Redish Lab<p>A serious question for the community. I am trying to figure out a way to structure grading in my class so that slacker students turn in work that is easier to grade than hard-working students.</p><p>My current class is very writing heavy. (Short essays, a multi-step scaffolded larger essay.) In the past, the amount of work I have had to do to grade and provide feedback has been positively correlated with the amount of work that students did. (Because slacker students wrote obviously terrible essays.) I am happy to do the more work if it is going to help the student more. (That's the "deal".) But, now, with <a href="https://neuromatch.social/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a>, I'm finding that the amount of work I have to do is unrelated or even negatively correlated, which means I'm both (a) spending a *lot* more time on grading and (b) wasting a lot of that time on students who just don't care.</p><p>Importantly, I can't "not grade". (1) I don't think the U would allow me to do that. (2) Lots of students, even the really good ones want the grade for their GPA, ungraded classes are seen as less important. (3) There are always a subset (5-10%?) of students who need the grade to get the feedback that they are not performing up to their abilities --- where they *are* trying really hard, but are missing something, or they *want* to do well, but don't know how to study, or they don't know how to engage with a class. Every year, there are a few diamonds in the rough who fail the first exam, come to office hours, and learn. (Those make teaching worthwhile.) In my experience, the fear of a bad grade is critical to that resetting.</p><p>Note that this is not about students getting grades they don't deserve. As far as I can tell, the grades in the end are highly correlated with student quality (defined as a combination of attention in class, hard work, and ability) as observed from class participation and in-person discussions. Moreover, as of last semester ChatGPT gets a C- in the class. (Although I don't know what the pay-for-them AIs would get.) My concern is 100% about the amount of work that *I* have to do. If a student turns in AI and doesn't learn, that's their loss, not mine. They are adults and I do not need to loco parentis them.</p><p><a href="https://neuromatch.social/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a> <a href="https://neuromatch.social/tags/teaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>teaching</span></a> </p><p>PS. This question arose after thinking about a thought experiment by <br><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://scholar.social/@SylviaFysica" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>SylviaFysica</span></a></span></p>