Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
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Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
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Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#2I predict that asking students to hand-write assignments is not going to go well. Unfortunately, universities built on the consumer model (author teaches at Arizona State) are incentivized to listen to student feedback over the professor’s good intentions.
Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#3I predict that asking students to hand-write assignments is not going to go well. Unfortunately, universities built on the consumer model (author teaches at Arizona State) are incentivized to listen to student feedback over the professor’s good intentions.
The bigger problem is that kids can just hand write an essay that an AI gave them.
I teach at a university and I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI. Before I would give them a problem set. Next semester homeworks will be more like entire projects.
Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#4I predict that asking students to hand-write assignments is not going to go well. Unfortunately, universities built on the consumer model (author teaches at Arizona State) are incentivized to listen to student feedback over the professor’s good intentions.
The bigger problem is that kids can just hand write an essay that an AI gave them. I teach at a university and I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI. Before I would give them a problem set. Next semester homeworks will be more like entire projects.
then you're discriminating against students not using AI. I for sure know I really would be depressed to be asked for a huge pile of work I'll do myself when other will just cheat and have free time to do something else work on interesting projects or see friends whatever.
Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#5I predict that asking students to hand-write assignments is not going to go well. Unfortunately, universities built on the consumer model (author teaches at Arizona State) are incentivized to listen to student feedback over the professor’s good intentions.
The bigger problem is that kids can just hand write an essay that an AI gave them. I teach at a university and I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI. Before I would give them a problem set. Next semester homeworks will be more like entire projects.
> I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI.
1. Absurd. The measurement should be learning not “work”. My students move rocks with a forklift… so I give them more rocks to move?
2. From the university I’m looking for intellectual leadership. Professors thinking critically about what learning means and how to discuss it with students. The potential is there, but let’s not walk like zombies unthinking into a future where the disappearance of ChatGPT 8.5 renders thousands of people unable to meet the basic requirements of their jobs. Or its appearance renders them unemployed.
Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#6I predict that asking students to hand-write assignments is not going to go well. Unfortunately, universities built on the consumer model (author teaches at Arizona State) are incentivized to listen to student feedback over the professor’s good intentions.
The bigger problem is that kids can just hand write an essay that an AI gave them. I teach at a university and I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI. Before I would give them a problem set. Next semester homeworks will be more like entire projects.
I understand your intentions but I'm skeptical even this solves the problem.
Realistically I think we're just moving away from knowledge-work and efforts to resuscitate it are just varying levels of triage for a bleeding limb.
In the actual workplace with people making hundreds of thousands a year (the top echelon of what your class is trying to prepare students for) I'm not seeing output increase with AI tools so clearly effort is just decreasing for the same amount of output.
Perhaps your class is just supposed to be easier now and that's okay.
Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#7I predict that asking students to hand-write assignments is not going to go well. Unfortunately, universities built on the consumer model (author teaches at Arizona State) are incentivized to listen to student feedback over the professor’s good intentions.
The bigger problem is that kids can just hand write an essay that an AI gave them. I teach at a university and I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI. Before I would give them a problem set. Next semester homeworks will be more like entire projects.
Do you expect someone to do the same for you? I mean to increase your workload until you cannot do it even with the AI help?
Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bigger problem is that kids can just hand write an essay that an AI gave them. I teach at a university and I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI. Before I would give them a problem set. Next semester homeworks will be more like entire projects.
then you're discriminating against students not using AI. I for sure know I really would be depressed to be asked for a huge pile of work I'll do myself when other will just cheat and have free time to do something else work on interesting projects or see friends whatever.
Would the solution not be to pivot to more in-person demonstrations of skill and knowledge? Say the tests and exams become hand written, or taken in a controlled lab or whatever, so you need to eventually pick up the skill. But how you pick up the skill is irrelevant.
Maybe the issue is, somewhat, the concept of graded homework in the first place. It's meant to be practice material, but is only actually useful as practice material if students put in that work. A lot of students come to resent the mountains of at-home work as the busywork that it feels like in the moment, and I feel like this whole set of emotions underpins the argument but isn't really called out for what it is all that often. Teachers understand the value of actually doing that practice, but the grading system rewards, instead, rushing through the busywork as quickly as possible. Are we not testing for the right things?
Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#9I predict that asking students to hand-write assignments is not going to go well. Unfortunately, universities built on the consumer model (author teaches at Arizona State) are incentivized to listen to student feedback over the professor’s good intentions.
The bigger problem is that kids can just hand write an essay that an AI gave them. I teach at a university and I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI. Before I would give them a problem set. Next semester homeworks will be more like entire projects.
Sounds like an optimization for the students not interested in learning at the expense of the students who are.
Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine
#10I predict that asking students to hand-write assignments is not going to go well. Unfortunately, universities built on the consumer model (author teaches at Arizona State) are incentivized to listen to student feedback over the professor’s good intentions.
The bigger problem is that kids can just hand write an essay that an AI gave them. I teach at a university and I just scale my homework assignments until they reach or exceed sightly the amount of work I expect a student to be able to do with AI. Before I would give them a problem set. Next semester homeworks will be more like entire projects.
Punishing honest students by ensuring that they will fail unless they cheat is an absurd solution. In school I went to great lengths to do my work well and on my own. It was disheartening to see other students openly cheat and do well, but at least I knew that I was performing well on my own merits.
Under your system, I would have been actively punished for not cheating. What's the point of developing a cure that's worse than the disease?