Eric Hamby and Deborah Drago-Leaf
The OEM’s machines will utilise software to mark exam papers in the United States.
USA Today revealed that the Ignite software package, which is due to be rolled out by Xerox later this year, “turns the numerous copiers, scanners and printers it has in schools” across the USA into “paper-grading machines”, grading work where answers are written by students.
The news outlet explained the system as “turning those answers into analysable data” through turning right and wrong answers into “web-accessible data for teachers”, providing reports that say if a student or group “are consistently having more trouble” with certain questions. This in turn allows teachers to tailor their classes towards dealing with the problematic scenarios.
The software will allow the OEM to provide teachers with the ability to assign “specific tests or homework assignments” that are “tailored to academic strengths and weaknesses”. Ignite was invented by Xerox researchers who had worked in its research and development department, and who had worked at the school where it “arguably was born”, DeWitt Road Elementary School in Webster, New York.
The researchers had noticed that teachers weren’t able to always assess such weaknesses due to time pressures, and the OEM responded by utilising information analysis to help teachers pinpoint problem areas. The software does not automatically grade work, and questions need to be tagged with data so that Ignite knows what the question refers to, but once the test has been put in once, the system can use it repeatedly.
Eric Hamby, Principal Scientist at Xerox, stated of the discovery: “They went and lived in the school and started to get a sense of, in a teacher’s day-to-day life, what keeps them from doing what they do best. [Teachers] want to know who’s getting it, who’s not getting it and how can they adjust their instruction on a day-to-day basis.
“We saw a jumping off point for Xerox. We know things like document workflow management; we know how to lift information stuck on the page off the page where we can do all sorts of things with it, like analytics.”
Jan Barrett, retired Principal of DeWitt Road Elementary, stated: “It is a major game changer. It really elevates instruction in the classroom to a much more empirical level. You have tools now at your disposal to adjust, make changes, immediately on a day-to-day basis on the curriculum you’re teaching that day.”
Deborah Drago-Leaf, Xerox’s Education Support Manager and also a teacher, added: “I used to try to organise piles, ‘everybody got this concept incorrect.’ It takes a lot of time when you’re doing multiple assessments for 20-plus kids every week. That’s time the teacher can spend creating the instruction for students […] rather than just chugging through a predefined lesson plan. It’s a shift from […] paperwork to meaningful work.”
The system is planned to be offered to all schools in the USA for the start of the next school year, with schools able to pay for the service on a subscription basis.