According to The Verge, Google Classroom is a group of widely used web tools that allow teachers to post assignments, students to submit assignments, and teachers to return assignments online. And now with Practice Sets, the latest Google Classroom tool, teachers can not only send question sets, but they can make that question sets interactive.
An algorithm will provide hints to students who seem stumped by the problem. It also automatically scores these question sets. Shantanu Sinha, Google’s head of education products efforts, said the algorithm will recognize “same answers” written by students — so if a question requires a “0.5” answer, for example, a student who writes “1/2” should still get the award.
“If you throw the ball wrong while you’re playing basketball, it’s obviously not as useful as the coaching coaches gave you at the time,” Sinha told The Verge. “I think the same is true when students are solving problems.”
If you were a teacher, you would write each problem out, and Google’s AI would figure out the nature of your problem (“algebraic”, “polynomial function”, etc.) with appropriate prompts and resources. When it’s done, you can assign it directly from the Google Classroom interface.
If you’re a student, you’ll write down or type in the answer to each question, press the “Check” button, and get your grades instantly. If you try it wrong the first time, you’ll get a prompt. If you’re completely lost, the “Resources” sidebar will display relevant videos and note cards that Google’s algorithm thinks might be useful.
When teachers get their work back, they see where the AI marked each student as true or false. If a student makes multiple attempts on a question, the teacher sees each attempt. Google will also provide insights, such as specific issues that everyone is struggling with.
While some may find this type of homework less rigorous than previous assignments, Sinha believes it’s important for students to feel that they can be successful. He said: “When you try to do a problem and you don’t see any way you can do it, it can be very frustrating for students. When they get this kind of help and they feel like, ‘Oh, I can actually do it, it’s within my power, ‘It really starts to build confidence.”
Practice Sets is not the first tool to offer algorithm-based assessment and scoring. While other such platforms have proven to be time-saving tools for teachers and handy tools for distance learning over the past few years, they also face their own controversies. Losing credits due to technology glitches can be frustrating for students — families in some districts opposed the use of such a platform, Edgenuity, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as various technology glitches affected students’ grades.
But Practice Sets are in beta, and hopefully, this will give students and teachers plenty of time to complain about issues with automatic grading, while also giving Google time to fix any bugs.