Automated feedback: choose its role for each assignment

Automated comments can give students a quick starting point for revision, making such systems attractive to schools and universities. However, I disagree that they should be used on every written assignment. Their value depends on the purpose of the task and the kind of feedback needed, so teachers should select suitable uses rather than apply a universal requirement.

Used carefully, automation can help learners practise more often. A student drafting a report might receive immediate feedback about repeated spelling mistakes, missing references or sentences that are unusually difficult to read. Because the response arrives before the next class, the student can revise the work and arrive with more focused questions. The same system may also identify routine errors across a group, allowing a teacher to plan a short lesson on a shared problem rather than checking every occurrence individually. This could reduce repetitive marking and leave more time for discussion, although the software's suggestions would still need to be treated as prompts rather than unquestionable corrections.

The difficulty is that not every assignment needs the same kind of response. Consider a short personal reflection whose main purpose is to help a student explain a difficult learning experience. A list of surface-language warnings could distract from the question the teacher wants to discuss, especially when the writer needs encouragement and one manageable priority. The teacher can ask what the student intended and explore that point directly. Automated comments might still be useful later, but requiring them on this initial reflection would add a step without a clear learning purpose. Similarly, when an assignment tests a deliberate stylistic choice, discussing its effect may be more useful than asking the writer to act on general language suggestions. Keeping human review alongside a system does not by itself explain why that system must be used on every task.

In conclusion, automated feedback can support frequent revision where its checks fit the task. Schools and universities should select those uses according to the assignment's purpose rather than require a system to comment on every piece of writing. Teachers should remain responsible for choosing the feedback method and explaining how students can use it.