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Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

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Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#131

Post by directevolve »

fn-mote wrote: post #83
sien wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia Universities that have remote study have places where people can do proctored exams in large cities. The course is done remotely but the exam, which is often 50%+ of the final grade, is done in a place that has proctored exams as a service. Can't this be done in the US as well ?

Variations in this system are in active use in the US as well. Do you feel it is effective? It seems to me that there is a massive asymmetry in the war here: proctoring services have tiny incentives to catch cheaters. Cheaters have massive incentives to cheat. I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

> I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

The main kind of cheating we need them to prevent is effective cheating - the kind that can meaningfully improve the cheater's score.

Requiring cheaters to put their belongings in a locker, using proctor-provided resources, and being monitored in a proctor-provided room puts substantial limits on effective cheating. That's pretty much the minimum that any proctor does.

It may not stop 100% of effective cheating 100% of the time, but it would make a tremendous impact in eliminating LLM-based cheating.

If you're worried about corrupt proctors, that's another matter. National brands that are both self- and externally-policed and depend on a good reputation to drive business from universities would help.

With this system, I expect that it would not take much to avoid almost all the important cheating that now occurs.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#132

Post by CompoundEyes »

esafak wrote: post #19

Let students use AI as they will when learning, but verify without allowing them to use it -- in class -- otherwise you have no way of knowing what they know. Job interviewers face the same problem.

I agree. An essay written on the spot in class with no electronics nearby seems like the counter.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#133

Post by wisty »

fn-mote wrote: post #83
sien wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia Universities that have remote study have places where people can do proctored exams in large cities. The course is done remotely but the exam, which is often 50%+ of the final grade, is done in a place that has proctored exams as a service. Can't this be done in the US as well ?

Variations in this system are in active use in the US as well. Do you feel it is effective? It seems to me that there is a massive asymmetry in the war here: proctoring services have tiny incentives to catch cheaters. Cheaters have massive incentives to cheat. I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

You can't stop people hiring someone who looks similar from sitting the exam, or messages in morse code via Bluetooth. It's hard to stop a palm card.

But it stops a casual cheater from having ChatGTP on a second device.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#134

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

blitzar wrote: post #32

How did we solve this when calculators came along and ruined peoples ability to do mental arithmetic and use slide rulers?

We didn't, people who aren't good at doing math in their head are numerically illiterate and make bad decisions with money etc.

When it's general thinking we've trained people not to have to do anymore, it's going to be dire.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#135

Post by cjbgkagh »

baby_souffle wrote: post #85
fn-mote wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Variations in this system are in active use in the US as well. Do you feel it is effective? It seems to me that there is a massive asymmetry in the war here: proctoring services have tiny incentives to catch cheaters. Cheaters have massive incentives to cheat. I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

> I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs. It'll depend a lot on who/where/how is doing the screening and what tools (if any) are permitted. Remember that bogus program for TI8{3,4} series calculators that would clear the screen and print "MEMORY CLEAR"? If the proctor was just looking for that string and not actually jumping through the hoops to _actually_ clear the memory th…

Or just have two calculators and swap them

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#136

Post by math_dandy »

EGreg wrote: post #127
math_dandy wrote: post #28

I teach math at a large university (30,000 students) and have also gone “back to the earth”, to pen-and-paper, proctored and exams. Students don’t seem to mind this reversion. The administration, however, doesn’t like this trend. They want all evaluation to be remote-friendly, so that the same course with the same evaluations can be given to students learning in person or enrolled online. Online enrollment is a huge…

So just have test centers, and flip the classroom.

I think this is a good approach.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#137

Post by _-_-__-_-_- »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #94
fn-mote wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather than giving them the flexibility they deserve as grown adults I have had so many very frustrating conversations with full grown adults in charge of teaching CS. I have no faith at all that students would be able to choose an appropriate method of study. My issue with the instruction is the very narrow belief in the importance of certain measurable skills. VERY narrow. I won’t go into details, for my own sani…

I'm sure this will be an unpopular opinion, but just like junior employees, I think university students should clock in at 9am and finish working at 5pm. I think they would really benefit learning how to work a full day and develop some work life balance.

I actually like this idea in theory. Except, it wouldn't allow for students to find flexible part-time work.

As an example, I was a university student in Canada ~15 years ago. I lived with my parents, driving 30 minutes each way to attend classes. I had car insurance, gas, a cell phone, tuition, parking and books to pay. Tuition was costing 6000$ a year over 5 years. Being in humanities, I chose my own course schedule. I would often have classes 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday. I would work nights and weekends 25-33.5 hours most weeks..Most part-time employment worked around student hours and allowed some flexibility. Once I graduated and had a full-time salary position, I had much more free time and struggled to not feel lonely in filling up that time.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#138

Post by foxglacier »

Schools need to re-think what the purpose of essays was in the first place and re-invent homework to suit the existance of LLMs.

If it's to understand the material, then skip the essay writing part and have them do a traditional test. If it's to be able to write, they probably don't need that skill anymore so skip the essay writing. If it's to get used to researching on their own, find a way to have them do that which doesn't work with LLMs. Maybe very high accuracy is required (a weak point for LLMs), or the output is not an LLM-friendly form, or it's actually difficult to do so the students have to be better than LLMs.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#139

Post by Aerroon »

barry-cotter wrote: post #88
fn-mote wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Variations in this system are in active use in the US as well. Do you feel it is effective? It seems to me that there is a massive asymmetry in the war here: proctoring services have tiny incentives to catch cheaters. Cheaters have massive incentives to cheat. I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

> proctoring services have tiny incentives to catch cheaters. Cheaters have massive incentives to cheat. If they don’t catch them they don’t have a business model. They have one job. The University of London, Open University and British Council all have 50+ years experience on proctoring university exams for distance learning students and it’s not like Thomson Prometric haven’t thought about how to do it either, even…

Teachers typically also have years, sometimes decades, of experience running exams. Yet I've never seen a teacher that is any good at stopping cheating. And that's in person for the class that they are teaching.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#140

Post by timr »

sshine wrote: post #69

I teach computer science / programming, and I don't know what a good AI policy is. On the one hand, I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible. Once they're past this hurdle, they can mind their own business again. To them, AI is not…

I'm not that old, and yet my university CS courses evaluated people with group projects, and in-person paper exams. We weren't allowed to bring computers or calculators into the exam room (or at least, not any calculators with programming or memory). It was fine.

I don't see why this is so hard, other than the usual intergenerational whining / a heaping pile of student entitlement.

If anything, the classes that required extensive paper-writing for evaluation are the ones that seem to be in trouble to me. I guess we're back to oral exams and blue books for those, but again...worked fine for prior generations.

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