How Do I Stay in Control When Using AI to Mark Students' Work?

Published on 23 October 2026

You stay in control when using AI to mark students' work by setting the standard yourself, checking the first results against your own marking, deciding what students see, and treating every AI mark as a proposal rather than a decision. The AI applies your rubric; it does not replace your professional judgement. If you would not sign off on a mark, change it.

What does staying in control actually mean?

It means four things stay with you:

• The standard. You write the criteria, the weighting and what good work looks like.
• The calibration. You check whether the AI applies your standard the way you would.
• The communication. You decide what students see and when.
• The final mark. Nothing is final until you are satisfied with it.

If any of these slips out of your hands, the tool is in charge instead of you. That is the line worth guarding.

How do I set the standard before the AI marks anything?

Write your rubric as if a new colleague were going to use it. Be explicit about what you value:

• Keep to four or five criteria, each with points that reflect its importance.
• Describe strong and weak performance in one or two sentences per criterion.
• Note anything specific to the task: "students must refer to at least two sources", or "do not penalise spelling of technical terms introduced this week".

The clearer your rubric, the closer the AI's marking will be to yours. Vague criteria produce vague marking, whether a person or a machine applies them.

How do I check that the AI marks the way I would?

Calibrate on a small sample, the same way departments moderate marking among colleagues:

• Mark three to five pieces yourself before looking at the AI results.
• Compare criterion by criterion, not just the total.
• Where you differ, ask why. Is your rubric unclear? Is the strictness too lenient or too demanding? Is there something you know about the task that the AI does not?
• Adjust the rubric, the strictness or your instructions to the grader, and check again.

Repeat this whenever you set a new type of task. After a few rounds, you will know where you can trust the first pass and where you need to look closely.

How do I decide what students see?

Think about what helps learning. For a draft, you might show feedback but hide the mark, so students engage with the comments. For a final piece, you might show both once you have reviewed them.

Be especially careful with any estimate of AI-written text. It is an estimate, not proof, and a student should never receive that label without a teacher having looked first. Treat it as a reason to have a conversation about how the work was produced.

How do percentages stay meaningful?

Percentages are a familiar way to report marks in Singapore classrooms. A rubric converts naturally: points earned over points available. Proportional conversion is consistent, but it is not always right. A piece can tick every box and still miss the point, or a student can make a breakthrough the criteria do not capture. Your adjustment is where the mark becomes accurate.

How does Korektor keep the teacher in control?

Korektor is a web app that marks written work against the rubric you set. It is built around the four points above: you define the criteria and strictness, you see every submission, you choose what students see, and you can change any mark. By default, only you see the estimate of AI-written text.

How do I set up teacher-controlled marking in Korektor?

1. Create an assignment from a template (science report, composition or argumentative essay) or from scratch, with the task, word range and deadline.
2. Enter your rubric criteria with points, choose strictness (lenient, balanced or demanding) and feedback tone (encouraging, neutral or direct), and add task-specific instructions for the grader.
3. Select what the AI checks: comments on the text, spelling and punctuation, subject vocabulary, sources, images and drawings, and the AI-writing estimate.
4. Set what students see: the mark or not, the AI-writing estimate or not.
5. Share the link. Students type their name, need no account, and upload a Word document, PDF, PowerPoint, OpenDocument file, plain text or up to 8 photos of handwritten work.
6. Each piece is marked in about 20 to 60 seconds. Review the results under "received papers", compare a few with your own marking, and change any mark you disagree with.

What does it cost to try?

The first 3 markings are free without an account, and a free account adds 3 more. After that, packs cost 5 euros for 30 markings, 14 euros for 100 or 36 euros for 300. They do not expire, so you can use them across terms.

A sensible first step is a calibration exercise: mark five pieces yourself, then run the same five through Korektor and compare. You will quickly see where the tool saves you time and where your judgement remains essential.

Frequently asked questions