Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by boringg » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:31 PM UTC

rybosworld wrote: post #419

If you watch old videos of tradesmen using basic hand tools like hammers, you'll find examples of skill/dexterity with the tool that I think don't exist today at all except maybe in communities like the Amish. I think it's true that we collectively lose something akin to beauty every time technology advances. But usually some new set of skills that have beauty emerge. If LLMs end up being the pneumatic nail gun for t…

I mean the argument that is being put forward is that it isn't a pneumatic nail gun for the human mind - it atrophies are mathematical capability and quality of understanding.

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

#422

Post by isityettime » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

olpad wrote: post #300

phantom784 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I read a few years ago about a teacher (I think highschool) who put his lectures on YouTube for students to view in their own time and then used the in class hours for interaction, questions, tests. That seems like a smart approach. It reverses the traditional model of "lecture in class, homework outside of class".

I always absolutely hated when a teacher did a reverse classroom and I had to “learn” at home and then practice in the classroom. I think the solution is more engaging lessons and less outside work. I know why homework exists, but homework is a chore that most people want to get done as fast as possible. If kids got to learn something interesting in school and then have their free time after school, there would be le…

> homework is a chore that most people want to get done as fast as possible

Worksheets certainly are. But good homework, even if it's challenging, is what makes a reasonably fast-paced course even possible. In a well-paced university course you're typically spending proportionally several times as much time working on it out of class than you are in class. Then class time is both preparation and catch-up, similar to office hours.

This was true of my most demanding humanities courses (sometimes reading 100 pages a week directly from academic journals, not easy reading) as well as my most challenging math courses (group theory, ring theory). Once the pace gets fast, there just isn't enough time for you to learn everything you need to inside the classroom anyway.

And in those classes, where homework was really essential for learning at the required pace and depth of mastery, my instructors didn't even need to factor the homework into my grades at all. In some of them, we could get "feedback" on homework but it was never officially recorded in our grades... and yet, anyone who didn't do it would fail the next test. If homework doesn't have that characteristic, it probably doesn't need to be assigned at all.

If "flipped classroom" means that students are expected to do all of their homework in class, then indeed it'll feel like a waste of time to many of the smarter kids, and it will also just be unfeasible for advanced courses (which theoretically should be most courses in a university, though it currently isn't). But if it means "we don't even have time to lecture you on every single thing you need to learn, therefore you must arrive already having done the reading and the exercises, and we'll use this time to help clear up misunderstandings"... that's already how classes for grown-ups are in universities.

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

#423

Post by sfink » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

JonChesterfield wrote: post #406

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #71

>In addition, the guidelines state that “a typical GPA for a lower division course will fall in the range 2.8 – 3.3.” In spring 2026, both classes’ average grades were C-pluses, according to Berkeleytime, corresponding to a 2.3 GPA. As a Cal alum, I am actually really glad to see they are holding the line on grade inflation. I worked my butt off to achieve the GPA I did, and it would really suck to see my labor deval…

It won't last. You need a good grade to find work after so handing out lower grades decreases applications next year. On the plus side, high grade + long ago remains a signal.

I doubt that's the bottleneck. UCB's acceptance rate is not high (<5% for CS). They have way more people who want to get in -- qualified kids, too! -- than they can fit. They'd need to burn through that backlog before it started showing up as a signal.

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

#424

Post by MichaelNolan » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:35 PM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #331

raphman wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A smart approach that does not solve the AI problem - actually flipped classrooms work worse now due to AI usage. My own experience with flipped classrooms (which seems to be shared by quite a few people who have tried it out): they only work well if all students actually read/watch the materials beforehand. In small, advanced courses, intrinsic motivation may be sufficient - but in most cases you need some extrinsic…

Research has shown that testing is far and away the most valuable academic tool. Just have a quiz every day. In fact, have _TWO_ quizzes, one at the start of class and one at the end, and take the higher of the two scores. In between the first quiz and the second, work through problems with the students designed to help people that bombed the first test figure out how to pass the second.

The best part of a quiz everyday is that in addition to the testing effect, you can easily fit in the spacing effect and interleaving effect. It’s a rock solid combo, that is well studied. We have pretty strong evidence that it works for all students in all domains.

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

#425

Post by SoftTalker » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:36 PM UTC

conductr wrote: post #140

camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

I’m not noticing the decline in my own abilities any more than I had before using them. I finished undergrad 20 years ago and my once sharp math skills had been severely diminished within only 5-10 years. Just simple arithmetic and percentages that I could rapidly do in my head became dependent on calculators/spreadsheets. For all other trivia type knowledge, my brain has offloaded it to the internet RAM in my pocket…

Most/all of my university-level math knowledge is gone, atrophied from never having needed to use any of it professionally. I don't even really recall needing it for any of my CS coursework, honestly. It was just required for the degree.

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

#426

Post by kenjackson » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:36 PM UTC

jjice wrote: post #396

phantom784 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I read a few years ago about a teacher (I think highschool) who put his lectures on YouTube for students to view in their own time and then used the in class hours for interaction, questions, tests. That seems like a smart approach. It reverses the traditional model of "lecture in class, homework outside of class".

My Cryptography professor did this during COVID, since the classes were split in person. It was an interesting model. I'm not sure if I loved it or not, but it was at least a change of pace. Getting 100% of the class time to ask questions was really nice, but it ended up with him re-teaching most of the online lecture in class because some quarter to half the class just didn't watch the lectures. If done more stringe…

One way to fix that issue that I’ve seen is a daily quiz to start the class. The key is the quiz is super easy. Even if you were confused by the lecture, if you watched it at all you’d likely get a 100 on the quiz. If you didn’t watch it you’d likely get a 0. This quickly for people watching the lectures online ahead of class.

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

#427

Post by tstrimple » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:37 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #66

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're incredibly more productive. LLMs are amplifiers, so where they'd have branched and tried out N things, they can easily try 5N pathways of RnD. LLMs are extending the frontiers of science fast -- math -> phy -> chem -> bio in that order.

In my own experience, the only path I truly gain intellectual benefits is the one where I work closely with the LLM, test very narrow hypotheses, and leverage it for learning over producing. Trying 5N paths is useful and sometimes yields interesting insights I’ll retain, but it’s not the rich, challenging, deeply engaging kind of process I find I need in order to develop useful knowledge and skills. So yes it’s an ac…

I don’t see these at odds. Sometimes through working closely with an LLM, N paths emerge. Having it go off and test each with defined metrics to determine which is better is the natural follow up. Even better if you dive into the why it ended up being better which the LLM seems to be able to expose well in a lot of cases.

The part I find weird is all the claims that LLM usage leads to less thinking and exploring and just grabbing the first result. I constantly find myself going off on tangents and pulling on threads when I’m working with these tools. Is it really that different than before when my “peers” weren’t able or willing to be curious about their craft? They didn’t explore other programming languages out of curiosity or for fun? That covers literally 95% of all software developers I’ve worked with in the last 24 years across many domains. To them it’s just a job. Their only goal is to deliver tickets assigned to them and go home. They rarely go out of their way to learn something new unless the company assigns them some mandatory courses. Largely the LLM is capable of producing better and more consistent results than they ever could in the first place.

I don’t know how to cultivate curiosity in the work force. Maybe it’s not possible and you have to filter aggressively at the hiring step. But then your pool of hireable candidates shrinks to a few thousand developers most who are probably not actively looking for work.

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

#428

Post by rob_c » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:40 PM UTC

Those who can use it better, those who can't out who cheat are (for now) let down by obviously cheap and slightly crappy models.

The worry is in ~5yr time when the generic models catch up to this level (basic undergrad mind) that we need to worry about how to thin the herd. We could always go back to the tried and tested student staff engagement but most unis tried to turn themselves into sausage factories in thirst for the almighty dollar so the student/staff ratios are all off

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

#429

Post by plagiarist » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:42 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #311

36733883 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your comment sounds vibes-based

It sounds like yet another far-right racist spreading misinformation under a randomly generated username.

"Anno Floyd," fuck's sake, they have a severe brainworm infection to be mad at some guy murdered by police and the protesters upset by the situation. It is impossible to take a comment seriously with this.

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

#430

Post by name_concept » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:42 PM UTC

zelos wrote: post #237

camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

I totally agree about school-level homework: it was many years before my pre-frontal cortex developed enough that I could have forced myself to do the work. That said, though, one thing I don't understand about the heavy users of AI in academia and software development is that the thinking and coding is the fun part . And that's the part so many people seem to be so keen to automate away.

I'm right there with you. The thinking and the coding is the fun part. I'm pretty relieved that all of this is happening near the end of my career. To me, AI is just not fun. And constantly signaling how productive I am and having to show "my value" is exhausting. This is only my subjective experience, of course, but in many ways the world seems like the fun is getting sucked out everywhere, not just from AI. Like the type of people that become managers are taking over everything.