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Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

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Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#361

Post by fn-mote »

rtpg wrote: post #257
QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 30 and “we can’t do tests in paper” seems _insane_. Just how metastatic has ed tech been in what, 9 years since my undergrad?

I had to do "write code on paper" stuff as part of french engineering school entrance exams. It's fine (tho annoying when you lose points to "typos"), but it limits what kinds of problems you can reasonably put on the exam. You'll definitely lean a bit more into theoretical stuff than practicals. Which is fine for some courses, I think a bit less interesting in other courses. Remember, the hand written code is also h…

> we've booked the computer room, you don't have internet

How practical is this?

1. Is your institution able to provide this support?

2. Do you believe you are able to supervise the room well enough that students will be caught if they cheat? (Eg, bring a phone and look up answers.)

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#362

Post by koolba »

rmunn wrote: post #356
Aurornis wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's news to me that they weren't already. It’s an old (and outdated IMO) tradition at some Ivy Leagues, as the article notes. It may have worked in the era when students had a little more fear of repercussions and a little more sense that cheating on a test would only cause them problems when courses got harder later. Now it seems there is little interest in dealing with cheating, as evidenced by how hard it was f…

It's an old enough tradition that there are jokes that rely on you knowing the tradition. My favorite: professor known for being VERY strict tells class repeatedly in weeks leading up to exam, "You will have exactly two hours to finish your exam, and no more. I will not accept exam booklets turned in even one minute past the two hour mark: they will score a zero. Be warned." Exam day comes, and all but one student ar…

Classic story indeed. They gave a version of it in the movie Slackers: https://youtu.be/totdoS6px5k

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#363

Post by bottled_poe »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #57

In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. I have written an article on how I have adjusted my classes to the situation: https://htmx.org/essays/universities-and-ai/ Ironically, I think the AI era may make university degrees a better signal of the intellectual abilities of students due to the presence of pre-computer infrastructure like large lecture halls, industrial-scale copiers, etc.

> In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person…

So are jobs.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#364

Post by userbinator »

Arainach wrote: post #299
userbinator wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, it is a fast and simple method of assessment.

Measuring what is easy to measure instead of what actually matters is a classic fallacy.

It's a good first step, a pre-filter to more demanding questions.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#365

Post by fn-mote »

doodlesdev wrote: post #226
dminik wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should definitely take speed into consideration. If your're writing an essay, being able to type it out and still have both the opportunity and time to edit it is great. If you're writing it on paper, you likely have neither. What comes to you first is what's submitted.

And that's exactly the point! By making sure the student can't edit the entire text once its written, you force him to think about the essay's structure and force him to plan much more before writing :)

Sure, but you know that professionals edit, right? It improves the quality of the product.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#366

Post by bonoboTP »

willis936 wrote: post #173
BinRoo wrote: post #167

> In the AI era... Back in my day, you could also just Google the problems and find the solutions. What mitigated cheating at UVA was the honor code and each professor's faith and trust in our integrity. That culture was enough to not cheat. Imo, the fix should be to work on culture. Cheating should always be a tempting choice, so that the student may challenge their integrity, which is a muscle that can atrophy.

Back in your day education was not sold as a financial transaction to a prosperous life. The honor system is idyllic and requires idyllic circumstances: people who pursue education for no reason other than curiosity or self improvement. If you want the honor system back then you need to offer more stable safety nets. It's not "kids these days", it's the natural result of the systems adults have made.

Even in the old times, including at medieval universities, most students weren't simply hobbyist curious gentlemen who studied it for idyllic leasure reasons, but people studied things to then get various jobs, teaching, administrative and clerical or legal work, etc.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#367

Post by zabzonk »

SKCarr wrote: post #351
zabzonk wrote: post #307

While I am in no way a supporter of AI cheating, or whatever we want to call it, I can tell you from experience that there is nothing more tedious or soul destroying than invigilating a written multi-hour exam. It put me off teaching in higher education. IMHO to solve many problems we should go with Ivan Illich's ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschooling_Society and make education about education, not testing…

How is invigilation "soul destroying"? You just walk or stand around as students write exams. Grading exams is tedious, but invigilating them is a neutral experience.

> Grading exams is tedious, but invigilating them is a neutral experience.

I don't mind grading exams (though I think grading is somewhat futile - see my link elsewhere). Sometimes an examinee will come up with a new idea, but we don't need formal examinations to check that kind of thing out. And you can do it in a comfortable chair, while listening to Miles Davis, unlike invigilation.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#368

Post by jimbooonooo »

carljungslabtek wrote: post #12
fhn wrote: post #2

the professor has all the power in the classroom. If you don't want cheating, define better conditions for the exam. You allowed a take-home exam which means students are able to use any and all resources.

The thought of a closed book take home exam really made me laugh. They also mentioned Princeton hasn’t had professors in the room for exams since the 1890s… They just have a code of honor and rely on other students to report cheaters?? Ivy league is such a scam, in so many different ways.

how is expecting integrity a scam?

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#369

Post by kalenx »

squibonpig wrote: post #218
1123581321 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fine to erase or use scratch paper on an essay test. You don’t write the test to fill the 60 minute slot. You time it so students are able to finish early if they’re really good. Slow ones need the whole time but can still do well if they understand the material being tested.

I don't generally get why tests are designed to rush a student. Is speed a proxy for understanding?

Well, to some extent, yes. Of course the literal number of works you can write per minute is not, but:

- someone with a good understanding will often come to a concise, clear answer while someone struggling will produce a convoluted paragraph.

- the way to get to the result will vary depending on your understanding (e.g., are you blindly applying some method or understanding what's going on). For instance, "hey, this is a vector field, I don't need to evaluate this complex integral, I just need to compute the difference between the start and endpoint of the curve!". Both answers will be correct, but one denotes a much better actual understanding (and will take way less time).

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#370

Post by a-dub »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #57

In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. I have written an article on how I have adjusted my classes to the situation: https://htmx.org/essays/universities-and-ai/ Ironically, I think the AI era may make university degrees a better signal of the intellectual abilities of students due to the presence of pre-computer infrastructure like large lecture halls, industrial-scale copiers, etc.

it will be interesting to see if any new formats emerge. if ai kills the take home, what can replace it for similar "let's see how far you can go if you have resources available" style examinations?

maybe we'll see specialty chatbots that give the equivalent of oral examinations and/or are willing to provide reference material but not make suggestions, connections, solutions or generate prose on behalf of the user?

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