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Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

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Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#11

Post by Aboutplants »

The older I get the more I realize “moderation in everything” is the key to success and happiness. Moderation in the sense of using or consuming something to only a certain degree.

In this case, education, the answer is in the middle. It’s exploring and utilizing new tools while ensuring the base foundation of education. It’s really simple.

Apply “moderation” to nearly any facet of your life and it’s probably the correct choice. Want to consume alcohol? Moderate consumption. Enjoy TikTok or other video entertainment? Moderation. Work? Don’t destroy yourself, moderate extreme effort.

This isn’t to say don’t follow passions or pursue things to a moderate extreme, just don’t ever let it consume you.

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#12

Post by tonymet »

BDPW wrote: post #7
tonymet wrote: post #6

Instruction needs to shift to accommodate AI rather than preventing it from being used to complete assignments and tests. Assignments and tests were always lossy, and over time more cheating crept in. Instruction should shift to benchmarking productive output, strategic thinking and group collaboration. Similar to labs where you are tested on completing an experiment or a project with artifacts. Or an MBA program wit…

What would you do instead to make sure the student actually possesses the skills they are intended to have learned by the end of a program?

A variety of performance assessments more similar to commercial pursuits.

Group projects with tangible artifacts, including finished prototypes that meet objectives. More emphasis on group projects. If AI accelerates productive development like with software, move the objectives up the ladder in complexity, or expectations.

Peer assessments and performance reviews like employment . This also helps prepare students for adult life.

If the subject matter is merchandisable, have the students operate an enterprise. My local high school has the students operate a food cart for example, and it opens to the public one weekend a month, otherwise open to students. Students are responsible for inventory, marketing, accounting, maintenance , customer service etc.

More verbal challenges . These can be operated by AI with human supervision while being recorded, with spot checks from supervisors.

Every diagnostic has a precision / recall curve and some fall through the cracks. But you have to shift your approach when old testing no longer becomes viable. Better that than to revert to the stone age of informatics.

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#13

Post by kowbell »

Apreche wrote: post #3

> I used AI daily—how could I expect my students to avoid it entirely? Uh, by also avoiding it entirely?

How do you feel about the lines preceeding that?

> He didn’t try to hide that he had used AI to generate much of his assignment. Instead, he admitted his anxiety. He felt that mastering these tools was essential for his future career, yet he had no idea how—or even whether—he was allowed to use them.

I'm empathetic to the student: I'd bet a large majority of employers/careers he's researching right now are making a lot of press noise about "the importance of AI" and how "it's a necessary part of the workplace now." Can you really expect someone in his shoes to avoid it entirely?

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#14

Post by Aurornis »

tonymet wrote: post #6

Instruction needs to shift to accommodate AI rather than preventing it from being used to complete assignments and tests. Assignments and tests were always lossy, and over time more cheating crept in. Instruction should shift to benchmarking productive output, strategic thinking and group collaboration. Similar to labs where you are tested on completing an experiment or a project with artifacts. Or an MBA program wit…

This argument has been beaten to death before AI: Ever since calculators were able to do math, students have been wondering why they need to learn how to do all of this math manually when they could get the same answer from a calculator.

The reasons become more obvious only when you get deeper into a field where the math gets too complex to get a simple answer out of a calculator. If you never learned the basic concepts, you can’t progress to the more difficult topics because you don’t have a good understanding of the foundation.

That’s why changing goals to only look at the output doesn’t work for educating kids. Now that they can have ChatGPT answer every question they might see on a middle school or even high school exam, you could conceivably get all the way through high school graduation never having learned a single thing other than how to copy and paste between the assignment and ChatGPT.

Then what happens in the real world when that student needs to learn something new? It’s obvious: They’re going to try to put the problem into ChatGPT and then give you the result back. They don’t have any foundational tools to do anything else. They haven’t even learned how to learn because there was always an easy way out. Why would anyone hire a person who can only act as an interface to ChatGPT? They won’t. They’ll use ChatGPT themselves.

My unpopular opinion is that some times hard work, memorization, doing work manually, and yes, even testing, are necessary to build up an education and thinking foundation. I don’t believe it can all be replaced by ideas about challenging students to get results and then ignoring how they arrive at the result. I’ve worked with kids enough to know that they are more resourceful about finding lazy ways to pass a test than you could ever imagine.

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#15

Post by marginalia_nu »

Aboutplants wrote: post #11

The older I get the more I realize “moderation in everything” is the key to success and happiness. Moderation in the sense of using or consuming something to only a certain degree. In this case, education, the answer is in the middle. It’s exploring and utilizing new tools while ensuring the base foundation of education. It’s really simple. Apply “moderation” to nearly any facet of your life and it’s probably the cor…

Moderation in fentanyl, too? Some habits are arguably just vices, that have few justifiable middle grounds.

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#16

Post by _aavaa_ »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #15
Aboutplants wrote: post #11

The older I get the more I realize “moderation in everything” is the key to success and happiness. Moderation in the sense of using or consuming something to only a certain degree. In this case, education, the answer is in the middle. It’s exploring and utilizing new tools while ensuring the base foundation of education. It’s really simple. Apply “moderation” to nearly any facet of your life and it’s probably the cor…

Moderation in fentanyl, too? Some habits are arguably just vices, that have few justifiable middle grounds.

Are you seriously trying to compare “AI” in education to fentanyl?

The difference between AI robbing you of learning opportunities and acting as a tutor or sounding board is what question you ask.

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#17

Post by marginalia_nu »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #16
marginalia_nu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderation in fentanyl, too? Some habits are arguably just vices, that have few justifiable middle grounds.

Are you seriously trying to compare “AI” in education to fentanyl? The difference between AI robbing you of learning opportunities and acting as a tutor or sounding board is what question you ask.

No I'm arguing against the false fairness in moderation in anything. It's just not correct. (Though I do sense a sort of cognitive fent fold in certain heavy AI-users, so maybe I should)

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#18

Post by cl3misch »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #15
Aboutplants wrote: post #11

The older I get the more I realize “moderation in everything” is the key to success and happiness. Moderation in the sense of using or consuming something to only a certain degree. In this case, education, the answer is in the middle. It’s exploring and utilizing new tools while ensuring the base foundation of education. It’s really simple. Apply “moderation” to nearly any facet of your life and it’s probably the cor…

Moderation in fentanyl, too? Some habits are arguably just vices, that have few justifiable middle grounds.

Moderation in recreational drugs, which definitely rules out fentanyl?

But yeah, what's moderation and what's excessive is subjective.

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#19

Post by _aavaa_ »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #17
_aavaa_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously trying to compare “AI” in education to fentanyl? The difference between AI robbing you of learning opportunities and acting as a tutor or sounding board is what question you ask.

No I'm arguing against the false fairness in moderation in anything. It's just not correct. (Though I do sense a sort of cognitive fent fold in certain heavy AI-users, so maybe I should)

Do you think that moderation when it comes to AI in education is not correct?

Re: Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

#20

Post by mrtksn »

Aboutplants wrote: post #11

The older I get the more I realize “moderation in everything” is the key to success and happiness. Moderation in the sense of using or consuming something to only a certain degree. In this case, education, the answer is in the middle. It’s exploring and utilizing new tools while ensuring the base foundation of education. It’s really simple. Apply “moderation” to nearly any facet of your life and it’s probably the cor…

I don’t know about moderation but optimization is the mother of all evil. All extremists are actually optimization agents. Let one run for too long and you greatly loose on everything.

So I don’t think that we should meet a middle ground necessarily but wary of people that are trying to maxxx something.

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