Robots to the rescue for NSW teachers’ marking workload

Hours of NSW teachers’ time could soon be freed up with the introduction of robo-marking in the state’s schools, new research has revealed. Here’s how soon the tech could be rolled out.

Teachers will be replaced by robots when it comes to marking essays in the coming decade and Australia must develop national guidelines so schools understand how the technology works, according to research from the University of Sydney.

The new research paper said using machines to mark students’ work could free up hours of teachers’ time but Australia was lagging behind uptake of the technology compared to other countries like China and the United States.

The recommendations come after teachers’ unions across the country fought tooth and nail against a 2017 plan to robo-mark students’ NAPLAN writing tests because they said it was a direct attack on the teaching professionals, as it outsourced a key aspect of their job to a microchip.

Five years later, both the NSW Teachers Federation and the Independent Education Union, which represents thousands of NSW Catholic school teachers, are fighting for a pay rise on the premise that teachers’ workload is too high — something the researchers argue machine marking could alleviate.

“There are compelling reasons for Australian schools and education departments to investigate the use of (Automated Essay Scoring),” the paper said.

Robo-marking students’ work would happen through a computer algorithm rather than a physical robot.

“(It) could potentially alleviate aspects of teachers’ workload at a time when teacher attrition is historically high and teacher recruitment historically low.”

Report co-author Prof Kalervo Gulson said Australia should follow in the footsteps of the European Union and develop guidelines for how schools must use it and make an effort to educate teachers about how it works.

“Their aims in the EU are common to ours, which are to try to make sure practitioners understand the technology not just while they’re being used but before they’re being used,” he said.

“We know teachers are already experiencing heavy workloads and this new technology could help ease the pressure, so long as the implementation doesn’t create even more work.

“It is coming from elsewhere, we should make sure we’re prepared.”

The tech is aimed at saving teachers’ time during the busy school term.

President of the NSW English Teachers Association Eva Gold said she was not familiar with the potential of the technology but said using robots to mark essays was not a good teaching strategy.

“What a teacher does best, or one of the things they do well, is assess a student’s capability and know what their next step is going to be,” she said.

“That is something that robo marking can’t actually do.”

But not all teachers are impressed by the proposal.

She also feared it would mean students’ writing would be increasingly formulaic as they tried to game the algorithm in a bid to get top marks.

“We have always said that computer marking, computer assisted can be a problem because it doesn’t pick up the idiosyncrasies and pleasures of a child’s writing … or even picking up things like emotion, or the emotion it might inspire in the reader.”

The report paper said any guidelines should distinguish between low stakes and high stakes tests, the results of which might impact a student’s academic future.