Grading a test with the help of AI: exciting or groundbreaking for teachers who are already struggling with a high workload? Teacher Sander Neilen from Parmant Aloysius in Eindhoven is positively surprised. “I marked a test in fifteen minutes,” he says.
Grading is a task that teachers cannot avoid. It takes a lot of time to carefully grade a stack of tests from about 25 students. Pre-vocational secondary education teacher Neilen recognizes this. “For a big test, I spend an average of an hour and a half revising,” he says.
Checking open questions
Neilen is one of seven teachers who use the AI tool CheckMate test to mark tests. While closed questions have been automatically checked for some time, CitoLab, the research and innovation branch of the Cito testing institute, has now developed this for open questions.
Neilen has taken a few geography tests with CheckMate and has been positively surprised, he says. “In the beginning I was skeptical and reluctant. Do I dare to hand over the checking to AI,” he wondered. His conclusion later is: “AI does a pretty good job of giving enough good suggestions.”
According to Neilen, CheckMate makes checking clear, more consistent and saves time. But the geography teacher emphasizes that it should only remain a tool for him. “I want to see and check all the answers myself. That responsibility lies with me,” is his opinion.
Need among teachers
Neilen also notices among his colleagues that there is a need for such a tool for checking. “Digital testing is increasingly becoming a part of schools. It would be a shame if you did not develop marking along with it.”
According to Cito project leader Eva de Schipper, CheckMate has been in development for about four years. She sees it as a user-friendly tool for all school levels. According to De Schipper, CheckMate can be used in almost all subjects. “It is only less suitable for foreign languages, for example, because it is more about language skills than about content,” she says.
Next year, CheckMate will be tested in even more classes. Feedback from ‘test teachers’ is taken into account to improve the tool. De Schipper: “The ultimate goal is to make marking easier for many more teachers.”
Sign up to test
Are you a teacher in secondary education and would you like to participate in the test for geography and biology? Then register with [email protected].
