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How University Students Use Claude

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Re: How University Students Use Claude

#181

Post by logicchains »

janalsncm wrote: post #114
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…

How does your product prevent a person from simply retyping something that ChatGPT wrote? I think the prevalence of these AI writing bots means schools will have to start doing things that aren’t scalable: in-class discussions, in-person writing (with pen and paper or locked down computers), way less weight given to remote assignments on Canvas or other software. Attributing authorship from text alone (or keystroke p…

>I think the prevalence of these AI writing bots means schools will have to start doing things that aren’t scalable

It won't be long 'til we're at the point that embodied AI can be used for scalable face-to-face assessment that can't be cheated any easier than a human assessor.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#182

Post by jplusequalt »

harikb wrote: post #172
jplusequalt wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's possible. I think the greatest trick our current societal structure ever managed to pull, is the proliferation of the belief that any alternatives are impossible. "Capitalist realism" People who organize tend to be the people who are most optimistic about change. This is for a reason.

It may be possible for you (I am assuming you are > 20, mature adult). But the context is around teens in the prime of their learning. It is too hard to keep ChatGPT/Claude away from them. Social media is too addictive. Those TikTok/Reels/Shorts are addictive and never ending. We are doomed imho. If education (schools) were to adopt a teaching-AI (one that will given them the solution, but at least ask a bunch of que…

>We are doomed imho.

I encourage you to take action to prove to yourself that real change is possible.

What you can do in your own life to enact change is hard to say, given I know nothing about your situation. But say you are a parent, you have control over how often your children use their phones, whether they are on social media, whether they are using ChatGPT to get around doing their homework. How we raise the next generation of children will play an important role in how prepared they are to deal with the consequences of the actions we're currently making.

As a worker you can try to organize to form a union. At the very least you can join an organization like the Democratic Socialists of America. Your ability to organize is your greatest strength.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#183

Post by juped »

brunocroh wrote: post #20

I simply don't waste my time reading an AD as an article. I take this as seriously as I would if McDonald's published articles about how much weight people lose eating at McDonald's.

I'm curious if you're willing to say what you (and potentially other people who spell 'AD' like that) think it's an acronym for, by the way.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#184

Post by jplusequalt »

DrillShopper wrote: post #158
jplusequalt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I think more and more workers are warming up to unions. As wages in software continue to be oppressed, I think we'll see an increase in unionization efforts for software engineers.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#185

Post by joe5150 »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #122
dingnuts wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's more or less accepted today. Bullshit! You cannot do second order reasoning with a set of facts or concepts that you have to look up first. Google Search made intuition and deep understanding and encyclopedic knowledge MORE important, not less. People will think you are a wizard if you read documentation and bother to remember it, because they're still busy asking Google or ChatGPT while you're happily codin…

I am 100% certain people said the same thing about arithmetic and calculators and now mental arithmetic skill is nothing more than a curiosity.

Being able to do basic math in your head is valuable just in terms of basic practicality (quickly calculating a tip or splitting a bill, doubling a recipe, reasoning about a budget...), but this is a poor analogy anyway because 3x2 is still 3x2 regardless of how you get there whereas creative work produced by software is worthless.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#186

Post by taftster »

SoftTalker wrote: post #62
taftster wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No I think the struggle is essential. If you can just ask a tutor (real or electronic) what is wrong with your code, you stop thinking and become dependent on that. Learning to think your way through a roadblock that seems like a showstopper is huge. It's sort of the mental analog of weight training. The only way to get better at weightlifting is to actually lift weight.

If I were to go and try to bench 300lbs, I would absolutely need a spotter to rescue me. Taking on more weight than I can possibly achieve is a setup for failure.

Sure, I should probably practice benching 150lbs. That would be a good challenge for me and I would benefit from that experience. But 300lbs would crush me.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#187

Post by pugio »

I've used AI for one of the best studying experiences I've had in a long time:

1. Dump the whole textbook into Gemini, along with various syllabi/learning goals.

2. (Carefully) Prompt it to create Anki flashcards to meet each goal.

3. Use Anki (duh).

4. Dump the day's flashcards into a ChatGPT session, turn on voice mode, and ask it to quiz me.

Then I can go about my day answering questions. The best part is that if I don't understand something, or am having a hard time retaining some information, I can immediately ask it to explain - I can start a whole side tangent conversation deepening my understanding of the knowledge unit in the card, and then go right back to quizzing on the next card when I'm ready.

It feels like a learning superpower.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#188

Post by taftster »

psygn89 wrote: post #64
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…

Agreed, the struggle often leads us to poke and prod an issue from many angles until things finally click. It lets us think critically. In that journey you might've learned other related concepts which further solidifies your understanding. But when the answer flows out of thin air right in front of you with AI, you get the "oh duh" or "that makes sense" moments and not the "a-ha" moment that ultimately sticks with y…

Absolutely this. AI can help reveal solutions that weren't seen. An a-ha moment can be as instrumental to learning as the struggle that came before.

Academia needs to embrace this concept and not try to fight it. AI is here, it's real, it's going to be used. Let's teach our students how to benefit from its (ethical) use.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#189

Post by harrall »

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 think specialization is a bad thing but the friends I know that only know their subject seem to… how do I put this… struggle at life and everything a lot more.

And even at work, the coworkers that don’t have a lot of general knowledge seem to work a lot harder and get less done because it takes them so much longer to figure things out.

So I don’t know… is avoiding the work of learning worth it to struggle at life more?

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#190

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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