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Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

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Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#261

Post by technothrasher »

boelboel wrote: post #206
fnordpiglet wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMS didn’t invent cheating just made it easier. When you cheat you’re the one who cheats yourself because the point of an education is to learn, not complete the assignments and get high marks on tests alone. No one benefits and no one other than you is materially hurt by cheating, but you are absolutely the one who is hurt. There’s no way to learn than to force the brain into adaptation which it is resistant to do…

The problem with AI in an educational setting is when one is graded versus their students on things and things genuinely depend on those grades. Group projects also force those willing to do things without AI to go along with others in their group who'll use it regardless.

My son just finished his first year in college, and had no trouble getting decent grades without using AI while many of the kids around him were using it. At least in his humanities track, class participation is a lot of his grade, and he said the "AI kids" tended to suck at participation because they hadn't actually thought about the material, and couldn't dynamically work with it in class. He also said their AI assisted writing that he'd read was dull and unoriginal, and all sounded the same, which he thought likely helped his essays stand out. His English composition teacher said he was "probably too advanced for this class" when he told her he didn't use AI to write his essays, which made him roll his eyes, as he has clinically diagnosed dysgraphia (learning disability in writing).

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#262

Post by jonator »

It seems like now’s the time to rethink how we do education.

In my personal post academic life, I’ve found LLMs to be an incredible teacher. Almost like the best professor in the world at my fingertips. I use it to generate quizzes on demand to test for my own knowledge gaps.

However, if I use it to speedrun over concepts I should be learning, I may achieve my end goal but I wouldn’t actually learn many of the details.

I think it requires an approach where you have to continuously audit your own understanding as you work with the concepts. You must slow down until you’ve confirmed this. Only once you know the concepts deeply and have retained them in your own memory can you then go all in with the LLM.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#263

Post by jventura »

kuschku wrote: post #248
jventura wrote: post #241

CS Professor here: just yesterday I did the discussion of a course projects' (Parallel Computing), and one of the three groups that I did yesterday have clearly gone the ChatGPT way. They couldn't even understand the choices the LLM made regarding the architecture, etc. The way to "catch" these students is similar to what we did in the past when students copied from other students which is "to give them rope to hang"…

> The other two groups also used LLM but in a high-level and architectural way. Sounds more like the score is 3/3 (100%) Would you have accepted them cooy-pasting code from libraries together to build their project? If not, why is using LLM generated code different?

> Would you have accepted them cooy-pasting code from libraries together to build their project?

Yes, if they are "responsible" for the code delivered, where responsible means they understand the code, the architecture, the decisions made, etc.

In this case, the students had to invent multiple strategies to solve a specific problem. The "successful" groups did a mix of generated and hand-crafted code (don't know percentages), implemented different strategies and knew their plus and minuses, could change the code in a timely manner to accommodate some of my requests, etc. The "unsuccessful" group couldn't do any of that.

I'm not anti-AI (and really, what could I do if I were?) since I use it myself, I'm just anti-slop, especially from my students.

But in reality I've been slowly transitioning from group projects (for a subset of the grade) to "practical tests", where they must implement a significant subset of a larger project in a 2h class. Still experimenting though.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#264

Post by yubblegum »

yodsanklai wrote: post #220

AI should be a formidable booster for learning if used properly. I know that some students it to prepare for competitive tests, sometimes with very good results. I've also been using it a lot recently to brush up on my math and physics knowledge from my graduate years. It has helped me clarify and understand a lot of concepts better. That being said, there is no shortcut, and to be good at anything, one has to put in…

> AI should be a formidable booster for learning if used properly.

A premature technology, known to be potentially harmful in its current state of development and established guidelines as to its effective use, is pushed by powerful and wealthy elite down the throat of society.

These same forces (and their unwitting helpers in the unmoneyed public) also wish to deflect with useless argumentation over "AI good" "AI bad".

The debate that we should have had: Is this tech actually mature enough for pervasive use in society.

Instead we get these entirely useless back and forths with anecdotal "works for me!" and "sucks for me!".

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#265

Post by torben-friis »

steve_taylor wrote: post #48

AI has a way of exposing people. In this example, students who are there to get a degree from a prestigious institution, rather than to learn, are prone to take perceived shortcuts and proceed to come unstuck when their AI isn't there to do their work for them, such as in an exam.

That's a judgemental approach to a pattern that has all the marks of addicting behavior.

Of course many people in a competitive environment will click the autosolve button if available. This is a reason to think how to redesign the system so that the approach we want is the reasonable choice, not to look with superiority at those who fall prey to the danger.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#266

Post by ap99 »

yubblegum wrote: post #251

The obvious cognitive deterimental effects of using map apps, when we all realized we lose directional sense and our previous ability to navigate without the smartdevices, was society's canary in a coal mine and a headsup of what was coming. WAL-E and Idiocracy. The future.

This goes with calculator to do basic math, contacts apps to store phone numbers instead of remembering them, and watches to tell time imo.

Sure we could use our brain power with old techniques to do these, but why? I don't want to do any of these. I'd rather use that brain power for other problems.

Same with maps.

I don't want to have to store a bunch of location or routing data in my head.

I think what you're pointing towards is going from having problems to solve to not having any problems to solve.

That's definitely a danger, but right now is still early in the AI era so obviously it'll feel like we went from solving problems to letting the new tool solve them for us.

There are still many problems to solve.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#267

Post by yubblegum »

ap99 wrote: post #266
yubblegum wrote: post #251

The obvious cognitive deterimental effects of using map apps, when we all realized we lose directional sense and our previous ability to navigate without the smartdevices, was society's canary in a coal mine and a headsup of what was coming. WAL-E and Idiocracy. The future.

This goes with calculator to do basic math, contacts apps to store phone numbers instead of remembering them, and watches to tell time imo. Sure we could use our brain power with old techniques to do these, but why? I don't want to do any of these. I'd rather use that brain power for other problems. Same with maps. I don't want to have to store a bunch of location or routing data in my head. I think what you're point…

You are confusing faculty with records. The ability to navigate by sense of direction. The ability to memorize numbers. The ability to think clearly by yourself.

Watcha gonna do if big tech takes away your access to the outsourced brain, dear?

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#268

Post by eueje »

Archer6621 wrote: post #234
citrin_ru wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm noticing some decline of skills I don't practice regularly and LLM is just one of reasons why one stops practicing. Switching to another area of work gives a comparable decline. If you want sharp skills you have to use them.

True. People don't do it though, because keeping skills sharp and using them takes effort, and we have a predisposition to be as efficient as possible with how we spend our effort; if there's an easier way to do it in our awareness, we will naturally gravitate towards that. LLMs are often a universal crutch or swiss-army-knife that significantly take away workload for many abstract tasks, so all kinds of atrophy in a…

“ However, when looking at muscle, once you have it you don't need to use it as much in order to maintain it”

No.. this depends on how much muscle you have. The appropriate comparison is mass and density of knowledge/understanding vs muscle. There’s not a chance in hell you will retain mass and dense muscle without pushing the body hard. Just in the same way you will not retain very deep understanding of things unless a) you’ve been reciting it for over 10 yrs b) you go back and push the understanding continuously for it to remain as part of your being

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#270

Post by rrr_oh_man »

ap99 wrote: post #259
vladgur wrote: post #38

In unrelated news "More than 600 University of California faculty members, led by mathematicians at UC Berkeley, are calling on the system to reinstate standardized testing requirements for science, technology, engineering and mathematics applicants, saying that six years of test-free admissions has not reliably assessed readiness and professors are often teaching middle school math to incoming students." https://arc…

Who even makes the decision to drop having a standard bar to verify students? And what possible benefit would that have?

More leeway in who you accept (for money and/or clout).
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