Introduction
Enlighten AI has developed an AI grading assistant to address the pressing need to improve the quality of feedback on student writing while easing the burden on teachers' time. Our software product is specifically designed to assist teachers in providing timely, effective, and personalized feedback to their students by streamlining and accelerating the grading process. By giving teachers an intuitive, user-friendly interface that harnesses the power of AI, our AI assistant becomes an extension of each teacher's expertise, making grading writing more manageable and effective. This innovation aligns with our broader mission of empowering educators with innovative AI tools to amplify their impact while saving them precious time.
Streamlining the Grading Process
Our software simplifies the grading process for teachers with three easy steps that integrate seamlessly into their existing workflows:
Teachers import student submissions using a single sign-on feature that syncs assignments from their Learning Management System, or, soon, create an assignment on the Enlighten AI platform.
Teachers train their AI assistant with model feedback for a handful of student responses.
The AI assistant generates personalized feedback for each remaining response, allowing teachers to edit and validate scores and comments before returning them to students with one click.
This approach enables teachers to focus on quality checking rather than the tedious task of writing and repeating the same feedback. Moreover, the AI assistant is trained in the teacher's voice, ensuring the generated feedback mirrors the teacher's style and grading standards.
Pilot Test Results and Future Impacts
Initial feedback from our pilot tests have been extremely positive, indicating that our AI grading assistant offers distinct benefits. Our pilot teachers were able to provide more feedback in less time than it previously took them to grade a similar assignment. Teachers can save as much as 80% of the time typically spent grading, all while giving richer, better feedback to students. Teachers also reported significant improvement in student writing proficiency, which we aim to quantify in the coming months.
Our AI grading assistant represents the first step in building a mission-driven company focused on creating a meaningful impact on educators' effectiveness and sustainability. We aim to develop future products that serve educators' needs, enabling them to focus their time and effort on the tasks that truly require their expertise and energy.
Why Now is the Right Time
A rare convergence of factors makes this a critical moment to launch our mission:
The advent and availability of state-of-the-art Large Language Models (LLMs), such as OpenAI's GPT-4, enables us to tackle previously insurmountable problems and create innovative products that serve students and teachers.
America's public school system is at a tipping point due to increasing demands on teachers without adequate support, resulting in a crisis of sustainability. A recent RAND Corporation study found that stress, low pay, and long hours are driving teachers out of the profession at an alarming rate.
By equipping teachers with tools that allow them to work more efficiently and focus on tasks requiring their expertise, we can radically improve the experience of being an educator in K-12 schools. As excellent teaching is the cornerstone of a child's education, we believe our products will ultimately contribute significantly to equitable educational access for all students.