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College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

sentinelcolorado.com

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Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#41

Post by llbbdd »

Planktonne wrote: post #34
onesociety2022 wrote: post #8

If AI can do the work, maybe the test should be more focused on what AI can’t do? This is like anyone still doing a traditional coding interview with leetcode problems just because they haven’t yet done the work to figure out what to test for in a world where Claude Code exists.

The goal of the educational process isn't the test paper, it's the learning. Gyms aren't redundant because tractors exist.

Gyms are a great example actually because tractors exist to do the economically useful work. You now optionally go to the gym to benefit from fake labor that used to be the side effect of useful work. The fake labor is now what colleges are trying to sell, and it's going to kill them.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#42

Post by bombcar »

vunderba wrote: post #21
bombcar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably around the time they were invented. They were mandatory on my ground exam (private pilot).

OOC was this a while ago? Even when I took the ground exam around 10 years ago, everyone had electronic flight computer calculators (CX-2s).

It was awhile ago (init var me == old;) - back in the era of "iPads can't be used for critical flight information, they're too unreliable".

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#43

Post by acbart »

simpaticoder wrote: post #35
bee_rider wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things I don’t like about putting too much weight in the exams are: * It’s sort of unnecessarily high stakes for the students; a couple hours to determine your grade for many hours of studying. * It’s pretty artificial in general; in “real life” you have the ability to go around online and look for sources. This puts a pretty low ceiling on the level of complexity you can actually throw at them.

In real life you need to know the options and their trade-offs to solve a given problem. You don't need to know all the techniques perfectly, but you do need to be able to characterize them and compare them, from rote memory.

I agree, I think many people who rail against exams underestimate how important memory is to more complicated skills. How can you debug a complex application if you have to keep looking up every operator and keyword in the language you're using? It'd be like trying to interpret poetry in a foreign language but you have to look up every single noun. I'm not saying people can't do it, but it's tedious, slow, and you probably wouldn't think of them as a "professional worth paying for their service". Some amount of memorization is key.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#44

Post by vunderba »

bombcar wrote: post #42
vunderba wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OOC was this a while ago? Even when I took the ground exam around 10 years ago, everyone had electronic flight computer calculators (CX-2s).

It was awhile ago (init var me == old;) - back in the era of "iPads can't be used for critical flight information, they're too unreliable".

That makes sense. The CX-2 calculators are a bit less like the iPad era and more like the equivalent of calc I/II classes which only let you use specific TI models versus an app on your smartphone.

It reminds me of a family friend who's a bit older and did their scuba certification using dive tables, whereas when I did my PADI, I was able to use a dive computer.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#46

Post by eichin »

whartung wrote: post #9

What's interesting is that as I understand, folks are using things like Google Docs for papers, and that it's (apparently) straight forward to do analysis on a Google Doc to see, well, the life of the document. How it was typed in, how fast, what was pasted and cut back out. My understanding is that the Google Doc is not a word processing document, it's an event recording of a word processor. So, in theory, you could…

Hmm, I have some old daisy-wheel printers in the closet that I've been meaning to strip down for stepper motors, maybe I should refurb them instead :-)

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#47

Post by djmips »

eichin wrote: post #46
whartung wrote: post #9

What's interesting is that as I understand, folks are using things like Google Docs for papers, and that it's (apparently) straight forward to do analysis on a Google Doc to see, well, the life of the document. How it was typed in, how fast, what was pasted and cut back out. My understanding is that the Google Doc is not a word processing document, it's an event recording of a word processor. So, in theory, you could…

Hmm, I have some old daisy-wheel printers in the closet that I've been meaning to strip down for stepper motors, maybe I should refurb them instead :-)

In general I love the idea of turning printers into typewriters. I've been thinking about how to do it with an inkjet printer.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#48

Post by dublinstats »

RhysabOweyn wrote: post #40

Why are people promoting the idea that exams are not written or given in person anymore? I graduated relatively recently and maybe had 1 take home exam during my entire education. Every other exam was proctored in person and written. The professor who made the take home exam also made it much more difficult than a normal exam so I would not really say it was easier than a normal in person test.

Take home exams were very common when I was in school, which was before you could get answers on the internet. After internet answer and cheating sites came along, a professor would have to either not care and let cheating run rampant, or struggle to constantly make unique new kinds of take home questions somehow. AI has basically killed that option too.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#49

Post by cumshitpiss »

llbbdd wrote: post #41
Planktonne wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of the educational process isn't the test paper, it's the learning. Gyms aren't redundant because tractors exist.

Gyms are a great example actually because tractors exist to do the economically useful work. You now optionally go to the gym to benefit from fake labor that used to be the side effect of useful work. The fake labor is now what colleges are trying to sell, and it's going to kill them.

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