AI for Grading and Formative Feedback: How to use the latest tools for best results

It takes a lot of time and effort to write meaningful feedback. That means feedback rarely is timely.

But now, AI can help teachers provide faster feedback. And in this article you are going to learn how to use AI to provide feedback more often, save time and ensure fairness.

How to use AI tools for Grading and Feedback

Here’s a quick overview of how to use CoGrader to provide feedback for a whole class in 20 minutes.

1 - Sign up for CoGrader & Import Assignments

You can sign up by clicking here. After logging in, you can import assignments out of Google Classroom. You can also add assignments manually or upload PDF files.

Method 1: Importing Assignments out of Google Classroom.

To import Assignments from Google Classroom, click the top right button. You should allow permission to read your Google Docs files and connect to Google Classroom.

When grading with CoGrader, make sure you are importing assignments written on a Google Doc file. That ensures we will be able to give you feedback on them. CoGrader still doesn’t support slides or other formats of files.

After you have collected, you can select a Google Classroom Class and then an Assignment.

Method 2: Creating a Class Manually

You can manually create a class and an Assignment by clicking the “Create Class” button.

After that, you can click “Create new assignment” to add a manual assignment.

#2 - Write a good prompt for the assignment:

Now is the time to provide context for your AI Grader to give feedback on the assignments.

You should write a description of the task given to your students. It should be concise but provide all the context necessary for the AI to grade.

🚫 Bad Example:

• Reread all of the notes and activities that you’ve done about AI and Ethics so far.
• Write 2 pages (double-spaced) about any ideas, implications, connections, and musings that come to mind.
• Copy and paste your writing into Snap AI or Chat GPT and ask it to move your ideas so that sentences about similar topics are unified paragraphs WITHOUT adding any additional writing or changing any words.
• Paste this into the attached document and add to your ideas
• Click “turn in”

Why Shouldn’t You Do That?

• There are too many instructions in this prompt.
• Much of this prompt’s context is irrelevant to how CoGrader should grade the assignment (e.g., “Click turn in”).

How It Should Be:

Reread all the notes and activities that you’ve done about AI and Ethics so far. After that, write 2 pages (double-spaced) about any ideas, implications, connections, and musings that come to mind.

Why is it good? It provides all the necessary context for CoGrader to grade the assignment, yet it’s brief.

#3 - Pick a rubric

CoGrader comes with a lot of pre-loaded rubrics. You can pick one that’s relevant to your assignment and go ahead.

You can create your rubric if you already have a Rubric and want to use it to grade the assignments.

When creating rubrics, we recommend using Standards-based grading rubrics. They yield the best results and align with the latest educational research.

You can add different mastery levels in the Rubrics. Make sure you are being specific when explaining what each level looks like. Here is a good example.

Reviewing and editing the feedback

After setting up the assignment and the rubric, you should have the feedback loaded in CoGrader.

(If you didn’t import from Google Classroom, click the “Add Submissions” button to manually add new student’s submissions.)


Click on “View Grade” to take a look at the feedback.

You will see the Glows/Grows on the left side of the screen and have feedback by criteria.

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You can edit the feedback to make sure the students are getting the proper feedback.

Remember: CoGrader provides scaffolded feedback - it’s always the teacher who has the context to use this feedback effectively.

Sending the feedback to Google Classroom

After reviewing the assignments, you can click the “Submit Feedback” button to export them back to Google Classroom.

Select what feedback you would like to see exported and submit it. CoGrader will prepend it to the Google Doc file imported before.

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Using ChatGPT to provide feedback:

Providing effective feedback is essential for the growth and development of students. You can achieve this with CoGrader; another tool at your disposal can also come in handy: ChatGPT.

CoGrader is very useful when grading at scale while ensuring compliance with your rubric. On the other hand, ChatGPT offers flexibility and adaptability when providing feedback for assignments where you have low volume and want greater flexibility.

In any case, the most critical aspect of providing constructive feedback is defining the evaluation criteria accurately. A rubric is an excellent starting point to help you create a clear framework for assessing the assignment. Once you establish the criteria for ChatGPT, it will provide specific, actionable, and supportive feedback.

To use your criteria for ChatGPT, you can add it before you paste the assignment itself into ChatGPT. You should first provide context for ChatGPT, then add your criteria. Here’s an example:

I am an [enter your subject and grade] 8th-grade English teacher, and you are AssistantGPT, an expert in writing and providing helpful feedback to students. Your job is to help me give feedback on student assignments following this framework:

[Add your criteria here. Example criteria below]

Grammar: point out any grammar mistakes that were made, with a description of the error and what is the correct way to write the sentence.

Clarity and Focus: Present a clear central idea early in the essay and focus on proving it.

Development: Use facts, definitions, and information from other sources to support and develop your central idea about the issue or topic.

Organization: Include an engaging introduction and a strong conclusion. Use transitions throughout the essay to make connections clear.

Language and Style: Use specific, interesting language and clear sentence structure to communicate ideas.

Here’s the assignment description: [paste your assignment description]

Here’s the student work I want you to give feedback on: [paste the student work]

You can then collaborate with ChatGPT and iterate over the feedback, asking for clarification in certain areas or requesting modifications in the feedback itself. Remember that ChatGPT is a tool that can assist you in providing high-quality, but it’s a machine, so it doesn’t have the same context as you have. If you feel like the feedback is not on point, you’re probably right.

You should remember that ChatGPT limits the number of characters you can input, so be aware when pasting large assignments, as they can have missing parts.

Another point is that ChatGPT will use the data you submit for model training. If you want to turn off that, follow the instructions at this link.

Strategies to boost learning with AI Feedback

In the end, the goal of any AI that grades essays is to empower teachers and students to boost learning. When new technologies emerge, it might not be clear how to effectively use them daily.

Here are some ideas on how an AI grader can help English teachers boost learning:

AI Graders decrease assignment turnover time

By reducing feedback turnover time, students receive consistent feedback without being overwhelmed, leading to faster writing iterations and increased progress.

That means a massive increase in efficiency as your time grading and providing feedback decreases. That leaves room for more time to do other activities, which is good news since we are seeing more teachers burnout and fewer new teachers joining the workforce.

While that seems counterintuitive, AI graders can also help with lesson planning. Let’s talk about that.

AI Graders can help with lesson planning

Even though classes follow a somewhat linear schedule over the school year, each classroom will have challenges you must address. The question has always been how to identify those gaps fast enough so you can adjust your planning.

With AI Graders helping you do the work, you will have all assignments computed in a single place, making it easier to get analytical data on class performance overall.

That’s something we do here at CoGrader. After grading the assignment, we offer patterns to the entire class to assist them in preparing for their next assignment. Here’s an example:

AI Grader will enable real-time feedback

With the help of AI-powered tools, students can receive feedback on their work almost instantly, allowing them to make corrections and improve their understanding of the material.

Instead of waiting for days, even weeks, to get feedback on the last essay they wrote, students will be able to have feedback on drafts, improving them even before submitting the assignment.

Today’s challenge lies in guaranteeing that the feedback students receive is tailored to their understanding and mastery of writing. One of the ways to do that is to limit the AI output to providing feedback only for the criteria you’ve set.

Another important point is that teachers will need clarity on which students are “talking” to the AI, what feedback they are getting, and if they are improving over time. You must have visibility over the interactions to act if something goes wrong or improve instructions to the AI.

Overall, AI-powered feedback has the potential to revolutionize how we approach education. By providing personalized and timely feedback, we can help students to learn more effectively and efficiently.

Dangers of grading with AI

Grading with AI has become an exciting possibility in recent years. It offers faster grading, consistent results, and potentially more objective grading. However, it’s necessary to understand that AI systems have certain limitations and potential dangers.

One of the risks of grading with AI is the possibility of hallucination. They occur when AI systems generate false or misleading information due to inadequate restraint or instruction in response to a specific question. That’s where the importance of clear criteria with AI grading enters. It’s improbable that AI models will hallucinate when providing a very clear set of instructions.

Finally, AI systems may struggle to understand the nuances of each student perfectly. Every student is unique and may have different strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles. AI systems may be unable to capture these differences, which could result in inaccurate or unfair grading and feedback.

For instance, an AI system might provide too much information in the feedback for a 6th grader, overwhelming the student with information and making the feedback less actionable. Therefore, using AI systems supervised by teachers is crucial to ensure that students receive a fair and accurate work assessment.

That’s why the most vital part of an AI grading system is the teachers using it because these tools are your assistants but will not replace your engagement and care for teaching.