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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

#81

Post by dublinstats »

ssl-3 wrote: post #77
dublinstats wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tes…

Obviously they're both supposed to be proxy measures, not realistic scenarios. I was mostly joking before but I do think exams provide a pretty good proxy for ability in the subject if the teacher is decent. Interviews not so much unless the applicant is similarly prepared with foreknowledge of what they will be tested on and had some time to prepare and given recent practice.

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

#82

Post by djmips »

vunderba wrote: post #58
djmips wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow it feels like the Loebner prize went away right at the dawn of the LLM. Is it correlated?

Yeah I definitely think LLMs contributed to its demise. To be honest, nobody in academic AI circles took it very seriously, because it kind of devolved into a contest over who could create the most convincing illusion of intelligence . Participants spent more time polishing up the natural language parsing aspects in conjunction with pre‑programming elaborate backstories for their chatbot's bios among other psychologi…

I think it would be great to be revived with a different premise.

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

#83

Post by onesociety2022 »

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.

Huh? The gym analogy doesn’t even make sense. People didn’t go to gyms when they were farming with oxen. Gyms are popular now precisely because tractors exist and you don’t need manual labor to farm anymore but people still need the physical exercise for their health. Society has adapted to the arrival of new life-changing technology. Our education system needs to adapt to new technology like AI too. You can probably uplevel a lot of courses and cover a lot more interesting topics than before and teach real application of things you learned aided by AI. Just like when I was doing a CS major 20 years ago, they didn’t spend too much time teaching me assembly programming beyond 1 or 2 lectures (they let me use a compiler for programming assignments!).

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

#84

Post by zdragnar »

fma wrote: post #74
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.

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.

The labs I was in weren't connected to the Internet at all, only a local intranet. Though, they were all running pre-oracle solaris if memory serves, so I'm probably dating myself a bit.

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

#85

Post by blharr »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #60
acbart wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So at 50%, someone who uses AI to get 100% of the homework grade will earn a D (sometimes passing) if they can get at least a 20% on your quizzes, and a C (always passing) if they get at least a 40%. Did you make your exam so difficult that students who truly didn't learn the material earn less than 20-40%? Because if it was, say, multiple choice questions with four possible answers, then you can expect them to earn…

My quizzes are written responses, psuedocode and annotating code.

While that answers their direct question, they do bring up a good point -- how often are you handing out less than 25% scores on exams? Id imagine any professor to do that to get some severe criticism that would make even a cheater pretty livid

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

#86

Post by SilentM68 »

This will only work until somebody figures out how to connect an AI to the typewriter which will have some sort of MIC, and the person will start dictating into it with AI-assisted revisions. Once the dictation is over, the AI-enabled typewriter will be instructed to type the work out.

Testing and instruction should be modified to account for AI. If a student uses an Agentic AI for work, learning, research, then when test time comes, the student should be required to stand in the front of the class and teach the class what they have learned, i.e. "Teach Back" all they learned to the entire class student body and teacher. The entire class, instructor included, will also be required to participate in a Q&A session to make sure that student's learning is not just made up of memorization, e.g. restate the information learned but using different words, different scenarios, etc.

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

#87

Post by artikae »

vunderba wrote: post #58
djmips wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow it feels like the Loebner prize went away right at the dawn of the LLM. Is it correlated?

Yeah I definitely think LLMs contributed to its demise. To be honest, nobody in academic AI circles took it very seriously, because it kind of devolved into a contest over who could create the most convincing illusion of intelligence . Participants spent more time polishing up the natural language parsing aspects in conjunction with pre‑programming elaborate backstories for their chatbot's bios among other psychologi…

Goodhart's Law vs the Turing Test! Can our humans accurately evaluate intelligence, or will they be fooled by fakes? Live this Sunday!

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

#88

Post by BobbyTables2 »

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.

Today just teachers walking around during an exam instead of browsing on their phone would do wonders…

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

#89

Post by jason_zig »

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.

is evaluation that important? ultimately if you can't do the work you're only cheating yourself in the long run...

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

#90

Post by gpm »

jubilanti wrote: post #66
mjlee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds extremely susceptible to unconscious bias, or even just straightforward discrimination.

Moreso than a job interview?

More systematic than a job interview.

If you don't get one job you should have - there are others - it's unfortunate but not life altering.

If 3 years into your marine biology program a professor who always teaches a mandatory course fails you because you're a woman who wears non traditional dress - you're not graduating and now there are no jobs. (And this is an example that actually happened to someone I know - not in a western country)

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