Wow this is pretty shocking. I can understand using automated systems for something like math problems, it makes sense. There’s (usually) one right answer. But essays? This should be banned.
Wait 'til you see a kid in tears because the math answer they submitted was supposed to equal zero, but the algorithms behind the scenes are so bad that the float math failed the equality check.
Note: This is not hyperbole, I have seen this exact scenario more than once.
There may be a place for a well-designed one, but if it exists, I've never seen it.
I know this is just my experience but I can confirm the automated math scoring system I was using in a large US university in 2012 had bugs where many times I would enter a complex solution with fractions and it would tell me I was wrong and the correct response was some other form of the same equivalent fraction... Talk about frustrating after pouring over a question for 10 minutes.
I remember to this day when I went round and round with a calculus teacher in high school who told me "sin(x) + 2" was incorrect. Then answer she wanted was "2 + sin(x)". I argued that addition was commutative, "2 + 3 = 3 + 2" and so forth. She wouldn't budge. She also said it was impossible to calculate the exact area under a curve, because you can't draw an infinite number of boxes under the curve.
Having an ignorant teacher is almost as bad as a flawed, black-box algorithm.
Math is only not commutative in very rare areas. A specific area is concatenation of 2 strings, or 2 rotations of a rubiks cube.
> said it was impossible to calculate the exact area under a curve
And this is why a lot of people are against unions and similar protections for teachers. How do you get rid of someone who blatantly lies and informs falsely to students? How do you get rid of horrible teachers?
what was the allowed form of the fraction? a ratio of literal integers, or also including irrationals? variables? did the scoring system need to know formulas? as in (2/3)v =?= (2/3) omega*r ?
if only the last one is not required of the scoring system, then it's been available for ages, and its just a really poor implementation. That's not programming but plumbing data-pipes.
Having been forced to use an online math software for all my homework while at school, I vehemently disagree. It was so poor that it became a meme within my year group.
It would mark you as incorrect for using too many decimal places, even though it wouldn't tell you how many significant figures was required. I often remember it marking my answer as incorrect, even though it was identical to the answer they gave. Sometimes you'd have to show your working, but it couldn't handle brackets. Once I put the answer as "1+x=y" but they wanted the answer "y-1=x", and they marked it as incorrect.
I'm sure academic software design is leaps and bounds above what it was in the early 2000's, but to have a pupils futures hinge on what generally seems to be poorly tested code is dangerous.
That's just poor software. As long as the software and teachers or professors allow for going over answers and checking for correctness it should be alright.
That sounds like "My Math Lab" by Pearson. It is horrible like everyone talking in here states.
It's also a bundle with the book sold by unis, because the code 'allows' you to submit homework required for the class. So they're doing both resale prevention, AND horrible grading.
People I know who have to interact with it call it "My Meth Lab" - because you have to be high to like it.
I have often solved many hard math problems with very unconventional solutions (eg geometrical proof for algebraic problems). Trust me, a piece of software is decades away from being able to accurately determine the future of children and massively impact their self esteem / trust in society.
Unconventional solutions can stump human teachers, also. One day on a chemistry test I was being stupid about how to define "stereoisomer". I knew what it was (two compounds that are mirror images of each other), I was just having trouble expressing it properly. Running out of time I put down "two molecules that are identical if and only if you permit rotation through the fourth dimension." This is extremely unconventional but it is correct--except not only did the teacher not understand it but I couldn't find any help in the mathematics department, either.
On one hand, I agree with you. I remember having to argue whether I showed my work or not by using imaginary numbers instead of standard formulas in high school physics.
But even with these examples, the path of appeal and rectification of mistakes is much easier with all humans involved. I fear soon people will side with the machine out of ignorance or to be justified in an incorrect stance.
The idea that we could be so poorly taught by broken automated systems, that we become incapable of detecting the system is broken seems like a possibility with AI that is much less likely in pure human systems of education (though not impossible).
It is important for the teacher to see where part of the class took the wrong turn, where the students' understanding ended. It is important to distinguish between careless errors, wrong memorizing of a formula and lack of understanding.
