Note: general recommendations only, not professional advice. You are responsible for checking before use. Never upload student names or identifying details to an AI tool, and the teacher decides the grade. The full text is at the end.
Who it's for
Teachers who grade essays, assignments and open-ended tests, and feel that grading eats their evenings and weekends. The method works best in subjects with writing and open answers: language, literature, history, civics, English as a second language and science. It also works for subject coordinators who want every teacher in a grade to grade to the same standard.
No technical background is needed. You need an account with Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini, the students' work in a file (typed or scanned), and one simple spreadsheet on your own computer.
The problem in three lines
Grading thirty essays takes hours, and after the twentieth one it is hard to stay as careful as you were with the first. Students get a grade and a general comment like "nice, expand", and don't know what exactly to improve next time. AI tools can help with both, but only if you tell them exactly what you are checking, remove every identifying detail, and never let them decide the grade.
The method in 7 steps
Step 1: A rubric before anything else
What to do: Before you grade a single piece of work, build a rubric with three to five criteria, each with three or four levels. The rubric is the one source for grading, and everything else (the feedback, the calibration and the class summary) rests on it.
How:
- Start from the goals of the assignment, not from a list of mistakes. What should the student show they know or can do?
- Give the AI the task description and the goals, and ask for a draft rubric (prompt 1). Take the draft and fix it to match what matters to you and what you actually taught.
- Describe each level in one sentence you can spot in the text: "states a claim and gives two pieces of evidence from the text", not "very good".
- Share the final rubric with the students before they start writing. A student who knows what is being checked writes better work, and argues less about the grade.
Common mistake: Vague criteria like "quality of writing" or "understanding of the material". Two teachers will read them differently, and so will the AI.
Step 2: Remove every identifying detail
What to do: Before you paste any work into an AI tool, delete the name, class and every personal detail, and give each piece of work a number.
How:
- Open a spreadsheet on your own computer, outside the AI tool, with two columns: number and student name. Only you see it.
- In each piece of work, replace the name with the number (W-01, W-02 and so on).
- Read the text itself and check it has no personal details: a sibling's or friend's name, an address, an identifying family story, a health condition. If there are any, replace or delete them.
- Scan only the body of the work, without the header where the name is written.
- In the tool's settings, turn off chat history if the option exists.
Common mistake: Uploading a full scanned file with the student's name at the top and the teacher's name at the bottom. A two-second check before uploading saves a big problem.
Step 3: Calibrate on three pieces you graded yourself
What to do: Before the AI touches the rest, you grade three pieces of work yourself, a weak one, an average one and a strong one, and give them to the tool as examples.
How:
- Choose three pieces that cover a wide range, and grade them against the rubric, with a level for each criterion and a short comment.
- Paste the rubric and the three graded pieces into the tool (prompt 2), and ask it to explain in its own words what it learned from your grading.
- If the explanation is off, correct it now, before you go on.
Common mistake: Skipping calibration. Without examples, the tool grades to a general standard of its own, and the feedback sounds right but doesn't fit the class or what you taught.
Step 4: Feedback against the rubric, no grade
What to do: The tool goes through each piece and suggests, for each criterion, a level, a quote from the work that supports it and one suggestion for improvement. It does not give a final grade.
How:
- Work one piece at a time, in the same chat where you calibrated (prompt 3).
- When something is borderline or unclear, the tool writes "for the teacher to check". Read those pieces in full.
- Go through every suggestion, fix what is inaccurate and record the final level in your own spreadsheet.
- Calculate the grade in the spreadsheet from the levels you set. Don't ask the tool for it.
Common mistake: Copying the suggested level without reading the work. An AI tool can miss a nuance, be too harsh or too lenient for no reason, and sometimes quote a sentence that isn't in the work. Check every quote against the original.
Step 5: Feedback a student actually reads
What to do: Turn the detailed feedback into three sentences for the student: one thing that worked, one thing to improve and one step for the next piece of work.
How:
- Ask the tool to write the three sentences from the feedback you approved (prompt 4). Second person, the student's language, no rubric jargon.
- Read and adjust. You know the student, and the tool doesn't. Add a personal word where it fits.
- Add the name only at the end, on your side, when you copy the feedback into the work or into the school's system.
Common mistake: Half a page of feedback. Students read the first line and the grade, and miss what really matters.
Step 6: Find patterns across the class
What to do: Once everything is graded, ask the tool to summarize the difficulties that come up across the whole class, and plan the next lesson around them.
How:
- Paste the feedback summaries of all the pieces, with numbers only (prompt 5).
- You get three or four recurring difficulties, with how many pieces showed each one and an idea for a short activity to practice it.
- Pick one or two and give them ten to fifteen minutes in the next lesson.
Common mistake: Grade, hand back and move on. This is where the real time saving is: one focused activity in class saves dozens of identical comments on the next assignment.
Step 7: Transparency and routine
What to do: Tell the students how grading works, and set a routine you repeat for every assignment.
How:
- On the assignment sheet, write one sentence: "The teacher grades the work against the rubric. An AI tool helps word the feedback."
- At the same time, remind students that they too should say whether they used AI in their work, and how.
- Keep the rubric, the three calibration pieces (without names) and the prompts that worked in one folder. Next time you start from there.
- After two or three assignments, share the templates with the other teachers in the grade, so everyone grades to the same rubric.
Common mistake: Hiding from the students that AI is part of the process. Students recognize generic feedback, and hiding it damages trust more than using it does.
Templates
Replace whatever is in square brackets.
Assignment: [name] Grade: [grade] Subject: [subject]
Criterion 1: [name]
Excellent: [what you see in the work]
Good: [what you see in the work]
Developing: [what you see in the work]
Beginning: [what you see in the work]
Criterion 2: [name]
...
Weight of each criterion in the grade: [to fill]
Number | Student name | Handed in | Levels per criterion | Grade | Feedback sent
W-01 | [name] | yes | [to fill] | [to fill] | [to fill]
W-02 | [name] | yes | [to fill] | [to fill] | [to fill]
What worked: [one thing, with an example from the work]
What to improve: [one thing]
Next time: [one practical step]
The teacher grades your work against the rubric you received. An AI tool helps word the feedback, without names or identifying details. If you used AI in your work, say how.
Ready-made prompts
Never paste student names, ID numbers, photos or any identifying detail into an AI tool. Work with the number from your table. Paste the rubric yourself; don't ask the tool to invent a standard.
I teach [subject] in [grade]. The assignment: [description].
Assignment goals: [2-3 goals].
Build a rubric with 4 criteria. For each criterion, 4 levels: Excellent, Good, Developing, Beginning.
Describe each level in one sentence that says what you see in the work, not a general word like "very good".
Show it as a table. Don't add criteria unrelated to the goals I gave.
Here is my rubric: [paste rubric].
Here are three pieces I graded myself, with the level I gave for each criterion:
W-01 (weak): [text] → [my levels and a short comment]
W-02 (average): [text] → [levels and comment]
W-03 (strong): [text] → [levels and comment]
Explain in five lines what you learned from my grading, so I can check you understood the standard. Don't grade anything else yet.
Grade piece [number] against the rubric and against my grading of the three pieces above.
For each criterion write:
1. A suggested level
2. A short, exact quote from the work that supports it
3. One suggestion for improvement
Don't give a final grade. If something is borderline or unclear, write "for the teacher to check". Never quote a sentence that isn't in the work.
[paste the work, without a name or identifying details]
Turn this feedback into three sentences for a student in [grade]:
Sentence 1: one thing that worked well, with an example from the work.
Sentence 2: one thing to improve.
Sentence 3: one practical step for the next piece of work.
Second person, simple and warm, no rubric jargon and no name.
[paste approved feedback]
Here are the feedback summaries for every piece in the class, numbers only: [paste].
What are the 3-4 difficulties that come up for the most students?
For each: how many pieces show it, one short example, and an idea for a 10-minute activity to practice it in the next lesson.
Only from the summaries. Don't draw conclusions about any individual student.
Write 3 open questions for a test on [topic] for [grade], each checking a different criterion from this rubric: [paste rubric].
For each question, add a sample answer at the "Excellent" level and one at the "Developing" level, so I can calibrate easily.
One-page checklist
Before grading
- A final rubric, shared with students before they write
- Every piece has a number, and names and identifying details are removed from the text itself too
- The number table stays on your side only, outside the AI tool
- Chat history in the tool is off, if the option exists
While grading
- Calibration on three pieces you graded yourself
- Feedback by criterion, no grade from the tool
- Every quote checked against the work
- Pieces marked "for the teacher to check" read in full
After grading
- The grade calculated on your side from the levels you set
- Three-sentence feedback for every student, with the name added by you
- A class summary and a focused follow-up lesson
- The rubric, calibration pieces and prompts saved for next time
How you know it works
Write down where you are today, and measure from there:
- Grading time: how many minutes one piece takes, before and after.
- Consistency: when you regrade a piece you already graded, you reach the same level.
- Appeals: how many students ask "why did I get this grade".
- Improvement: whether the difficulties from the class summary show up less on the next assignment.
- Privacy: no identifying detail of a student was uploaded to the tool.
Disclaimer
The content here is general recommendations only, and not professional, legal, accounting or tax advice. Every school, subject and class is different. The Israeli Ministry of Education publishes guidelines on using AI tools in the education system and updates them from time to time, and your school may set rules of its own. Check the current guidelines and your school's policy before use. Among other things, the guidelines forbid sharing personal, sensitive or identifying information about students with AI tools, recommend turning off chat history, and require human involvement in any assessment process. AI tools can make mistakes, be biased, invent quotes and miss nuances, so the decision on every grade belongs to the teacher alone. You are responsible for checking the templates, the prompts and any feedback written with AI before it reaches a student. For questions about privacy and storing information about students, consult the responsible people at your school or local authority, and a lawyer where needed. Tools and the terms of external services change, so check them at the source.
The content, prompts and templates are provided as is (AS IS), with no promise that they fit a particular purpose or are free of errors. Gindi Innovation and Aviad Gindi accept no liability for any damage, direct or indirect, caused by using or relying on them, including outputs of AI tools. Use is subject to the site terms.
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