How a College of Charleston Instructor Flipped Assessment on Its Head

“Every instructor wants to give their students more feedback but they just don’t have the time” - MSU Dean

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That’s the dilemma every instructor and teacher faces every year. It was also Kelley Andersen’s biggest challenge going into the Spring 2024 term.

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As a seasoned marketing professor at the College of Charleston’s School of Business, Professor Andersen noted that students were particularly stressed toward the end of their real-world client projects when their deadlines approached. She knew she had to break up the large deliverable at the end into more manageable chunks but she was already hamstrung with other priorities.

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Could Generative AI be the answer to transitioning from summative to formative assessment?

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The Experiment with AI Grading and Feedback

For the benefit of her students, Professor Andersen decided to break up the final deliverable into several chunks so she could provide students with more feedback and learning opportunities but this introduced significantly more work for her, essentially by 3x.

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As there are tons of AI grader tools on the market, she conducted her experiments using past assignments and eventually decided to pilot TimelyGrader, our AI grading and feedback assistant, to see if it could facilitate a more formative learning environment.

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The idea was simple: break the large project into smaller components and use the AI grader to provide formative feedback at various stages. This way, students could improve their drafts before the final submission, and automate a portion of her review and feedback workflow.

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Staggered Implementation of an AI Grader

Kelley implemented TimelyGrader in phases:

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1. Phase One: Students submitted their consumer research, and Kelley used TimelyGrader to provide initial feedback, which she manually edited before sending it to students.
2. Phase Two: Students gained direct access to the platform to submit drafts and receive feedback from the AI. Kelley reviewed this feedback and made the necessary edits afterwards. All eight teams used the platform for this phase.
3. Final Phase: For the final submission, Kelley used TimelyGrader to speed up grading. This process, which usually took a day and a half, was completed in half a day essentially reducing her grading time by 66%.

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"I was already planning on splitting it up. But this made it even more affirmed that integrating something like a feedback tool was really necessary." – Kelley Andersen

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What Did the Students Think?

While initially skeptical, most student teams found TimelyGrader valuable for speedy feedback. They appreciated the quick turnaround and the clarity of the feedback, which made them more confident in their submissions. Some students did mention that the feedback could be overwhelming and occasionally inaccurate, but overall, the response was positive.

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"I loved the quick feedback because it allowed for a quick turnaround." – Student

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Stay tuned for Part 2, where we'll dive deeper into the instructor outcomes, student statistics, and Kelley's plans for the future with TimelyGrader! Can’t wait? You can book a demo with us directly here.