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Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

solarshades.club

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

#151
post #93
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Variations in this system are in active use in the US as well. Do you feel it is effective? It seems to me that there is a massive asymmetry in the war here: proctoring services have tiny incentives to catch cheaters. Cheaters have massive incentives to cheat. I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

From what I've seen it works. There is definitely a war between cheaters and people catching them. But a lot of people can't be bothered and if learning the material can be made easier than cheating then it will work. You can imagine proctoring halls of the future being Faraday cages with a camera watching people do their test.

Local LLMs are almost here, no Internet needed!

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

#152
post #69

I teach computer science / programming, and I don't know what a good AI policy is. On the one hand, I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible. Once they're past this hurdle, they can mind their own business again. To them, AI is not…

> it gets work done quickly and poorly This is only temporary. It will be able to code like anyone in time. The only way around this will be coding in-person, but only in elementary courses. Everyone in business will be using AI to code, so that will be the way in most university courses as well.

It already can. Im flabbergasted how people haven't still figured out how good gemini 2.5 is.

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still better than the typical classroom experience. And you can always ask again, there's no need to avoid offending the person who has a lot of power over you.

Typical classroom experience works and has worked for thousands of years. Edutech is pretty new and virtually all of it has been a disaster. Sitting in a lecture and taking notes on paper is tried, tested, and research backed. It works. Not for everyone, but for a lot of people.

Talk is cheap; if you want to see what people really believe, ignore what they claim and look at what they actually do. And when you do that, you see that people generally don't find typical college classes to be worth it outside of the credentials they give. Almost no one with a CS degree goes back to college to take a college algorithm course when they want to get better at algorithms; they study on their own. You can look at plenty of the HN discussions about "how do I learn X" or "how do I get better at X"; almost none of the suggestions are "go to your local university and audit some classes."

The issues with Edutech are mostly because they're bolting it on to the same broken system that people don't find value in. But the original comment wasn't about Edutech. When people want to learn new things, they largely do it without either typical college classrooms or Edutech, because the alternatives are so much better than anything coming out of the broken academic morass.

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

#154
post #108
post #69

I teach computer science / programming, and I don't know what a good AI policy is. On the one hand, I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible. Once they're past this hurdle, they can mind their own business again. To them, AI is not…

You can get one of those card punching machines and have them hand in stacks of cards?

Grandpa can help with that too

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

#155
post #133
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Variations in this system are in active use in the US as well. Do you feel it is effective? It seems to me that there is a massive asymmetry in the war here: proctoring services have tiny incentives to catch cheaters. Cheaters have massive incentives to cheat. I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

You can't stop people hiring someone who looks similar from sitting the exam, or messages in morse code via Bluetooth. It's hard to stop a palm card. But it stops a casual cheater from having ChatGTP on a second device.

You can.

I did a remote proctored exam for the NREMT last year. They had me walk the camera around the room, under the desk, etc. All devices had to be in my backpack. No earbuds. They made me unplug the conference tv on the wall, lift picture frames etc. I had to keep my hands above the table the whole time, I couldn't look down if I was scratching an itch. They installed rootkit software and closed down all of the apps other than the browser running the test. They killed a daemon I run on my own pcs that is custom. They are recording from the webcam the whole time and have it angled so they can see. They record audio the whole time. I accidentally alt tabbed once and muted the mic with a wrong keyboard, those were first and second warning within 5 seconds.

When you take the test in a proctored testing center location they lock all of your stuff in a locker, check your hands, pockets, etc. They give you earplugs. You use their computer. They record you the whole time. They check your drivers license and take a fingerprint.

Those methods would stop a large % of your attack vectors.

As do the repercussions:

A candidate who violates National Registry policies, or the test center's regulations or rules, or engages in irregular behavior, misconduct and/or does not follow the test administrator's warning to discontinue inappropriate behavior may be dismissed from the test center. Exam fees for candidates dismissed from a test center will not be refunded. Additionally, your exam results may be withheld or canceled. The National Registry of EMTs may take other disciplinary action such as denial of National EMS Certification and/or disqualification from future National Registry exams.

At a minimum you're paying the $150 fee again, waiting another month to get scheduled and taking another 3 hours out of your day.

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

#156
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Students don’t seem to mind this reversion. Those I ask are unanimously horrified that this is the choice they are given. They are devastated that the degree for which they are working hard is becoming worthless yet they all assert they don't want exams back. Many of them are neurodivergent who do miserably in exam conditions and in contrast excel in open tasks that allow them to explore, so my sample is biased but…

We have an Accessible Testing Center that will administer and proctor exams under very flexible conditions (more time, breaks, quiet/privacy, …) to help students with various forms of neurodivergence. They’re very good and offer a valuable service without placing any significant additional burden on the instructor. Seems to work well, but I don’t have first hand knowledge about how these forms of accommodations are v…

I’ve had access to that at my school and it’s night and day. Not being as stressed about time and being in a room alone bumps me up by a grade letter at least.

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

#157

The fundamental question that AI raises for me, but nobody seems to answer: In our competitive, profit-driven world--what is the value of a human being and having human experiences? AI is neither inevitable nor necessary--but it seems like the next inevitable step in reducing the value of a human life to its 'outputs'.

I’m similarly worried about businesses all making “rational” decisions to replace their employees with “AI”, wherever they think they can get away with it. (Note that’s not the same thing as wherever “AI” can do the job well!) But I think one place where this hits a wall is liability and accountability. Lots of low stakes things will be enshittified by “AI” replacements for actual human work. But for things like airl…

The funny thing is my first thought was "maybe reduced nominal productivity by increased throughness is exactly what we need when evaluating potential tumors". Keeping doctors off autopilot and not so focused that radiologists fail to see hidden gorillas in x-rays. And yes that was a real study.

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

#158
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…

I've been hiring people for the better part for 15 years and I never considered them to be valuable outside of the fact that it appears you're able to do one project for a sustained period of time. My impressions was unless your degree confers something such that you are in a job that human risk can be involved, most degrees are worth very little and most serious people know that.

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

#159

A bit off-topic, but I think AI has the potential to supercharge learning for the students of the future. Similar to Montessori, LLMs can help students who wander off in various directions. I remember often being “stuck” on some concept (usually in biology and chemistry), where the teacher would hand-wave something as truth, this dismissing my request for further depth. Of course, LLMs in the current educational land…

The longer I go without seeing cases of ai supercharging learning, the more suspicious I get that it just won’t. And no, self reports that it makes internet denizens feel super educated, don’t count.

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

#160
post #69

I teach computer science / programming, and I don't know what a good AI policy is. On the one hand, I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible. Once they're past this hurdle, they can mind their own business again. To them, AI is not…

> I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. > small handful of dum-dums made it all the way to exam without having connected two dots, and I have to fail them ... won't lead them to a meaningful existence I don't see a problem, the system is working. The same group of people that are going to loose their job to an LLM arent getting sm…

Ideally the system would encourage those dum-dums to realize they need to change their ways before they're screwed. Unless the system working is that people get screwed and cause problems for the rest of society.
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