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A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

theatlantic.com

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Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#241

Post by viccis »

Loughla wrote: post #187
alphazard wrote: post #171

The lesson here is adapt or die. The things they thought were important or difficult or impressive are no longer any of those things. Regurgitating information on a test or generating prose from the notes you took in class are tasks which are easy to stereotype, and now readily automated. Rather than framing this as destroying education, it should be interpreted as proof that these tasks were always shallow. AI is st…

I have to present to a group of pissed off college faculty tomorrow. They're pissed because we ended our contract with the AI checking software. We ended it because it checks not for AI but for professional writing, good grammar and spelling, and professional non-conversational word choice. WHICH ARE THE THINGS WE'RE TEACHING THESE STUDENTS IN OUR CLASSES. I have to look at a room of mostly out of touch faculty and t…

Any faculty who doesn't think they need to teach basic English writing in the age of AI should be aggressively let go from their posts. As it stands they are just glorified plagiarism instructors.

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#242

Post by f33d5173 »

gabriel666smith wrote: post #170

Someone I know (not SWIM, it actually wasn't me) did a little bit of work for a high-school-level tutoring company. The company got all their leads from TikTok. They did numbers on TikTok. The company was tutoring English Literature as one of its subjects. They were generating English Literature exam problems - for their users - using the ChatGPT web UI. They would upload the marking spec, and say: "Give me an excerp…

In some sense that's useful practice. Instead of memorising the answer, learn to analyse a work from scratch without any reference. AI can be an incredibly powerful teacher if you let it be. Not the usual cram school style for sure though.

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#243

Post by tobyhinloopen »

tripletpeaks wrote: post #100
csa wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recently found out that my nephew's school had no take-home homework before high school, instead having kids complete assignments during class time. At first, I was flabbergasted that they would deny kids the discipline building of managing unstructured time without direct supervision. Good! If they want to give kids the chance to develop the skill of managing unstructured time, that could easily be fit into the…

> For my personal experience, college was a time management joke after high school, mainly because I didn’t have to spend so much bullshit/wasted time in classes. Same here. Junior high and high school especially were the least-flexible, strictest environments I’ve ever been in, including in work life. People (teachers, relatives) telling me things like “this is the best part of your life” and “they have to be tough…

I am in my 30s and still think my school years age 12-16, was easily the worst time of my life.

One big frustrating, stressful, unfair experience.

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#244

Post by jeremyjh »

kmote00 wrote: post #227
SoftTalker wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some assignments are bigger than can be done in one class period. And class time is for lecture; there isn't a lot of time for students to work problems on their own. So we're just dealing with what (some) students have always done: get someone else to write the report or do the math homework. Or have parents pay a tutor to help. Or use Cliff's Notes instead of reading the book. But now it's trivially easy and free.…

What about this idea: flip the script. Students must learn the subject OUTside of class: teacher provides video lectures for those that want to use them, but any source is open game -- YouTube, AI, you name it. Then class time is reserved exclusively for doing the assignments. No phones or computers allowed.

So teachers are...proctors? No reason to have every teacher recording their own lectures. One teacher per grade per district? Per state? Outsourced to the lowest bidder who generates it with AI?

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#245

Post by [deleted] »

f33d5173 wrote: post #242
gabriel666smith wrote: post #170

Someone I know (not SWIM, it actually wasn't me) did a little bit of work for a high-school-level tutoring company. The company got all their leads from TikTok. They did numbers on TikTok. The company was tutoring English Literature as one of its subjects. They were generating English Literature exam problems - for their users - using the ChatGPT web UI. They would upload the marking spec, and say: "Give me an excerp…

In some sense that's useful practice. Instead of memorising the answer, learn to analyse a work from scratch without any reference. AI can be an incredibly powerful teacher if you let it be. Not the usual cram school style for sure though.

[deleted]

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#246

Post by BrenBarn »

AppleBananaPie wrote: post #190
djoldman wrote: post #146

Unfortunately, this kind of story will continue to be a popular one in newspapers and magazines, garnering lots of clicks. It feeds into the "everything is different now" sort of desperate helplessness people seem primed to adopt with respect to AI sometimes. Obviously the answer to testing and grading is to do it in the classroom. If a computer is required, it can't connect to the internet. Caught with a cellphone,…

I'm surprised the answer of doing all exercises (including essay writing) in class is apparently not obvious. High school me was a moron and should not be trusted to do the real work and people who know better should force him to practice the skills lol Once he's grown and has a job he will one day realize and be thankful for the teachers that forced him to do the work. Obviously not true for all students but I don't…

Part of the problem is that in some areas schools (and parents) have leaned so heavily into certain notions of "equity" or "care" that they no longer are willing to require anything so specific. I use quotes because while I think there is value in moving more towards those goals than schools often did in the past, I think it's possible to take it too far. At some point there has to be some sort of standard that has to be met, and by pushing that point further and further into life (e.g, from junior high to high school to college) we're similarly lowering the bar in various areas of life.

I've met numerous parents who seem to be offended by the idea that someone would tell their child "You must do this, even if you don't want to" in basically any context. In the past I think such things were said in many contexts where they shouldn't have been, but the pendulum is swinging a bit too far the other way these days.

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#247

Post by DiscourseFan »

jeremyjh wrote: post #244
kmote00 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about this idea: flip the script. Students must learn the subject OUTside of class: teacher provides video lectures for those that want to use them, but any source is open game -- YouTube, AI, you name it. Then class time is reserved exclusively for doing the assignments. No phones or computers allowed.

So teachers are...proctors? No reason to have every teacher recording their own lectures. One teacher per grade per district? Per state? Outsourced to the lowest bidder who generates it with AI?

Hey now we’re talking!

But seriously, teaching in public schools these days relies so much on technology, youtube, that it makes no sense to have teacher’s as paid professionals, just get subscriptions to technology services for the kids and teach them how to work them. I think we still need places to socialize kids, but that’s a different job. Anyway, yes, too many teachers are simply there to enforce unnecessary social hierarchies and rigid modes of thinking, there is no need for most of them.

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#248

Post by godelski »

ofjcihen wrote: post #155
godelski wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting kids spend longer times in school or suggesting kids spend less time on education?

I’m not sure where the OP said that. Can you show us?

Sure.

Current paradigm:

Education time = time at school + time doing assignments

OP said:

  > Obviously the answer to testing and grading is to do it in the classroom.
So my question is, when is homework done? If it is being done at school, then our two options are to extend hours spent at school or give up time normally spent lecturing. I guess there's the alternative of getting rid of homework and only evaluating students on exams, but considering how terrible of an idea this is, I'm assumed that's not what's being suggested.

Now I'll be fair, I interpreted "testing and grading" as including homework. Why? Well...

1) exams are already performed (primarily) in the classroom. Everyone is already aware of how supervised settings reduce (but not eliminates) cheating. I'm assuming the OP isn't so disconnected that they are aware of this. I'm assuming they also went to school and had a fairly typical education. I'm also assuming that the OP isn't making the wild assumption that the majority of school teachers and news reporters aren't comatose, so capable of understanding this rather obvious solution.

2) I assumed the OP RTFA

The entire problem that's constantly talked about, including THE ARTICLE, is HOMEWORK. No one is talking about 1) for the aforementioned reasons. *Everyone is talking about homework.* It has been the conversation the entire time. So I restate, if you are evaluating /homework/ in class, then what are we giving up? It really doesn't take a genius to figure out something has to give, right?

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#249

Post by BrenBarn »

glitchc wrote: post #113
jonathanlb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> external factors (abuse, addiction, sickness, etc.). Beside factors that body's performance, also consider factors that impact well-meaning parent or caregivers' _presence_ in the home, such economic realities, e.g., parents working multiple jobs, parents with challenging schedules, single parents, lack of community support (e.g., availability of a supportive neighbors or families.)

Agreed, of course. All captured in the etc. Nothwithstanding these factors, the debate still boils down to who's responsible for the kids' well-being: Them or society.

Part of that question is whether society is responsible for the adults' well-being, so that they can then do a better job at improving their children's well-being.

Re: A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

#250

Post by godelski »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #156
godelski wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting kids spend longer times in school or suggesting kids spend less time on education?

Neither? it's quite clear they're suggesting improving assessments. This will lead to upstream learning not being gamed.

So the option is to what, stop handing out homework? That would result in less education time. To clarify, I mean education time, not classroom time.
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