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How University Students Use Claude

anthropic.com

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Re: How University Students Use Claude

#151

Post by dwaltrip »

moojacob wrote: post #86

How can I, as a student, avoid hindering my learning with language models? I use Claude, a lot. I’ll upload the slides and ask questions. I’ve talked to Claude for hours trying to break down a problem. I think I’m learning more. But what I think might not be what’s happening. In one of my machine learning classes, cheating is a huge issue. People are using LMs to answer multiple choice questions on quizzes that are o…

Only use LLMs for half of your work, at most. This will ensure you continue to solidify your fundamentals. It will also provide an ongoing reality check.

I’d also have sessions / days where I don’t use AI at all.

Use it or lose it. Your brain, your ability to persevere through hard problems, and so on.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#152

Post by quantumHazer »

moojacob wrote: post #86

How can I, as a student, avoid hindering my learning with language models? I use Claude, a lot. I’ll upload the slides and ask questions. I’ve talked to Claude for hours trying to break down a problem. I think I’m learning more. But what I think might not be what’s happening. In one of my machine learning classes, cheating is a huge issue. People are using LMs to answer multiple choice questions on quizzes that are o…

As a student, I use LLMs as little as possible and try to rely on books whenever possible. I sometimes ask LLMs questions about things that don't click, and I fact-check their responses. For coding, I'm doing the same. I'm just raw dogging the code like a caveman because I have no corporate deadlines, and I can code whatever I want. Sometimes I get stuck on something and ask an LLM for help, always using the web interface rather than IDEs like Cursor or Windsurf. Occasionally, I let the LLMs write some boilerplate for boring things, but it's really rare and I tend not to use them too much. This isn't due to Luddism but because I want to learn, and I don't want slop in my way.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#153

Post by whilenot-dev »

hackyhacky wrote: post #70
kibwen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irreducible answer to "why should I" is that it makes you ever-more-increasingly reliant on a teetering tower of fragile and interdependent supply chains furnished by for-profit companies who are all too eager to rake you over the coals to fulfill basic cognitive functions. Like, Socrates may have been against writing because he thought it made your memory weak, but at least I, an individual, am perfectly capable…

> The irreducible answer to "why should I" is that it makes you ever-more-increasingly reliant on a teetering tower of fragile and interdependent supply chains furnished by for-profit companies who are all too eager to rake you over the coals to fulfill basic cognitive functions. Yes, but that horse has long ago left the barn. I don't know how to grow crops, build a house, tend livestock, make clothes, weld metal, bu…

> I don't know how to grow crops, build a house, tend livestock, make clothes, weld metal, build a car, build a toaster, design a transistor, make an ASIC, or write an OS. I do know how to write a web site. But if I cede that skill to an automated process, then that is the feather that will break the camel's back?

All the things you mention have a certain objective quality that can be reduced to an approachable minimum. A house could be a simple cabin, a tent, a cave; a piece of cloth could just be a cape; metal can be screwed, glued or cast; a transistor could be a relay or a wooden mechanism etc. ...history tells us all that.

I think when there's a Homo ludens that wants to play, or when there's a Homo economicus that wants us to optimize, there might be one that separates the process of learning from adaptation (Homo investigans?)[0]. The process of learning something new could be such a subjective property that keeps a yet unknown natural threshold which can't be lowered (or "reduced") any further. If I were to be overly pessimistic, a hardcore luddite, I'd say that this species is under attack, and there will be a generation that lacks this aspect, but also won't miss it, because this character could have never been experienced in the first place.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_the_human_species#Li...

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#154

Post by bsoles »

My BS detector went up to 11 as I was reading the article. Then I realized that "Education Report" was written by Anthropic itself. The article is a prime example of AI-washing.

> Students primarily use AI systems for creating...

> Direct conversations, where the user is looking to resolve their query as quickly as possible

Aka cheating.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#155

Post by bryanlarsen »

hackyhacky wrote: post #102
srveale wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's so easy to ChatGPT your homework that the whole education model needs to flip on its head. Some teachers already do something like this, it's called the "Flipped classroom" approach. Basically, a student's marks depend mostly (only?) on what they can do in a setting where AI is verifiably unavailable. It means less class time for instruction, but students have a tutor in their pocket anyway. I've also talked…

> it's called the "Flipped classroom" approach. Flipped classroom is just having the students give lectures, instead of the teacher. > Basically, a student's marks depend mostly (only?) on what they can do in a setting where AI is verifiably unavailable. This is called "proctored exams" and it's been pretty common in universities for a few centuries. None of this addresses the real issue, which is whether teachers sh…

Flipped classroom means you watch the recorded lecture outside of class time and you do your homework during class time.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#156

Post by marcosdumay »

ryandrake wrote: post #77
hackyhacky wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The irreducible answer to "why should I" is that it makes you ever-more-increasingly reliant on a teetering tower of fragile and interdependent supply chains furnished by for-profit companies who are all too eager to rake you over the coals to fulfill basic cognitive functions. Yes, but that horse has long ago left the barn. I don't know how to grow crops, build a house, tend livestock, make clothes, weld metal, bu…

This reply brings to mind the well-known Heinlein quote: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallan…

The sheer amount of activities that he left out because he couldn't even remember they existed would turn this paragraph into a book.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#157

Post by DrillShopper »

ryandrake wrote: post #77
hackyhacky wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The irreducible answer to "why should I" is that it makes you ever-more-increasingly reliant on a teetering tower of fragile and interdependent supply chains furnished by for-profit companies who are all too eager to rake you over the coals to fulfill basic cognitive functions. Yes, but that horse has long ago left the barn. I don't know how to grow crops, build a house, tend livestock, make clothes, weld metal, bu…

This reply brings to mind the well-known Heinlein quote: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallan…

This is a fantastic and underrated quote, despite all of the problems I have with Heinlein's fascism-glorifying work.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#158

Post by DrillShopper »

jplusequalt wrote: post #145
hackyhacky wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what happens to those coders? For that matter--what happens to all the other jobs at risk of being replaced by AI? Some will manage to remain in their field, most won't. > Where are all the high paying jobs these disenfranchised laborers will flock to when their previous careers are made obsolete? They don't exist. Instead they'll take low-paying jobs that can't (yet) be automated. Maybe they'll work in factori…

>They don't exist. Instead they'll take low-paying jobs that can't (yet) be automated. Maybe they'll work in factories >or maybe we'll revert to a feudal society of property owners and indentured servants. We as the workers in society have the power to see that this doesn't happen. We just need to organize. Unionize. Boycott. Organize with people in your community to spread worker solidarity.

There is no industry that I have worked in that fights against creating or joining unions tooth, claw, and nail quite like software engineers.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#159

Post by jplusequalt »

Planktonne wrote: post #78
nonethewiser wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat agree. I agree in principal - the process of problem solving is the important part. However I think LLMs make you do more of this because of what you can offload to the LLM. You can offload the simpler things. But for the complex questions that cut across multiple domains and have a lot of ambiguity? You're still going to have to sit down and think about it. Maybe once you've broken it into sufficiently smal…

You can offload the simpler things, but struggling with the simpler things is how you build the skills to handle the more complex ones that you can't hand off. If the simpler thing in question is a task you've already mastered, then you're not losing much by asking an LLM to help you with it. If it's not trivial to you though, then you're missing an opportunity to learn.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

The biology of the human brain will not change as a result of these LLMs. We are imperfect and will tend to take the easiest route in most cases. Having an "all powerful" tool that can offload the important work of figuring out tough problems seems like it will lead to a society less capable in solving complex problems.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#160

Post by ryandrake »

dtnewman wrote: post #14

> A common question is: “how much are students using AI to cheat?” That’s hard to answer, especially as we don’t know the specific educational context where each of Claude’s responses is being used. I built a popular product that helps teachers with this problem. Yes, it's "hard to answer", but let's be honest... it's a very very widespread problem. I've talked to hundreds of teachers about this and it's a ubiquitous…

I think teachers also need to reconsider how they are measuring mastery in the subject. LLMs exist. There is no putting the cat back into the bag. If your 1980s way to measure a student's mastery of a subject can be fooled by an LLM, then how effective is that measurement in 2020+? Maybe we need to stop using essays as a way to tell if the student has learned the material.

Don't ask me what the solution is. Maybe your product does it. If I knew, I'd be making a fortune selling it to universities.

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