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College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

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

#71

Post by syntaxing »

nsyne wrote: post #55
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #30

When I did my Computer Science degree the vast majority of courses were 50% final, 30% midterm - even programming exams were hand written, proctored by TAs in class or in the gymnasium - assignments/labs/projects were a small part of your grade but if you didn’t do them the likelihood you’d pass the term exams was pretty darn low. We already had AI proof education.

I personally dislike placing a heavy emphasis on exams. Assignments/projects have been consistently the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the courses I've taken so far in university. It's a shame that they are also way more susceptible to cheating with AI.

I went to college as a MechE so unsure if compsci was different. But overall, all the “fun” projects were labs. We have three semesters of hell and all 3 semesters had 2-3 labs, and we write 20 pages or so for EACH lab a week (usually a team of 2-3).

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

#72

Post by ghighi7878 »

bmitc wrote: post #63
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.

I loved take home exams because they allowed me to study before hand but not have the insane pressure and condensed studying required for exams in the classroom. Even though they were normally much harder and longer, I liked them. I felt I learned much more through them because I could take the time to understand concepts I had missed without feeling the time pressure of in-person exams. It's a shame that humans find…

Exams in classroom with all the time pressure is also an important part of education. May be they should be low percentage of grade to prevent too much stress but it's am important learning experience

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

#73

Post by fizlebit »

I think if your university doesn't do in person exams with pen and paper then the degrees it hands out are not much evidence of anything.

If you're not interested in learning the course content, then what are you doing there? Pretty expensive waste of time.

I very fondly recall many of the course I did at university. The exams were a helpful motivating factor even for the interesting courses.

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

#74

Post by fma »

nsyne wrote: post #55
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #30

When I did my Computer Science degree the vast majority of courses were 50% final, 30% midterm - even programming exams were hand written, proctored by TAs in class or in the gymnasium - assignments/labs/projects were a small part of your grade but if you didn’t do them the likelihood you’d pass the term exams was pretty darn low. We already had AI proof education.

I personally dislike placing a heavy emphasis on exams. Assignments/projects have been consistently the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the courses I've taken so far in university. It's a shame that they are also way more susceptible to cheating with AI.

Then I suppose we can go back to having computer labs that can only access white listed domains and other study materials. Students code there to ensure no cheating.

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

#75

Post by bmitc »

ghighi7878 wrote: post #72
bmitc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved take home exams because they allowed me to study before hand but not have the insane pressure and condensed studying required for exams in the classroom. Even though they were normally much harder and longer, I liked them. I felt I learned much more through them because I could take the time to understand concepts I had missed without feeling the time pressure of in-person exams. It's a shame that humans find…

Exams in classroom with all the time pressure is also an important part of education. May be they should be low percentage of grade to prevent too much stress but it's am important learning experience

I disagree. Take home exams represent how work and progress occurs in the "real" world. There's nothing in the post education world that resembles in-person exams.

Maybe the medical profession is a counter example.

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

#76

Post by llbbdd »

hackable_sand wrote: post #57
llbbdd wrote: post #37

Might be an unpopular opinion in this thread, but college was made worthless for most degrees as soon as the internet got popular and silly performative shit like this is the death knell. College is about learning how to work in an industry. I'd predict an uptick in trade schools and other hands-on work like medicine, and a continuing downturn in so-called formal education for anything white-collar, programming inclu…

> College is about learning how to work in an industry. Oh

Education is a nice side effect sometimes but yeah, I don't know how you could reach any other conclusion. If you're motivated to learn for learning's sake, college is an annoying slog that you know you don't need post-millenium. I literally left college early and started making money instead of spending it, because I got tired of demonstrating to my professors that I already knew everything they were teaching and that it'd be a waste of time for me to come to class.

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

#77

Post by ssl-3 »

dublinstats wrote: post #59
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.

High stakes artificial exams can help prepare you for artificial stakes at job interviews where you need to crank out a working solution in 30 mins with jet lag and someone looking over your shoulder

That's true. They do better-prepare an applicant for a job that filters on a person's ability to accomplish arbitrary things in a vacuum that is completely disconnected from the real world.

That's probably a good thing to filter on for, say, the navigation role on all kinds of crafts (from land to sea to space). There are naval roles where navigating with a sextant and memory is an important skill to have, and to test for.

But that operating-in-a-vacuum skill doesn't relate well to roles that don't need to exist in a vacuum. In most of the jobs in the real world, we get to use tools -- and when the tools go out to lunch, we don't revert to the Old Ways.

When an accountant's computer dies, they don't transition back to written arithmetic and paper ledgers. Instead, someone who fixes computers gets it going again, and they get back to work as soon as that's done.

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

#78

Post by lokar »

gpm wrote: post #64
nsyne wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally dislike placing a heavy emphasis on exams. Assignments/projects have been consistently the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the courses I've taken so far in university. It's a shame that they are also way more susceptible to cheating with AI.

Also way more susceptible to cheating in traditional non-AI ways. And your mark ends up depending a lot on how much time you have to invest independent of how good you are at the course material. Assignments and projects are great for learning, but suck for evaluation.

I really appreciated classes where there was rapidly demising returns to time spent :)

Another example, lit classes where the grade is based on time limited, open book exams, hand written in "blue books"

Read the book, pay attention in class, spend 90 min writing an essay, and you are done.

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

#79

Post by beej71 »

ghighi7878 wrote: post #72
bmitc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved take home exams because they allowed me to study before hand but not have the insane pressure and condensed studying required for exams in the classroom. Even though they were normally much harder and longer, I liked them. I felt I learned much more through them because I could take the time to understand concepts I had missed without feeling the time pressure of in-person exams. It's a shame that humans find…

Exams in classroom with all the time pressure is also an important part of education. May be they should be low percentage of grade to prevent too much stress but it's am important learning experience

I'd like to see some data on this. My general-ed recall is minimal, and in programming before school, I certainly learned a ton more by coding than by testing. That's my perception of my time in school, as well.
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