexcel grade an essay written in an unconventional form not because he or she is incompetent, but because they have a special spark of brilliance. It is blatantly stated: it wouldn't. What do you believe about design becoming a science rather than an art? Essay grading done by computer programs? Is the sacrifice of the human elements of wisdom and discernment abated by the human elements of tiredness or subjectivity? Should society, education, and technology continue down the path of Taylorism, trading human elements for computer programs? Is their a compromise? Or do the pros or cons weigh heavier on one end?
The essay grading thing is the bane of the English teacher's existence, and is the main reason so few other subject areas assign essays as they should. Writing is a skill that all disciplines rely on in college, so why don't more teachers assign papers? Because nobody wants to grade a stack of 175 essays. It is hard work, very hard work. So obviously, teachers are always looking for ways to ease the burden. http://www.npr.org/2012/06/07/154452475/computers-grade-essays-fast-but-not-always-well
ReplyDelete(But I resist this idea, precisely because of that spark of brilliance. It is possible to write a correct paper, but vacuous and irrelevant, and receive a high score. This is how Americans were taught to write from about 1950-1970. Perfectly structured papers that said absolutely nothing of interest.)
DeleteWe should try this, though. What do you think? We can go into the computer lab as a class and bang out an essay, and see what the software says.
I totally empathize with you Ms. Fletcher. Often I have pondered how long it would take to reread an essay I have written, much less 100+ essays. Reading 175 essays would be difficult, but grading them I can only image how difficult that is. To grade rather than read an essay, you must read deeply and always be alert to find those minute errors. Last year my English class was a class of about 35,(I could very well be wrong)but we all had to write a simple, short essay; no more than 3 pages typed, double-spaced, and in size 12 font. To my shock, our teacher told the class that it took her sometimes 20 minutes to grade an essay. It was no wonder that it took her weeks to get the essays graded and back to us.
ReplyDeleteAs for using software, I think an experimentation would be a great way to compare grading with and without "human elements." Having a day to go to the lab and compose an essay and let the computer and the teacher grade it, then compare the results would be a great and insightful opportunity to determine and compare the differences, and possibly, which method of grading is better.
Better? Oh gosh. I've been outsourced.
ReplyDeleteOh wait! I take that back! You are awesome and amazing Ms. Fletcher! A better word would probably be convenient or efficient. Certainly no program could grade as well as you, Ms. Fletcher.
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