- Although automated grading systems for multiple-choice and true-false tests are now widespread, the use of artificial intelligence technology to grade essay answers has not yet received widespread endorsement by educators and has many critics.
- The EdX assessment tool requires human teachers, or graders, to first grade 100 essays or essay questions. The system then uses a variety of machine-learning techniques to train itself to be able to grade any number of essays or answers automatically and almost instantaneously.
If we needed any further evidence that the institution of the university has morphed into a staggeringly overpriced vending machine of social viability certificates, while the true form of the university has quietly vanished and reappeared elsewhere, I guess this would be it.
Yes, I think the TED talks are a part of what I'm discussing. Though their format is still primarily lecture based, and never (to my knowledge) dialectic or interactive, the diversity of subject matter, and the lack of institutional impediments seems to make it exponentially more useful to the cross-pollination of ideas and the organic development of a line of inquiry, rather than top-down knowledge drops. Thanks for reminding me, I reall need to check out the Khan institute. And coursera? News to me. Thanks!
I think it can be found anywhere the insatiably, omnivorously curious can be found together, indulging and sharpening each other's inquiries. It's kind of a secret society, not secretive, but difficult to locate nonetheless. Finding one participant usually leads to finding more, though. I think we've got a good strain of it thriving on this site, for example.
I think TED is fascinating, but I don't think it's a replacement for a college education. I can't really speak about the other two because I have only heard of them, I don't have any first hand experience. I hear what you're saying, I think it would be great, but I'm just not convinced we are quite there yet. Thanks for the links, I'll have to look it to them over summer break.
I've taken quite a few Coursera courses. The higher-level CS and otherwise technical courses are mostly great, introductory courses are awful, and the humanities courses can be fun but aren't really a replacement for actual classes. It's a fine way to learn new topics in a field you're already pretty familiar with, but I don't think it could replace undergraduate programs for getting people to that point. That might sound more negative than I mean it to; I love Coursera, I think it's a great project, I just think it really only shines in the graduate-level classes for students that have already been through a traditional university, as an alternative to just diving into an unfamiliar corner of the literature.
TED is definitely more focused on breadth and variety of subject matter, as cW mentioned above, so in the respect of "higher-level education," it may not replace traditional colleges. Khan, however, offers multiple lectures of increasing difficulty on an increasingly wide range of topics, from Basic Addition to Differential Calculus to the art of the Baroque period, along with exercises for some topics. It's certainly lacking in some departments (notably, there are no Writing, Philosophy, or Foreign Language classes which are so prevalent in traditional institutions) and the experience is completely void of any personal and social interaction, but it's certainly a good model for things to come, as you said.
I dunno. You dig down and you get to Les Perelman's critique, mainly that the software will give an A to abject nonsense. You poke around on the web a little bit and you can find some of that nonsense: I can see the benefit of putting the software online and giving students a chance to "machine-optimize" it. But I tell you what - if I'm paying for school, and my future is dependent on my grade, that grade is going to be overseen by a human. I don't see that changing.I live in a luxury dorm. In reality, it costs no more than rat infested rooms at a Motel Six. The best minds of my generation were destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, and publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull. Luxury dorms pay for themselves because they generate thousand and thousands of dollars of revenue. In the Middle Ages, the University of Paris grew because it provided comfortable accommodations for each of its students, large rooms with servants and legs of mutton. Although they are expensive, these rooms are necessary to learning. The second reason for the five-paragraph theme is that it makes you focus on a single topic. Some people start writing on the usual topic, like TV commercials, and they wind up all over the place, talking about where TV came from or capitalism or health foods or whatever. But with only five paragraphs and one topic you’re not tempted to get beyond your original idea, like commercials are a good source of information about products. You give your three examples, and zap! you’re done. This is another way the five-paragraph theme keeps you from thinking too much.
Good college essays require the skill and ability to acquire, analyze and then communicate information or data relevant to your chosen essay topic. Along with the following skills: understanding the theme/topic of your essay formulating a strategy or a plan to approach the topic critical thinking thorough research presentation of the essay
My university uses plagiarism detecting tools such as turnitin but we already have enough problems with bad marking with people marking essays.
We already have enough problems with bad marking with people marking essays.
Maybe they figure that the computers will only be marginally worse or better. Professors have told me that they are only looking for the idea and overlooking the writing. Essays in some courses at my university are marked by teaching assistants whose command of English is not stellar.
It doesn't matter if the computer can actually grade equal to or better than a human. Teachers aren't there to teach, and students aren't there to learn. Teaching and learning are expressions of the human condition.
This is foolishness. If we want to be extremely efficient in this manner, we should stop feeding grandparents. And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.
Teachers aren't there to teach, and students aren't there to learn.
Overgeneralizing perhaps? Teaching and learning are expressions of the human condition.
Isn't everything? But like cooking a meal or brewing a beer, teaching and learning can be done well and brilliantly, as well as so badly we want to throw ourselves off a parapet.
Not how I mean it. I do cancer research, but it's not fundamentally because I want to cure cancer. It's fundamentally because I have a passion for science and scientific investigation. I almost ended up in physics, and astronomy, and neuroscience, but my path took me to cancer research, and yes, I want to find a cure for brain tumors. Teachers and students are partaking in an activity that they value. If that activity is stripped of value, they are no longer teachers and students. I strongly believe that if we let things cease to matter, then we have surrendered to another master. We are here to live and die, not to get degrees and jobs. I think most things, are. However, sometimes people force or cajole others into doing things that denies their humanity.Overgeneralizing perhaps?
Isn't everything?
I'm having a little trouble following you. Let me see if I can paraphrase. It sounds like you're saying teachers and students are not so much there to follow passions, live lives, and do things that express the human condition and their humanity. They have forgotten about their humanity and they are there to follow rules, fill in the blanks, get degrees, and eventually jobs. That is, while pursuing degrees that lead to jobs that help us survive, we sometimes lose the very passion that makes us human. Pursuing degrees and jobs become a "master" to which we've surrendered. We become automatons performing functions rather than living, feeling, thinking, growing, and expressing.... is that it? If I've got your point so far, then I'd say it might matter to me whether a computer or a human mark my essay. If I wrote the essay as an automaton following instructions because it was assigned, but I got nothing out of writing the essay, then a computer may as well mark it. On the other hand, if I am as passionate about my essay topic as you are about cancer research and I'm writing it to communicate my thoughts on a topic I care about, then it would be kinda nice if a human read my thoughts and responded to them. (Are we there yet?)
Yes. But, I'd add that this isn't what they should do, it is what they do. I'd also say that it doesn't have to go so far as passion. The act is what makes them what they are. Having the computer grade the paper, makes the student a tree that falls out of earshot. I have this saying: "What you do is what you want." I believe it. Perhaps because I believe it, I find this so absurd. I think to do otherwise would be to confuse the means and the ends. -I think we are there.It sounds like you're saying teachers and students are not so much there to teach and learn as they are to follow passions, live lives, and do things that express the human condition and their humanity.
On the other hand, if I am as passionate about my essay topic as you are about cancer research and I'm writing it to communicate my thoughts on a topic I care about, then it would be kinda nice if a human read my thoughts and responded to them.