*Based on a survey of 5 teams
Kelley Cours Anderson
Assistant Professor of Marketing
As a seasoned marketer and assistant professor at the College of Charleston, Kelley Anderson realized the benefits of providing students with feedback throughout their learning journey.
In Professor Anderson’s upper-class advertising course, student teams worked on experiential learning projects with real clients. She noticed that some student teams felt overwhelmed because a large portion of the project was due at the end.In the Spring 2024 term, Kelley wanted to shift towards a more iterative and feedback-oriented approach. Instead of a single submission at the end, Kelley wanted to implement more formative learning opportunities by splitting the project into several components. However, her capacity to provide feedback was limited.
Professor Anderson was intrigued by the possibility of incorporating TimelyGrader, an AI-assisted feedback and grading tool, to help her with providing more feedback. She piloted TimelyGrader in the Spring 2024 term to evaluate its effectiveness in providing students with formative feedback and assisting her in the grading process.
Professor Anderson’s decision to implement TimelyGrader stemmed from a desire to enhance student learning and ensure all students benefited from her feedback. She recognized that students who were more tech-savvy benefited more from GenAI tools. Thus, she needed a tool that could provide scalable, meaningful feedback to all students regardless of individual skill levels with such tools.
How it works
TimelyGrader offered a structured approach to delivering formative feedback throughout the project phases. The platform utilized her course materials to provide specific and relevant feedback while suggesting potential grades for each student submission.
"I was already planning on splitting it up. But this made it even more affirming that integrating something like TimelyGrader was really necessary."
After restructuring the project into several components, Kelley phased in the platform’s implementation. In the first phase, students submitted their consumer research and Kelley utilized TimelyGrader to provide first-past feedback, manually editing feedback before sending it to the students.
In the second phase of the project, students gained direct access to TimelyGrader where they could submit drafts on their own and receive feedback directly. Kelley could then review the feedback and edit any inaccuracies if students had questions. While usage of the platform was optional for the students, all eight teams used the platform to receive additional feedback.
For the final submission, Kelley utilized the platform to speed up her grading and feedback process.
"The last version definitely was the best and most efficient, and certainly cut down on my grading time. This usually takes a full day and half but that dropped it to a half a day."
"Qualitatively, I would say the performance for the pitches was substantially better this year versus last year."
Upfront Time Investment
There was significant time investment in tweaking existing course content to conform to the requirements of the platform. Creating an AI-friendly rubric took additional time.
Testing Iterations
Initial grading and feedback set-up also took time, as adjustments needed to be tested continuously before getting feedback that was mostly free from errors and grading that was closer to instructor grading.
Initial Grading Hallucinations
Earlier grading was prone to hallucinations and often required Kelley’s adjustments. On several occasions, the AI hallucinated the existence of certain assignment requirements. Modifications and updates significantly improved grading accuracy towards the end of the term.
While skeptical at first, most student teams embraced TimelyGrader as a valuable tool for speedy feedback. One student said, “[I loved] the quick feedback because it allowed for a quick turnaround.” Students consistently praised the tool for providing feedback that was easy to understand and helped make them more confident in their submissions. However, students also mentioned that the feedback can get overwhelming and there were cases of hallucinations.
"So what did they actually like? Again, really quick feedback, they liked that convenience. They loved the balance of positive and constructive feedback. And they found it really easy to use."
"One of the groups actually said they were bummed they could only use this in that class. They wished that they could use it in more classes because they felt it really built their confidence in their final submissions."
Deploy more formative learning
Having three projects to grade compared to one is a lot of work. Without this tool, Kelley would have been reluctant to break up the project.
Final grading was eased
Kelley was relieved when we asked about her final grading experience. The first-pass feedback and improved grading helped save her time and helped her balance her grading experience this term.
High quality feedback
Kelley was able to provide relevant and personalized feedback more frequently.
Next steps
Kelley plans to incorporate TimelyGrader into her MBA level course this upcoming Fall Term, alongside integrating the tool with Brightspace/D2L.
The integration of TimelyGrader into Kelley Anderson's upper-level advertising course at the College of Charleston enabled her to segment the project into smaller, more manageable stages. Utilizing the AI-assisted feedback, Kelley was able to deliver more targeted formative feedback. This not only alleviated her administrative workload but also encouraged her students to incorporate the feedback into their future submissions. The students benefited from the frequent and actionable feedback, evidenced by the notable improvement in the quality of their submissions.
Enhancing education with AI-powered grading and feedback.
