The Rise and Fall of Homework Help Sites: Discussion on AI's Role in Education

A classroom may take many forms, and pedagogy has many methods, but your standard college course looks like a lecture hall full of students, with one professor, presenting a stream of facts, and perhaps demonstrating a few exercises on a screen or whiteboard. The students pay attention, take notes, and they may ask or answer a few questions.

But in a lecture-based class, the information stream is thick, and goes mostly in one direction. The professor's best time is invested in imparting knowledge and wisdom to the students.

But all of that knowledge and wisdom will go in one ear and out the other, if a student doesn't put it into practice, refer to it repeatedly, and reinforce it. So we have textbooks, and we have homework, and we have study groups.

With a high student:teacher ratio, there's simply no efficient way to place students under a microscope and eliminate cheating from their homework. But you need students to practice and do some "workouts" outside of class time, when the prof's not on the clock. And, those students crave feedback on how they're doing. If they just do homework and grades or comments aren't forthcoming, then what's the point?

Ultimately, a cheating student is hurting himself. The cheating will eventually ruin their life if they try to make a career out of it. Unfortunately, unchecked cheaters can ruin a credential or brand as well. If an institution gives "A"s and diplomas to cheaters, what will their reputation be, when such "experts" get into the workforce but they're incompetent frauds?

There's no easy answer, for sure, but something's gotta give. I believe that we're going to see a decline in the supremacy of the University system, and a decline in the prestige of diplomas and degrees. Vice-President Kamala Harris has vowed to eliminate the degree requirement for civil servants, so I believe that alternate education pathways will be widened and endorsed in a big way, in the near future.

I am sure the system can be gamed somewhat, but I like interactive grading of assignments, where the student presents the work and answers questions about it.

I also like in-person practical/lab assignments, which can occur throughout the course.

Also quizzes can be made more frequent. As an instructor I think I might be OK if you crammed for 10 quizzes in addition to the midterm and the final and passed them all with flying colors.

Blunt question: Where is the discussion? Did you do this on purpose? Because the link just leads to an ai product like many. If you wanted to discuss an issue, that would be "ask" HN.