Is Grading a Part of the Future of Teaching?

In this post, we'll consider whether the teacher of the future will do more or less grading. In a previous post, I discussed whether information presentation activities will be a part of the future of teaching. These posts are excerpts from my book, Educational Technology for Teachers. 

Now, on to grading. Many of the tools and applications that computers provide help teachers to be more efficient in their grading processes. A teacher can use a spreadsheet application to allow for quick grading and automation of scoring processes. Many school districts have adopted student information systems that help teachers quickly report grades to school administrators and share grades with parents online. Student information systems such as Powerschool and Infinite Campus support easy sharing of grades and information to faculty and parents. 

Going beyond technologies that simply allow teachers to be more efficient in their grading, there are also applications and programs that can automate the grading process itself. For example, some software applications such as SMART Response and Socrative can be set up to gather student responses to classroom activities. In some systems, student responses can be combined automatically in a grade book with no additional work required from the teacher. Learning management systems like Moodle and MyBigCampus support online courses with automatic grading features. As these grading applications become more and more ubiquitous, it is safe to assume that the teacher of the future will spend less time grading than teachers do today. I don't think that many teachers will miss doing more grading!