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How University Students Use Claude

anthropic.com

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Re: How University Students Use Claude

#161

Post by rufus_foreman »

0xffff2 wrote: post #126
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…

>For many students, it's literally "let me paste the assignment into ChatGPT and see what it spits out, change a few words and submit that". Does that actually work? I'm long past having easy access to college programming assignments, but based on my limited interaction with ChatGPT I would be absolutely shocked if it produced output that was even coherent, much less working code given such an approach.

>> Does that actually work?

Sure. Works in my IDE. "Create a linked list implementation, use that implementation in a method to reverse a linked list and write example code to demonstrate usage".

Working code in a few seconds.

I'm very glad I didn't have access to anything like that when I was doing my CS degree.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#162

Post by crooked-v »

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…

That's a quote that sounds great until, say, that self-built building by somebody who's neither engineer nor architect at best turns out to have some intractible design flaw and at worst collapses and kills people.

It's also a quote from a character who's literally immortal and so has all the time in the world to learn things, which really undermines the premise.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#163

Post by xcke »

This topic is also interesting to me because I have small children.

Currently, I view LLMs as huge enablers. They helped me create a side-project alongside my primary job, and they make development and almost anything related to knowledge work more interesting. I don't think they made me think less; rather, they made me think a lot more, work more, and absorb significantly more information. But I am a senior, motivated, curious, and skilled engineer with 15+ years of IT, Enterprise Networking, and Development experience.

There are a number of ways one can use this technology. You can use it as an enabler, or you can use it for cheating. The education system needs to adapt rapidly to address the challenges that are coming, which is often a significant issue (particularly in countries like Hungary). For example, consider an exam where you are allowed to use AI (similar to open-book exams), but the exam is designed in such a way that it is sufficiently difficult, so you can only solve it (even with AI assistance) if you possess deep and broad knowledge of the domain or topic. This is doable. Maybe the scoring system will be different, focusing not just on whether the solution works, but also on how elegant it is. Or, in the Creator domain, perhaps the focus will be on whether the output is sufficiently personal, stylish, or unique.

I tend to think current LLMs are more like tools and enablers. I believe that every area of the world will now experience a boom effect and accelerate exponentially.

When superintelligence arrives—and let's say it isn't sentient but just an expert system—humans will still need to chart the path forward and hopefully control it in such a way that it remains a tool, much like current LLMs.

So yes, education, broad knowledge, and experience are very important. We must teach our children to use this technology responsibly. Because of this acceleration, I don't think the age of AI will require less intelligent people. On the contrary, everything will likely become much more complex and abstract, because every knowledge worker (who wants to participate) will be empowered to do more, build more, and imagine more.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#164

Post by mechagodzilla »

tristor wrote: post #104
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…

> 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. Why not? I mean that, quite literally. I don't know how to make an ASIC, and if I tried to write an OS I'd probably fail miserably many times along the way but might be able to muddle through to something very basic. The rest of that list is certai…

I've done all of those except tend livestock and build a house, but I could probably figure those out with some effort.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#165

Post by teekert »

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…

Students do something akin to vibe coding I guess. It may seem impressive at first glance but if anything breaks you are so, so lost. Maybe that’s it, break the student’s code, see how they fix it. The vibe coding student is easily separate from the real one (of course this real coder can also use AI, just not yoloing it).

I guess you can apply similar mechanics to reports. Some deeper questions and you will know if the report was self written or if an AI did it.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#166

Post by [deleted] »

taftster wrote: post #54
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 don't think asking "what's wrong with my code" hurts the learning process. In fact, I would argue it helps it. I don't think you learn when you have reached your frustration point and you just want the dang assignment completed. But before reaching that point, if you had a tutor or assistant that you could ask, "hey, I'm just not seeing my mistake, do you have ideas" goes a long way to foster learning. ChatGPT, use…

[deleted]

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#167

Post by jplusequalt »

moltar wrote: post #93
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 it’s finally time to just stop the homework. All school work must be done within the walls of the school. What are we teaching our children? It’s ok to do more work at home? There are countries that have no homework and they do just fine.

Homework helps reinforce the material learned in class. It's already a problem where there is too much material to be fit into a single class period. Trying to cram in enough time for homework will only make that problem worse.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#168

Post by srveale »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #138
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…

>Not fully of course, they edit the output using their expertise Surely this is sarcasm, but really your average schoolteacher is now a C student Education Major.

I was talking about people I know and talk with, mostly friends and family, who are smart, hard working, and their students are lucky to have them.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#169

Post by 0xffff2 »

bongodongobob wrote: post #133
0xffff2 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For many students, it's literally "let me paste the assignment into ChatGPT and see what it spits out, change a few words and submit that". Does that actually work? I'm long past having easy access to college programming assignments, but based on my limited interaction with ChatGPT I would be absolutely shocked if it produced output that was even coherent, much less working code given such an approach.

Why are you asking? Go try it. And yes, depending on the task, it does.

As I said, I'm not a student, so I don't have access to a homework assignment to paste in. Ironically I have pretty much everything I ever submitted for my undergrad, but it seems like I absolutely never archived the assignments for some reason.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#170

Post by Unearned5161 »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #111
zebomon wrote: post #83

The writing is irrelevant. Who cares if students don't learn how to do it? Or if the magazines are all mostly generated a decade from now? All of that labor spent on writing wasn't really making economic sense. The problem with that take is this: it was never about the act of writing. What we lose, if we cut humans out of the equation, is writing as a proxy for what actually matters, which is thinking. You'll soon no…

Writing is not necessary for thinking. You can learn to think without writing. I've never had a brilliant thought while writing. In fact, I've done a lot more thinking and had a lot more insights from talking than from writing. Writing can be a useful tool to help with rigorous thinking. In my opinion, is mostly about augmenting the author's effective memory to be larger and more precise. I'm sure the same effect cou…

I'm not settled on transcribed conversation being an adequate substitute for writing, but maybe it's better than nothing.

There's something irreplaceable about the absoluteness of words on paper and the decisions one has to do to write them out. Conversational speak is, almost by definition, more relaxed and casual. The bar is lower and as such, the bar for thoughts is lower, in order of ease of handwaving I think it goes: mental, speech, writing.

Furthermore there's the concept of editing which I'm unsure how it could be carried out in a conversational sense in graceful manner. Being able to revise words, delete, move around, can't be done with conversation unless you count "forget I said that, it's actually more like this..." as suitable.

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