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Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

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Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#221

Post by Sharlin »

PeterStuer wrote: post #205

A famous MIT professor did a sabatical at our AI lab. He said it was "a joy to teach here, as you can rely on students being proficient in basic math as opposed to the US where you have to teach those explicitly or lose the class completely". That was in the 1980s. My first math exam as a CS undergraduate, 123 out of 129 students failed. The math department professors refused to dumb down their classes for CS student…

To be honest, there’s approximately zero reasons to teach major-grade math to just about anyone but math majors. None of the applied math disciplines need go that deep, and what they do need depends on the field (physics is all about analysis, CS is about algebra and discrete math, and so on).

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#222

Post by schnitzelstoat »

TrackerFF wrote: post #203
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not American so maybe I am missing some context. But how did admissions work without test scores?

Not American either, but in the US many schools use/used standardized admission tests (SAT/ACT) on top of things like HS GPA/grades. There are many countries, especially in Europe, where entrance/admission tests are not a thing.

Yeah, in England only certain universities like Oxford and certain subjects like Mathematics have separate entrance exams.

That said, the Sixth Form exams are mostly standardised with only a few different exam boards for the entire country, so the Sixth Form grades end up being something akin to standardised tests anyway.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#223

Post by yodsanklai »

somenameforme wrote: post #39

The likely 'real' reason is hidden in one paragraph within the article and has nothing to do with the implication of the eye-catching title: "Both Garcia and Ranade have joined more than 1,300 UC faculty in signing a petition calling for the reinstatement of ACT and SAT standardized testing scores for STEM admissions in the UC system. The petition and its accompanying open letter detail similar concerns with students…

> top universities experimented with removing test requirements from admissions

What could go wrong...

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#224

Post by jampekka »

camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

> Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without an LLM present doing 90% of the work. Many of them can no longer sit quietly for even 30 minutes just thinking on their own, which is a required skill for producing original thought.

This was my experience even pre-LLMs though (about my own PhD thinking skills too). I blame the amount of random stuff work now involves more than LLMs.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#225

Post by ungreased0675 »

wtp1saac wrote: post #28
wtp1saac wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, I disagree. I think there's absolutely a case for AI being encouraged in younger people, and there's room for these tools. I've been leaning on LLMs for side learning in side projects, and it has concretely helped me with conceptual questions about math and Vulkan as I've been trying to learn some graphics basics with side projects. I would grant: I was not the most studious kid, I could definitely stan…

I will add, too, although less relevant to education than just generally - for all the talk that these tools must be useless and incorrect, that just plainly does not map to my experience using these tools. AI can chew through a debug log on a custom system and pick out root causes on behaviors very effectively, in my experience. It is just hard to reconcile that denigration of AI with the typical experience I have u…

In my experience, AI seems like it’s helping debug problems, but it’s very hard to tell when fictional information starts being added. I’ve wasted a lot of time trying AI suggested solutions that I only realized were pointless when I started asking questions like ”I think this distro is missing a package, could that be the problem?” It would agree and tell me a specific package to download. I’d then ask “could iptables be the problem?” It would agree and give me a specific configuration to change.

LLMs can be useful, but I haven’t found a way to use them where I’d be confident in using it to solve technical problems I didn’t already deeply understand.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#226

Post by [deleted] »

mdurana wrote: post #216
PeterStuer wrote: post #205

A famous MIT professor did a sabatical at our AI lab. He said it was "a joy to teach here, as you can rely on students being proficient in basic math as opposed to the US where you have to teach those explicitly or lose the class completely". That was in the 1980s. My first math exam as a CS undergraduate, 123 out of 129 students failed. The math department professors refused to dumb down their classes for CS student…

Can I ask, just out of curiosity, where the AI lab was?

[deleted]

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#227

Post by Sharlin »

Otterly99 wrote: post #146

Maths skills have been slowly falling even before the advent of LLMs. I have a story but this is anecdotical so take it with a grain of salt. I was in my 3rd bachelor's year studying physics (France) and overheard a conversation between two of my teachers. They were discussing how they should modify the 1st year program to now include math, because he had been noticing how more and more students were failing the more…

Not teaching analysis to 1st year physics students seems to me rather crazy, TBH. Yes, people (are supposed to) learn basic calculus in high school, but university-level math just hits different. And at least around here stuff like actually applying analysis in physics and having to integrate and solve DEs (rather than assuming constant acceleration, for instance), is definitely not covered in high school.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#228

Post by Sharlin »

curun1r wrote: post #170
dyauspitr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like the greatest teacher. Plus it’s not toxic like social media. Banning it would be a shame.

This. It's funny that GP mentioned science fiction as a negative because what immediately springs to mind, for me, is Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. We literally have the tools to build his "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" today. We just have to give today's AI a lesson plan to follow and ensure that it never gives the student the answers, and only keeps explaining the concepts in different ways until they click…

And how do you propose that to work if the internet is still full of AI services that just give you the answer or write your essay? The only way an Illustrated Primer can work if you can’t trivially cheat. Which is to say, it solves nothing compared to the current situation.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#229

Post by sph »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #115
camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

At this rate humans will become avatars remotely controlled by LLMs. Ironic conclusion of the consciousness debate.

More evidence of the philosophical concept of 'technology is a life form.' Humans would be the perfect host, at least for the time being. They are certainly a willing host.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#230

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

AI is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it's like having a free private tutor who is always available. It's a great learning tool.

On the other hand, students can use it to do all their homework for them, and skip learning altogether.

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