Alpha Tutoring Inc

Alpha Tutoring IncAlpha Tutoring is a company that provides English as a Second Language (ESL) tutoring services to both teens and adults. Alpha Tutoring offers a variety of tutoring services for children, ESL tutors, ESL tutors for teens, ESL tutors for adults, and ESL students.A combination of individuals has formed this company to help people learn English. The purpose of the business is to educate and train ESL students and to make sure they develop their English skills to their full potential.Alpha uses a system of teaching students who are able to demonstrate their ability to read, write, and speak English. Each student is evaluated based on the outcomes that they have achieved with their lessons.The ESL tutors for teens have been formed by the American Council of the Deaf (ACDD). This American organization has put a lot of time and effort into finding ways to teach more adults how to learn and teach them the English language in their own way. These organizations have found out that they can best benefit from a system of teaching ESL students the English language in the same way that they would want to learn.The ESL tutors for teens at Alpha are qualified by a set of standards set by the ACDD. They have all passed an exam to prove that they are proficient in how to teach ESL students and meet the standards.There are many other tutoring companies that offer English as a Second Language classes. But these companies are in turn regulated by different agencies and follow different guidelines.You will find the services of Alpha very convenient. The people behind the company know that they have to work hard to ensure that their students are taught well in an environment that is conducive to learning.

Are You Ready for a Makeover of Your Personal Brand - Introvert Whisperer

Introvert Whisperer / Are You Ready for a Makeover of Your Personal Brand - Introvert Whisperer Are You Ready for a Makeover of Your Personal Brand? Personal Branding starts with how well you speak about YOU.  I want to help you accelerate your career by connecting you with your Free Instant Access to my eBook â€" The Definitive Guide to Creating and Using an Elevator Speech.  In this guide, I give you simple to follow instructions for creating a “wardrobe” of ways to talk about you â€" to leave a lasting impression. Get your copy now! Brought to you by Dorothy Tannahill-Moran  â€" dedicated to unleashing your professional potential.  Introvert Whisperer

Arizona State University A Student Interview

Arizona State University A Student Interview Armin earned his bachelors degree in physics from Arizona State University. He specializes in economics tutoring, Mandarin Chinese tutoring, and a number of other subjects. Below, he shares his experience at Arizona State University: Describe the campus setting and transportation options. Armin: Arizona State University offers a very diverse campus. Bikes, scooters, and longboards are possible modes of transportation, but there are certain areas where only walking is allowed. Buses are available to take you to other campuses and there are free buses to get you around Tempe. Parking on campus is hard to find. How available are the professors, academic advisers, and teaching assistants? Armin:The professors are very friendly and you can always schedule appointments with them. The teaching assistants are all really nice, as are the academic advisers. Everyone is readily available when students need assistance. How would you describe the dorm life rooms, dining options, location, socialization opportunities with other students? Armin:Dorm life, for me, was very closed in because the people on my floor did not interact much. However, I had a great relationship with my roommate who was from China. Regardless, ASU is so big that youll run into people and form friendships constantly. Dining options are great, as there are many places for students to eat on campus. Which majors/programs are best represented and supported? Armin:The ASU business school is one of the top business schools in the country. Engineering is a pretty popular major as well. I studied physics because it was very fascinating to me. The university, I would have to say, gave me the best possible teachers to teach my major-related courses. How easy or difficult was it for you to meet people and make friends as a freshman? Does Greek life play a significant role in the campus social life? Armin:It was very easy to meet others and make friends. There are countless groups and organizations available for students to get to know one another. I think Greek life is not as prominent at ASU as it is on other campuses. How helpful are the Career Centerand other student support services? Armin:The Career Center helps many students prepare for the post-college transition. Many of my friends attended the recruiting events, but I have not heard of any receiving job offers as a result. How are the various study areas such aslibraries, the student union, and dorm lounges? Armin:The libraries are great. The main one, Hayden, is very large and partially underground. The student union has good food and great places to study. Dorm lounges are alright places to socialize and study as well. Describe the surrounding town. Armin:ASU has the Marquee Theatre which has popular bands playing quite often. Mill Avenue has many food options and other activities, and its also within walking distance of campus. How big or small is the student body? Were you generally pleased or displeased with the typical class sizes? Armin:Some classes are huge, while some are small. It really depends on the major and level of the course. I would say the class sizes were appropriate for the subjects taught. Describe one memorable experience with a professor and/or class. Perhaps one you loved the most or one youregretthe most. Armin:The experiences are plenty. I got to perform a piano song in front of an audience, study country music (something I knew nothing about), learn Chinese, and come up with my own dance routine and perform it. I had a lot of great experiences at ASU. Check out Armins tutoring profile. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Varsity Tutors.

Tips to Help Your Child Maintain School-Life Balance

Tips to Help Your Child Maintain School-Life Balance There is no doubt that being out of school in the summer months can affect your child academically. The concept, sometimes called summer slide, can have a significant impact on students. However, children also need a break from school, and summer should be a time when they can relax, recharge, and get ready to start next school year strong. It can be hard to find ways to strike a balance between school and life for your student, but tips to help your child maintain school-life balance include helping them enjoy organic learning, using community resources, and rewarding hard work. Do you want to ensure that your student has a relaxing and productive summer? Here are three tips to help your child maintain school-life balance: School-life balance tip #1: Help your student develop an organic love of learning One of the best things you can do for your child this summer is help instill a genuine love of learning in him or her. Standard school subjects might not always be the most engaging for every student, but each child has hobbies and passions that spark his or her interest. Use your students interests to combine learning and enjoyment. For example, have her use at-home technology to learn new facts about a subject of her choice each week. You can also spend time with your child in mock school scenarios, where you play the student while he teaches you the new things hes learned. This can help your child feel like the expert! [RELATED: 3 STEM Activities for Students This Summer] School-life balance tip #2: Capitalize on community resources Local libraries are rich with potential for summer learning. For a student who is already an avid reader, consider getting him or her a library card. Even for those who dont enjoy reading independently, local libraries often have the following activities: book club discussions movie screenings of popular book adaptations points programs with prizes to help incentivize reading. Along with libraries, community centers and schools may also be spaces that offer productive fun for students over the summer. Check to see whats around where you live. Being involved in a librarys summer reading program or a community centers extracurricular activity can help your child make friends while still maintaining academic skills. [RELATED: How to Create a Summer Reading Program for You and Your Child] School-life balance tip #3: Work hard and play hard In an ideal world, fun and school would always go hand-in-hand. However, since there will be times that your student might need to practice school skills that he or she doesnt enjoy, it can be helpful to use a timed schedule that your child is aware of in advance. For older students, you can explain the importance of practicing skills over the summer, and then ask them to help you set a work/play schedule. For younger children, a realistic schedule might be a given number of pages that they should read out loud to you before using toys and technology. Timed schedules work well for all ages. Set a timer with a no-distractions policy whenever its ticking.Instill responsibility by having your student mark off each day on the calendar that he or she successfully finishes some school work. Also ensure that you dont push too hard outside of this schedule. Play time begins as soon as the timer goes off! [RELATED: 6 Summer Learning Programs for Students of All Ages] Summer is a time for fun and play, but it can also be a productive time for students to practice the skills that theyve learned in school. These tips can act as a starting point for maintaining school-life balance that will leave your child feeling refreshed and ready to go when school starts in the fall! Any topics you want to know more about? Let us know! The Varsity Tutors Blog editors love hearing your feedback and opinions. Feel free to email us at blog@varsitytutors.com.

Top Tips to Build Your Guitar Technique

Top Tips to Build Your Guitar Technique Why Good Technique is the Most Important Part of Learning the Guitar. ChaptersTechnique Produces Consistency Across StylesA Good Posture to Improve your Guitar TechniqueWork on the Basics to Improve Your Guitar TechniqueCreate a RoutinePlaying guitar, whatever your musical style may be (whether it’s blues, rock, funk, reggae, hard rock, metal, country, etc.) requires that you’ve learned the guitar basics. It means that you've mastered things like handling a pick, placing your hands on the fretboard, and identifying different power chords, barre chords, and aspects of music theory.Each style has its own techniques and it is impossible to avoid learning them if you want to improve your guitar playing.However, more importantly, a guitar player needs good technique for a more fundamental reason. If your technique - your posture, your hand movements - are not good, then you will only get so far. A day will come, when your technique will hold you back.Sure, you'll be able to play your major scale, a bit of rhythm guitar, and the occasional guitar solos. But the longer you go in your guitar course with attending to your poor technique, the more work you will have to do to correct it when you have to.For the beginner guitar player, this is really the thing that you need to remember. Knowing how to play the guitar  well, rather than just  decently, all comes down to this.If there’s anything that’s the same across all of the different styles of guitar, it’s technique.Whether you’re trying to learn the techniques of a virtuoso and play like Satriani, learn a smooth style like  Richie Havens with open tunings and barre chords, or learn basic lines to really bring out the emotion in your playing, technique is a key part of learning to play the guitar.But how do you learn how to play guitar well? How do you improve your technique?And after all, just what is technique anyway? It’s the ability to create the proper notes and produce the sounds you want - efficiently, tirelessly, and comfortably.  Why Improve your Guitar Technique ?I mproving your basic guitar technique will give you more confidence in yourself and your abilities, and you’ll also be better able to master your instrument and play anything you like.You ain't going very far with your fingerstyle if you don't attend to your technique - to the position of your index finger and all the others. You'll only stall with chord progressions if you don't have the barre chord technique correct. And blues guitar and other guitar tricks will remain just dreams if you don't get your picking up to scratch.Improving your guitar technique means acquiring good habits by focusing on the small details.And what are those?It could mean improving your seated posture, the way you hold the guitar or place your fingers on its neck, or even improving the muscles in your arms. In your first guitar lesson, you might find that you tense up a lot when you play songs. Your guitar teacher will have to train you to sit correctly when you are playing - to ensure you have the best guitar technique you can have.By focusing on these details, you’ll be able to distinguish yourself from other guitarists and move on to the next level.How do You Improve your Technique?The benefits of improving your guitar technique are clear:A new fluidity when you play and move your fingers over the fretboard. This will be incredibly useful when you move onto the more complex lines of jazz guitar and rock guitar.Being able to play at increased speed. Some guitar licks are really very quick (as in, over ten notes a second!) - and if you haven't nailed your technique during guitar practice, there is no chance you are reaching those speeds.Better transitions between chords and sequences, avoiding jerky sounds. When moving from one guitar chord to another, beginners often pause. You don't want this. But if you have been comfortable with your open chords, this shouldn't last for too long.A more comfortable position when playing. You want good form and use of muscles without any tensi on in your body whilst you are playing the guitar. If something hurts, you're doing something wrong.The Different TechniquesIn the world of guitar you will hear of many different techniques.Depending on your style and skill you could focus on:Legato - linking together a certain number of chromatic notes with hammer-ons and pull-offs instead of picking. This gives a nice smooth sound to your blues licks and to other guitar solos.String-skipping or jumping between strings. This is a right-hand technique - either in complex rock riffs or in songs, played with a pick, that might otherwise be played with fingerstyle guitar techniquesStrumming patterns. Every chord progression demands a different strumming pattern - and you'll have to learn how to read these rhythms on tablature, hear the rhythms through your own ear training, and to get the flexibility of your right hand.Vibrato  - The sound that gives individual notes their beautiful soundLicks - single-note melodic lines. These lines m ake up guitar solos. But players like Clapton and Hendrix would have hundreds of different licks that they could make into different solos.Fingerpicking - playing with the fingers of your right hand. People who play acoustic guitar will know well about this.Tapping - playing with both hands as if you were playing notes on a piano.Want to learn guitar like Van Halen? It's all about technique.A Good Posture to Improve your Guitar TechniqueYou may already know this, but learning guitar requires regular practice.Whether you’re learning to play with a teacher in private guitar lessons near me or at a music school - or all by yourself in front of your computer with the help of some online guitar software, online guitar lessons near me, and your webcam - practice is the key.It will help you improve your skills and develop habits that you’ll retain throughout your life.But good posture is the only way to ensure that you'll want to keep playing throughout your life. Because you ain't goi ng to want to play your favorite songs if it makes your uncomfortable. Obviously.Make Yourself ComfortableTo improve your guitar technique, you must be comfortable when you play.Find yourself a comfortable chair where you can position yourself, and make sure that you have enough space to hold and play your guitar properly. This'll be your new guitar chair.The most important thing is to have a good seat where you can sit properly and not unnecessarily tire your back. You're not going to be headbanging and dancing around the room when you are just practicing your guitar music.Don’t choose a chair with an armrest, as you will not have the space to move and play properly. Armrests will also make it necessary to lean forward on the guitar and give you bad habits.Hold Your Guitar ProperlyLearning to hold your guitar properly is key is you want to improve your technique and learn the main and basic chords for guitar.If you are right handed, make sure that you hold the guitar so that your right hand lies between the bridge and the sound hole.Your left hand should support the neck.A classical guitar should be played on the other knee!Hug your guitar to your body and hold it so that the smallest strings (the ones with the highest pitch) are at the bottom. Make sure that the body of the guitar sits snugly against your stomach and torso.The guitar should rest on the same leg as the hand with which you’re picking the strings (right hand, right leg, for example).Different guitar players have different postures - but they should really all roughly be similar. You don't want to be strumming the guitar too far down the guitar neck - for example.If you play the classical guitar, you'll probably have been told by your guitar instructor about the specific classical technique. If you're right-handed, you'll have the guitar sat on your left knee - ideally raised by a footstool.Tune your GuitarIt’s impossible to play your guitar properly and improve your technique without also tuning it. Any beginner guitar lessons will cover this - but, if they don't, you'll find free guitar lessons online that will show you how to do this.Before practicing, beginning a class or performing, you need to tune your guitar to get the proper sound - unless you want the songs to sound totally out of tune.Playing on an untuned guitar could easily ruin your practice and make learning all but impossible.Decide on your tuning method, you could use a tuning fork, an electric tuner, an online tuner, the adjacent strings technique, or even an app on your smartphone. The important thing is that you know how to tune a guitar.Learning to Use a PickTo achieve perfect technique, you need to learn to use your pick - or plectrum - properly, and thereby avoid any bad habits or achy muscles.Take it between your thumb and index finger, or your thumb and ring finger - and practice your up and down alternate picking movement.Work on the Basics to Improve Your Guitar TechniqueWork on the Transit ions between Notes and ChordsTo achieve a clean, smooth style of playing the guitar, practice your notes and chords until each string plays with the same sound and intensity.For the notes, a solid foundation of your technique will come through practising different scales - the blues scale, the pentatonic, or the major scale. This is a simple exercise that will improve your dexterity and your knowledge of the fretboard.With chords, begin with the major chords, ie those that fall between the first and third string. Besides C and E, other important chords are F, G, A, and D, and the minor chords.Practicing transitions between these chords is not something limited to guitar lessons for beginners. As the chord shapes become more complex, you are going to have more to practice - as you'll move into different parts of the guitar and its fret board.And it's worth knowing that you can play a major chord - say a C major, but really any chord - in many different places all over the fretboard.P ractice Using a MetronomeTo make sure you have a regular and even rhythm when you play, use a metronome. It’s one of the standard tools and equipment that any good guitarist should have.The metronome will make you play each note properly and improve your sense of rhythm when playing guitar.But it also works as a crucial tool in the guitar method of speeding up your playing. Guitar teachers and other professionals use this a lot to gradually build up the speed of a particular lick or passage. Because if you speed up very gradually, you don't notice you are speeding up!Develop Your Music Knowledge whilst Training Your Technique.If you’re taking guitar lessons with a teacher or at a music school, you will surely be shown guitar tabs with the basic ranges and chords that you need to know.If you’ve decided to learn guitar on your own, begin by learning the major, minor, and major seventh chords.  Then you can graduate to the pentatonic scale. This scale is popular with rock and blu es musicians and uses five notes.By practicing your scales regularly, you will improve your dexterity and transitions - but also your musicality.Want a little practice? Choose a scale and include it in a piece you’re working on. Practice it in order, out of order, and by skipping every other note.Learn a Few Guitar Songs……but we wouldn’t recommend starting with difficult songs or the famous jam track, ‘Stairway to Heaven.’It is important to learn some easy songs with basic (and repetitive) guitar chords. The Beatles, Nirvana, and Oasis are all great candidates for some first songs.Learn them and your practice will become much more enjoyable. Don’t just learn a simple riff, but try to learn the whole song.  Learning the whole song will help you better understand the composition of the music, and it will also help improve your playing and endurance.Find a guitar solo that you like too - and keep practising that until you get it. If you can read music, you will be able to find many famous solos on guitar online.Create a RoutineRegular Practice.It’s important to play regularly in order to improve your technique.In fact, it’s better to play for 10 to 15 minutes every day, than to practice for three hours once a week.You’ll not only improve your playing, but you’ll also increase your muscle memory, which is key to achieving fluid playing.If possible, you should play at least four or five times a week in order to improve your dexterity. Try to pick a specific time every day and dedicate it to practicing your guitar. If you’re struggling to find the time, rest assured that there is no such thing as a bad time. You could practice after work, during your lunch break, or before breakfast.You should also keep the practice routine as diverse as possible - from playing through a first song to practising improvisation, arpeggios and scale exercises, and some chord work.Always Warm UpJust like with sports, it’s important to warm up. One of the best g uitar tips that we can give you is that warming up is one of the most important things you can do.Make yourself comfortable and begin with a few exercises to warm up your fingers. Try some notes from an easy scale.Anything that can be easily repeated is a great way to warm up, so don’t hesitate! This will help your technique at the same time.Combine work and pleasureTo stay motivated, make sure that you’re also working on pieces and riffs that you enjoy.Begin with your scales, and then move on to something that you like.Don’t forget to take breaks during your guitar playing sessions.You can have fun with your guitar too!Alternate between ‘work’ (playing ranges or exercises) and ‘fun’ practice sessions to stay motivated as you learn.This will ensure that you know how to place your fingers for barred chords or to play an arpeggio.Make it a challengeTo improve your guitar playing technique, you must always keep moving forward. Identifying a goal is a good way to do so, bu t make sure that it’s achievable.It’s pointless to try to learn a ‘pull-off’ or a ‘hammer-on’ if you don't know the more basic techniques.Otherwise, you could always take classes, but you’ll need to find guitar lessons near you.Set yourself a small challenge every week and work regularly to achieve it. Make a note of your progress so that you can appreciate the work that you are doing!Working on your technique will not be something that you regret in the long run! So, even though it feels like a little dull for the beginner - remember to think ahead to the future.

Voice Therapy for Singers How to Know When to Get Help

Voice Therapy for Singers How to Know When to Get Help Suzy S. As a singer, your instrumentyour voicerequires special care and precautions to avoid injuries. But what if the damage is already done? What symptoms should you watch out for, and when is it time to look into voice therapy? Learn more in this guest post by Corona, CA teacher  Milton J... As singers, we understand that the voice is an instrument all of its own. Furthermore, we should also understand that our voice is a muscle that requires its own workout, and is subject to injury much like other muscles in our body. So, what can we do to prevent these injuries from happening? Read on to learn more about vocal health and vocal therapy. What is Vocal Trauma? Vocal trauma is an acute form of stress that comes from the misuse or overuse of the vocal folds within the larynx, or voice box. The vocal folds are thin strips of smooth muscle tissue with a mucous membrane positioned opposite from each other within the larynx. It is the vocal folds that move and vibrate when air passes by them which, when resonated through our vocal cavities (throat, mouth, and nose), creates our vocal tone. When we’re being silent, those vocal folds are open so that we can inhale and exhale more freely. When we begin to speak, our brain sends the neural signal to the vocal folds to snap together in conjunction with the air passing by them to vibrate and create speech. What Can Vocal Trauma Lead To? When damage is done to these vocal folds, it can lead to possible bleeding and the formation of blisters known as nodes (paired growths on both sides) or polyps (one growth on one side). These growths restrict the pliability of the vocal folds, keeping them from vibrating and oscillating properly. Ergo, you will not be able to sing. The most common reason why nodes or polyps form is due to bad singing habits. Failing to properly warm up and continuing to sing when ill or vocally fatigued are the biggest contributors. Hoarsenesswhen the voice sounds breathy, raspy, or strained and feels scratchyusually accompanies vocal trauma. If you feel you have been practicing these bad habits, let your vocal teacher know quickly. When Should I See My Doctor? If youve had vocal or throat discomfort for more than three weeks, especially if you haven’t been sick, make an appointment with your doctor. Additionally, if youve been coughing up blood, a feeling of a lump in your throat, difficulty swallowing or breathing, experience pain when speaking, or have a loss of voice for more than a few days, place an urgent call to your physician. If your vocal trauma has been prolonged, your doctor may refer you to an otolaryngologist, or an ENT (Ears, Nose, and Throat) doctor. This doctor will most likely used an endoscopea thin tube with an attached camerato get a better look at your throat, larynx, and vocal folds. They may also put you through vocal exercises to determine voice irregularities. Your doctor is the only one who should be diagnosing you, and will let you know how to proceed. Voice therapy can include relearning healthy vocal techniques (and eliminating bad habits), specific vocal exercises, or even vocal rest for a designated period . Rememberdont ignore any discomfort. If you continue to sing while exhibiting the symptoms listed above, you risk doing further damage to your vocal folds. What Can Be Done to Minimize the Risk of Vocal Trauma? I cannot stress enough the importance and necessary usage of proper vocal warm-ups. You should not use your voice for singing without having warmed up your voice beforehand. Think of it as stretching before a run or workout; your vocal folds are muscles that must be warmed up for them to operate at peak capacity. Additionally, in your vocal lessons, your teacher should properly assign your voice type and range so you can operate within your voice capacity, in addition to working on exercises and repertoire that can expand your vocal range safely. A lack of or wrong assignment of your voice type and vocal range could lead to hoarseness and subsequent vocal trauma as outlined above. If your voice teacher has not done so, please let them know you would like to have this information available to you. I hope this information helps you in your vocal training. Happy singing! Milton J. teaches guitar, piano, singing, music recording, music theory, opera voice, songwriting, speaking voice, and acting lessons in  Corona, CA. He specializes in classical, RB, soul, pop, rock, jazz, and opera styles. Learn more about Milton here! Interested in Private Lessons? Search thousands of teachers for local and live, online lessons. Sign up for convenient, affordable private lessons today! Search for Your Teacher Photo  by  archer10 (Dennis)

Can I evaluate a film-analysis essay automatically

Can I evaluate a film-analysis essay automatically This article discusses automatically scoring film analysis essays. Here are links to other automated evaluations on the Virtual Writing Tutor. Pen pal exchange projectIELTS practice testsArgument essay evaluation system Lately, I have been developing automatic essay evaluations for IELTS and now for college-level academic writing. I sent an email to colleagues in my department to share my progress, and one colleague wrote back to share his concerns about my new automatically self-scoring film analysis essay writing assignment. I had shared a sample of a film analysis essay and a link to the academic essay writing test. He had tried the test with the sample essay, and though impressed, he was concerned about the extent to which we can automate essay evaluations. Use this Blade Runner sample essayDownload Score my film analysis essay now There are lots of variables in such texts that, I believe, cannot be analyzed in a systematic way. And those variables are often what separates a great essay from a passable one. A grabber is not just a question. It has to be stimulating. A thesis has to be precise and thought provoking. The topic sentences have to be directly linked to the thesis as well as provide further insight. Can a computer truly give relevant feedback on whether or not something is stimulating, precise, thought-provoking and providing further insight on a previous idea? An ESL teacher on the VWTs new automatic essay evaluator College teachers are required to assign a value to a students text, but if we are not assigning a value based on observable, measurable criteria, what are we scoring? Are teachers scoring essays based on their own subjective reaction to an essay? Or are we looking for features that indicate achievement, features that indicate the student has learned how to answer a question in-depth and in a systematic way? If teachers are just feeling their way to a score, woe to the poor student whose academic advancement depends upon such a non-rational scoring rubric. Can a computer give relevant feedback? Even so, I share all my colleagues doubts about brute force calculations of good writing.Surely, narrow artificial intelligence that calculates scores based on lists of structural features, lexical items, and grammatical error patterns will miss the value of a meaningful expression of nuanced human intelligence. Chuang-Tzu Can computers provide feedback of real value? Is automatic essay scoring just an impossible dream? Doubts about what computers can do remind me of an observation made by the ancient Taoist philosopher Chuang-Tzu. All things have different uses. A horse can travel a hundred miles a day, but it cannot catch mice. Chuang-Tzu, translated by Thomas Merton I read those words back when I was a college student. They have stuck with me for 30+ years. Is it wise to determine the value of a horse by what it cant do? It seems like the kind of argument one might make at the market while trying to negotiate a lower price. Let me put it another way. Oisin Woods, a German teacher and colleague in our Modern Languages Department at Ahuntsic College, told me something I wont soon forget. He said, Of course computers cant do everything a teacher can do, but lets not make perfection the enemy of the good. Lets not make perfection the enemy of the good.Oisin Woods These two epigrams seem to point in the same direction. Focusing on what a computer cannot do distracts us from what it does well. It is like complaining that horse cannot catch mice. Whats more, if we make pedagogical perfection our only goal instead of energetic strides toward better feedback and better pedagogy, well get neither perfection nor the progress we crave. Rather, it is better to explore what machines can do in the service of good pedagogy. Machines can count, they can match patterns, and they can respond to errors in seconds. Humans can count and match and correct, but much more slowly. More importantly, humans understand and reflect. We should be allies in the provision of feedback, dont you think? After all, feedback works best when it is just-in-time, just-for-me, just-about-this-task, and just-what-I-need-to-improve. If we can use technology to ensure faster, personalized, and more focused feedback, that has got to be a good thing. Will non-human feedback and scoring technology help students learn faster? A research question and a hypothesis The practical pedagogical question I ask myself these days is this, Can narrow artificial intelligence provide useful formative feedback to learners and help teachers score essays more reliably? The answer seems to be, on balance, yes. Automatic scoring and feedbackwillhelp students become better writers and help teachers evaluate essays more reliably.My current hypothesis A null hypothesis Lets see if there is any evidence in the research literature to support anull hypothesis.Science doesnt try to prove a point that can just as easily be disproved. The case is not as open and shut as technophiles might have hoped. Computers can be fooled by clever nonsense(Monaghan Bridgeman, 2005).Brilliant non-conformist writing will score lower because it is eccentric (Monaghan Bridgeman, 2005).Automatic scoring of complex argument essays is less reliable than of inherently less complex opinion essays (0.76 vs. 0.81) (Bridgeman, 2004). The difference in reliability of 0.05 is small but significant. These seem to fit with concerns that some elements of meaningful essays cannot be analyzed programmatically in an effective way. Computers do not construct and test a world model in their imaginations the way humans do when they read. Text coherence will thus remain elusive for non-conscious computerized agents because pattern-matching is not reading in our sense of the word. So what, you say? Horses cant catch mice! Lets consider another objection to automatic evaluation. My colleague asked, Can a computer truly give relevant feedback on whether or not something is stimulating, precise, thought-provoking and providing further insight on a previous idea? The answer is probably, no. I certainly have my doubts, but I also have my doubts that a teacher can explain the mechanics of why a sentence stimulates or provokes thought. All I have ever been able to do in these areas of writing is dramatize the presence of a reader by indicating when a sentence stimulates or provokes me, often with cryptic or terse comments in the margin: Wow! Nice! Interesting! Provocative! A reasonable hypothesis Turning to possibilities and evidence for my hypothesis that automatic scoring and feedback could help students become better writers and help teachers evaluate essays, here is what I have observed and what I have read. Faster feedback At my college, we see students once a week, and teachers regularly take two weeks to provide feedback on a first draft. The VWT takes two seconds.Thats 20,160 minutes versus 2 minutes, which is a million times faster. Workload reduction Teachers limit the number of essays students write because of the impact of corrections on the teachers workload. With 150 student essays to grade, if a teacher spends just 10 minutes grading an essay, one essay assignment adds 25 hours of non-stop grading and correction work to a teachers workload. Necessity has made us put time-resource limitations ahead of the pedagogical goal of maximizing meaningful practice with a focus on form. In other words, there are not enough teachers to provide all of the feedback students require (Monaghan Bridgeman, 2004). Latent essay feature analysis Automatically comparing multiple features of a student’s essay to an ideal essay was found to provide useful formative feedback to students (Foltz et al., 1999). This is interesting! Students want to improve, and one way to measure essay writing skill is by comparing what the student has written to a model essay to show the student how to improve further. By abstracting the features of the model essay and comparing the studentès essay to it programmatically, we can show the student where he or she has diverged from the ideal. Reliability Automatic scores using grammar, topic, discourse features, and sentiment analysis are very highly correlated to expert human scores (Farra et al., 2015). Thats encouraging because the reliability of a teachers ratings of student essays declines with fatigue. Machines dont tire and can evaluate essays consistently. Researchers found that using one essay task and one human evaluator to measure achievement produced unreliable scores (Brendland et al., 2004), and yet that is what we do at finals every semester. A computer rating combined with 1 human rating was found to be more reliable than the combination of scores by 2 human raters (Bridgeman, 2004). Computer-assisted scoring is more reliable than both exclusive computer scoring and exclusive human scoring. Humans diverge too much in their judgements. All that said, I think that there is evidence that a fast and free source of computerized formative feedback available online 24 hours a day is likely to help students improve their writing and their self-assessments of their writing. Two ways to improve performance dramatically John Hattie (2009) found in his meta-analysis of 800+ meta-analyses that the most effective thing students can do to improve their own performance is to openly declare to the class what score they expect to achieve on an upcoming evaluation. Why? Because making a prediction about your next score is akin to setting a goal to achieve that score. Curiously, minority group students tend to inflate their predictions. In contrast, girls tend to minimize their predictions. However, practice tests make all students more reliable at predicting their own performance. This is important because when students get better at predicting their performance, they need less feedback from the teacher. They already know how well they are doing. The second most effective intervention that teachers can use to maximize student performance is to give formative evaluations/practice tests (Hattie, 2009). If a robot that can score and give detailed feedback on early drafts of essays, we can count these self-scoring essay tests as variations on the paper-based and hand-corrected practice essay-tests of the past. Conclusion Im not arguing for teachers to stop scoring or giving feedback on essays. Rather, I think that a computer-assisted-practice-test approach to writing instruction will help students get the scores and feedback they need to improve without increasing teachers workloads. I therefore remain reasonably optimistic that the Virtual Writing Tutor can, in time, reliably score essays and provide helpful formative feedback to students during the drafting process. One reason for my optimism is anecdotal but encouraging nonetheless. Frank Bonkowski recently sent me a text message about his experience using the VWTs automated scoring system with a group of his students earlier in the day. Here is what he wrote. A super-motivated girl visited the VWT 3x today for feedback on her film analysis essay. She went from 40% to 56% to 88%. She was super happy. Me, too. Text message from Frank Me, three. Works cited Bridgeman, B. (2004, December).E-rater as a qualitycontrol on human scorers.Presentation in the ETSResearch Colloquium Series, Princeton, NJ. Farra, N., Somasundaran, S., and Burstein, J., 2015. Scoring persuasive essays using opinions and their targets. In Proceedings of the Tenth Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications, pages 64â€"74. Foltz, P. W., Laham, D., Landauer, T. K. (1999). The Intelligent Essay Assessor: Applications to Educational Technology. Interactive Multimedia Electronic Journal of Computer-Enhanced Learning, 1(2) Hattie, J. A. C. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London, UK: Routledge. The Way of Chuang-Tzu, by Thomas Merton Monaghan, W., Bridgeman, B. (2005). E-Rater as a Quality Control on Human Scores. ETS RD Connections: Princeton, NJ: ETS. Actively Engaged in Academic Writing Please follow and like us: