Bio

John is the Blended Learning Coordinator for the Kearsarge Regional School District, and an actuarial candidate with the Society of Actuaries. His love for mathematics and technology has helped develop his role at Kearsarge, which is meant to virtualize instruction and usher useful technology into the curriculum. John is currently the director of the Kearsarge Regional Middle School summer S.T.E.M. program. At S.T.E.M. Camp, engineers from local firms engage with students over design challenges and engineering practices, while being exposed to various software and programming instruction. John lives in New London, New Hampshire, with his wife Dawn and their two children, Colby and Alice, aged 10 and 14 months, respectively. John is also a tabletop (board game) hobbyist and evangelist, and if he’s not playing games, John is probably either playing with data or hiking.

Project: Essay Grading Assistant

Essay Grading Assistant is meant to solve the problems a rigorous 23-point rubric might cause. It can be cumbersome, especially for someone not heavily trained to grade writing prompts. Toward the goal of consistent grading, the Essay Grading Assistant takes in a rubric and evaluates writing performance based on a dataset of actual essays and scores from teachers within the district. Additionally, it provides relevant statistical data and readability indices. Perhaps most importantly, the teacher is still an integral part of the evaluation process if they want to be, by making adjustments along the way.