[bo1024]

That would be lovely in a world where the teacher-to-student ratio was say 20:1 rather than 200:1. Most major CS programs use automated grading for lower-level programming classes; check out Berkeley's huge infrastructure and toolset for their curriculum. There just isn't enough money (or competent TA's, often) to give good individual feedback on code style in intro courses.

Perhaps it is our own fault for somehow giving administrations the impression it is possible to teach well at scales where individual attention is impossible. I don't know.

[throwawaygh]

I've taught a lot of programming courses that have 20:1 or even lower ratios.

I always use automated grading to check for correctness. That way I can give more attention to other aspects of the grading rubric (a bit of style, but most of the time just understanding the thing we're supposed to be learning -- pointers, for loops, specific data structures, etc.)

For smaller programming assignments, you need to check that the right language constructs are used in the right way. E.g., you really have to go in and read to program to be certain that students are using for loops correctly. Just because the code outputs the correct answer and uses the "for" keyword, doesn't mean that the student understands how to use a for loop. I don't think it's possible to automate this check.

Similarly, it would be insane to grade a large programming assignment based on test cases alone because a) "program design" is a major part of the assignment and b) it'd be impossible to get full coverage without an insane amount of work.

I think it's a bad idea to not use automated grading, even in 20:1 classes. But of course you should also be reading the code and commenting on it.

[topkai22]

Back when I was college (and that was a while ago now), the 2nd or 3rd year CS students would grade the 1st year CS class (which was required curriculum for all 180 students across all of our technical majors). While we did get paid to do so, it wasn't a lot. There was a strong cultural norm that doing "grutoring" (grading and tutoring) was just what you did.

I suspect that utilizing near peer style grading would be fairly scalable.

[maeln]

I do understand the issue. I personally only taught in small classes of less than 30 student, and most of my own education was in small classes to. Even with fewer student, it took my a lot of time to prepare classes, evaluations and then grade them in a way that I perceive was "fair". I don't think it would have been possible if they were twice the number of student.

[aledalgrande]

My CS course in Italy was 120 people and tests were checked one by one by the teacher.