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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

#31

Post by nkrisc »

lolinder wrote: post #29
nkrisc wrote: post #13

If the trend continues, it seems like most college degrees will be completely worthless. If students using AI to cheat on homework are graduating with a degree, then it has lost all value as a certificate that the holder has completed some minimum level of education and learning. Institutions that award such degrees will be no different than degree mills of the past. I’m just grateful my college degree has the year 2…

All of the best professors I had either did not grade homework or weighted it very small and often on a did-you-do-it-at-all basis and did not grade attendance at all. They provided lectures and assignments as a means to learn the material and then graded you based on your performance in proctored exams taken either in class or at the university testing center. For most subjects at the university level graded homewor…

I don’t disagree, but in most cases degrees are handed out based on grades which in turn are based on homework.

I agree that something will have to change to avert the current trend.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#35

Post by nkrisc »

ai-christianson wrote: post #20
nkrisc wrote: post #13

If the trend continues, it seems like most college degrees will be completely worthless. If students using AI to cheat on homework are graduating with a degree, then it has lost all value as a certificate that the holder has completed some minimum level of education and learning. Institutions that award such degrees will be no different than degree mills of the past. I’m just grateful my college degree has the year 2…

Aren't the jobs they'll get be expecting them to use AI?

If you’re hiring humans just to use AI, why even hire humans? Either AI will replace them or employers will realize that they prefer employees who can think. In either case, being a human who specializes in regurgitating AI output seems like a dead end.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#36

Post by joe_the_user »

math_dandy wrote: post #28

I teach math at a large university (30,000 students) and have also gone “back to the earth”, to pen-and-paper, proctored and exams. Students don’t seem to mind this reversion. The administration, however, doesn’t like this trend. They want all evaluation to be remote-friendly, so that the same course with the same evaluations can be given to students learning in person or enrolled online. Online enrollment is a huge…

Yeah, the thing AI cheating is it seems inherent not in teaching but what mechanical, bureaucratic, for-profit teaching and universities have become.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#37

Post by fallinditch »

> I want my students to write unassisted because I don’t want to live in a society where people can’t compose a coherent sentence without a bot in the mix.

Kicking against the pricks.

It is understandable that professional educators are struggling with the AI paradigm shift, because it really is disrupting their profession.

But this new reality is also an opportunity to rethink and improve the practice of education.

Take the author comment above: you can't disagree with the sentiment but a more nuanced take is that AI tools can also help people to be better communicators, speakers, writers. (I don't think we've seen the killer apps for this yet but I'm sure we will soon).

If you want students to be good at spelling and grammar then do a quick spelling test at the start of each lesson and practice essay writing during school time with no access to computers. (Also, bring back Dictation?)

Long term: yes I believe we're going to see an effect on people's cognition abilities as AI becomes increasingly integrated into our lives. This is something we as a society should grapple with and develop new enlightened policies and teaching methods.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle, so adapt, use AI tools wisely, think deeply about ways to improve education in this new era.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#38

Post by squigz »

yapyap wrote: post #33
blitzar wrote: post #32

How did we solve this when calculators came along and ruined peoples ability to do mental arithmetic and use slide rulers?

It sounds like you’re implying LLMs are to everything what calculators were to math, if so you are sorely mistaken

He's implying, rightfully so, that we've repeatedly adapted to various technologies that fundamentally threatened the then status quo of education. We'll do it again.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#39

Post by __loam »

ryandrake wrote: post #24
nkrisc wrote: post #13

If the trend continues, it seems like most college degrees will be completely worthless. If students using AI to cheat on homework are graduating with a degree, then it has lost all value as a certificate that the holder has completed some minimum level of education and learning. Institutions that award such degrees will be no different than degree mills of the past. I’m just grateful my college degree has the year 2…

Maybe schools and universities need to stop considering homework to be evidence of subject matter mastery. Grading homework never made sense to me. What are you measuring, really, and how confident are you of that measurement? You can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. Universities need to accept that AI exists, and adjust their operations accordingly.

How do you suggest we measure whether the students have actually learned the stuff then?

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#40

Post by baconmania »

blitzar wrote: post #32

How did we solve this when calculators came along and ruined peoples ability to do mental arithmetic and use slide rulers?

Outsourcing a specific task to a deterministic tool you own is clearly not the same thing as outsourcing all of your cognition to a probabilistic tool owned by people with ongoing political and revenue motives that don’t align with your own.
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