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Essay-Grading & Editing
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Sat, 03/28/2009 - 14:42
Hi there,
Can anyone recommend a site or a programme for grading and editing the students 'essays? I always give my students a lot of writing tasks but I don't have time to correct them all and highlight their mistakes. If there is any , is it accurate and dependable. Has anyone had experience with one of these programs and willing to make a recommendation?
Sat, 04/04/2009 - 18:07
#2
Hi Phil,
Thanks for the tip. Although I used moodle for quite sometime now I never knew of the peer-marking option. I always thought it is a teacher option only. I think it adds more power to moodle as a VLE. I must add this to my current courses.
Regards,
Ismail
Sun, 04/05/2009 - 02:50
#3
Hi Ismail,
It's fairly easy to set up, but I would suggest that you give an example lesson in a lab first, if possible. I have found that this helps the students understand what responsibilities they have in the process.
Regards,
Phil
Sat, 03/28/2009 - 21:26
#4
Computers cannot grade essays... period. There are some husksters out there which claim this.... I know this from an experience sitting through some presentation by some poor 20-something kid sent to us by a vendor. My boss wanted the system and invited the Spanish writing teacher, not me (the only one with any real experience teaching composition in English). I sat in anyway, but I didnt fire the first salvo at the poor kid! The Spanish writing teacher did! (mostly over questions of avoiding plaguarism.
The only way the program could "identify the thesis statement" was to highlight the first sentence! ha ha ha ha
However, grading is part of why the teaching of writing has fallen by the wayside. Being time-consuming and (god-forbid) mentally-taxing, it gets slacked off to the next level (true for the teaching of native speakers as well as non-native speakers). By the time, we figure "OMG, these kids dont know how to write!" we have dump a huge job onto advanced English (ESL EFL or otherwise) teachers. So we try to teach teach college-level composition to students who have never had to really write during years of English instruction.... and try to do it in one semester. I dare say this is why reading comprehension scores have gone down in the past 30 years as well. The four skills interlink. You cant teach one without the other(s).
Peer-review was invented as a way to try to handle on the problem of marking papers... not because it really has benefits for students... I dont care what the research says. I see how those who advocate it use it.
However, that all being said, you might want to take a look at a couple of resources on line. I cant vouch for thier effectiveness, but Id sure would like to know what others think of them. The list of what I have is at http://virtuallanguagelaboratory.wikispaces.com/TeacherDevelopment#testi...
Hi Magda,
I don't know about a site that grades essays, but the Workshop module in Moodle allows students to anonymously peer-mark each others. I have used it with limited success, but a colleague at a college in Sharjah used it extensively with his Freshman Writing Course as he had two groups totalling 80+ students. I hope this helps,
Phil