The Demoralizing Work of Grading in the Age of AI
Hitting a wall in the battle for original thought and work...and refusing to give up!
Grading work written by humans is rewarding - there’s an exchange and a process I know like the back of my own hands. There’s a hope in it that feels like the reason I get up each day excited to do this work. Seeing a student take their work from poor or mediocre to excellent and highly academically achieving is fulfilling at the deepest levels of this work.
Grading work written by internet robots is demoralizing. There is no real exchange or process or hope - it’s meant to be a trick to “get one by me” and falsely earn a grade. It’s the opposite of fulfilling and rewarding.
Obviously, the robots are here to stay. There’s a giant data center less than 10 minutes from my house with more planned in the area. (I often wonder if the same people letting AI write their work reports or graduate papers have made that connection when they argue against data centers in their community…)
I’m not tech resistant and am often an early adopter. I use AI tools myself for specific purposes, but not to replace my voice or my own writing and thinking. I sometimes ask AI to help organize LMS announcements in a way that is more succinct and approachable. Or I’ll say to myself “Wow, this paragraph is long” and ask AI for advice on what could be cut. And then I revise it myself. I’ve let it help make meal plans or answer questions or increase the value or challenge of an assignment. But it is not replacing my original thinking or ideas. (Read this piece by my former professor, Dr. Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez for really good context and advice on this topic.)
However, the overwhelming amount of AI I’m seeing in student submissions across my experiences is…I think the right word is unbearable.
This is, of course, hardly unique to me or anywhere I teach. When I use the word demoralizing with others in this profession there is an instant mutual understanding. A sense of being known by each other and the ways in which AI is frustrating our industry.
There are broader conversations to be had, obviously. We are learning to allow AI in some assignments for a different kind of learning. There are benefits, but like most new things there are unknowns still and the impact of allowing AI to do all your writing and thinking means you are not improving those skills. Perhaps you aren’t even thinking much for yourself. For me, this is a baffling way to approach life, much less a graduate degree!
Outsourcing your meal plan to a robot feels fairly inconsequential. Outsourcing your ability to answer questions on ethics and how your moral compass is shaped? On how to understand humans so you can be an effective leader? Yikes.
Graciously, there are weeks I see little of it. Or maybe there are weeks the robots and students just outsmart me. But it hit hard this past week after too much AI for one week. What is the path for a student who refuses to even admit they aren’t writing their own work? How do we respond to newer tools that offer a way to “humanize” writing so AI is “undetectable”? How do I convince myself to keep entering conversations of “I didn’t use AI” when the document owner is python-docx and the source URLs all include source=chatGPT? When the sources never existed to start with? Or there is simply nothing about a student’s email response that shows they write in the same tone submitted in their work?
Like all forms of cheating or academic integrity violations, I’m offended by students who think I won’t notice the cheating. I find myself disappointed by students who engage this work and set the goal of earning a graduate degree just to disengage entirely. It is offensive at best. Sometimes amusing, but most often heartbreaking to someone who has spent her whole life dedicated to education.
But here we are. I have no real answers at this point, just asking some of the questions out loud. Letting others who face this know I see you. I get it. I’m just as demoralized. Just as frustrated. Just as unsure how to move forward. I will, still. I’m not quite without any sense of hope or brainstorming (from my own brain, not the robots’) yet. But asking out loud: how do we keep caring in the age of AI?
The truth is, I often get the chance to show students where they’ve made an error and how to move forward. And that is a huge part of the reason that I continue to do this work. But importantly, in this tough week, I found part of my answer this week in my spouse’s wise words: you’re still teaching them, even if they’re missing the lesson.
And that is really all I can do, continue to do my best. Continue to care. Continue to teach.