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College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

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Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#271

Post by sudahtigabulan »

CSSer wrote: post #183
kcexn wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with exams is that everyone has a bad experience with a poorly written one. Well-written exams will have questions that test students at different levels of understanding across the whole curriculum. So a student who only understands the basics should be able to answer most of the easy questions and students who have a deeper understanding can answer the harder ones. Well-written exams should feel pretty…

Exams almost filtered me out of this industry before I even got started. I later went on to be a lead developer! I went to a rural high school with a poor math curriculum. I understood the concepts, but I was slow. When I got to undergrad, my first calc professor gave us a 60 question test with 50 minutes of allotted time. He told us if we couldn't do the problems fast enough we weren't cut out for the work and it wo…

> a 60 question test with 50 minutes of allotted time

Is this kind of test - many short questions - a standard thing for math in your country?

My university exams were pretty much all "2-question", in 90 minutes.

The first half was an essay where you have to reproduce a lesson from the curriculum, in your own words.

The second half was "the formulas" - you have to develop one or two formulas from first principles.

I once got an A- even though I got "the formulas" half very wrong. As the teacher explained later, I simply chose the coordinate system beginning at not the same place the textbook did. And this was supposed to be a bad teacher - he actually gave Ds to almost all of us (180 people). This was a makeup exam.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#272

Post by spaqin »

curun1r wrote: post #229

I'm old enough to remember a similar controversy over whether to allow calculators in math classes. While most schools were banning them to force kids to learn how to do math without them, my school went the other way. They mandated that every student had one and then changed the assignments and tests to account for it. Gone were questions that had whole number answers that could be computed in our heads. Instead, an…

Replace "using AI" with "asking your parents". From a student's perspective, their parents are probably an expert in anything, but sometimes might make things up and they won't be any wiser to notice, because they don't yet have the basic knowledge to know what to double check for. Just like LLMs.

Why doesn't the essay class allow us asking your parents to write it for them? The art class, why not ask your parents to paint something for you? Geography, why not let ask your parents during a test?

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#273

Post by thaumasiotes »

ransom1538 wrote: post #194
kcexn wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with exams is that everyone has a bad experience with a poorly written one. Well-written exams will have questions that test students at different levels of understanding across the whole curriculum. So a student who only understands the basics should be able to answer most of the easy questions and students who have a deeper understanding can answer the harder ones. Well-written exams should feel pretty…

Every class. Teachers think: "We want a curve, not everyone is getting an A". This pushes the teacher to ask questions not covered in the material. If they stick to what is covered it is hard to get a decent curve. So, in the end, teachers just hand out grades based on IQ, and there isn't a point of grades.

> Teachers think: "We want a curve, not everyone is getting an A". This pushes the teacher to ask questions not covered in the material. If they stick to what is covered it is hard to get a decent curve.

You've never been a teacher.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#274

Post by phatfish »

malux85 wrote: post #167
zoom6628 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I did tertiary studies in programming there wasn't AI but we did our programming exams in pencil and paper. The "beneficial" prep we had and I had since high school was using punch cards. And 24h turnaround time for compiles. That really makes you think. And you learn how to desk check even thousand line programs. Intense focus, structuring for readability (to catch typos) and simplicity (catch logic errors) hel…

Yeah i really valued learning to code when I didn't have the internet available, if taught me patience and deep thinking, problem decomposition and organic (brain) execution

That is great for core principles. But languages and development environments have since assumed everyone has access to then internet. Meaning more "stuff" is the solution to problems (massive standard libraries or community created ones) rather that elegent language solutions.

The internet enabled all the complexity we have today. LLMs will have a similar effect, but instead of engineers actually having to understand the system (even in it's complexity) they will just be querying the oracle to build things or solve problems.

When the oracle can't help (or maybe refuses to) is when it gets interesting.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#275

Post by exceptione »

curun1r wrote: post #229

I'm old enough to remember a similar controversy over whether to allow calculators in math classes. While most schools were banning them to force kids to learn how to do math without them, my school went the other way. They mandated that every student had one and then changed the assignments and tests to account for it. Gone were questions that had whole number answers that could be computed in our heads. Instead, an…

Bad idea. This is pretty much endgame territory you are talking about.

You would give the brains of the younger generation to American tech oligarchy, a class of people openly hostile to the principles of the democratic rule of law. If you want to see the damage actors like Fox News et alii alone can do, just take a look around in the US. Now imagine them taking over the parenting and teaching role; you wouldn't need gerrymandering if you can control people's beliefs.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#276

Post by intended »

curun1r wrote: post #229

I'm old enough to remember a similar controversy over whether to allow calculators in math classes. While most schools were banning them to force kids to learn how to do math without them, my school went the other way. They mandated that every student had one and then changed the assignments and tests to account for it. Gone were questions that had whole number answers that could be computed in our heads. Instead, an…

The calculator analogy comes up very often, and it’s a good one because it also illustrates where AI diverges.

The other analogy is taking a forklift to the gym. Sure you lift weights, but you don’t really do any exercise to develop your own muscles.

AI automates a significant chunk of the exercises. So you are left with people who didn’t build any mental muscles.

This would be bad enough, but it’s worse because AI severely benefits experts who have build mental reflexes/taste and can judge / verify output with minimum information.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#277

Post by yurishimo »

Izkata wrote: post #143
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today just teachers walking around during an exam instead of browsing on their phone would do wonders…

Half related: reminds me of my physics teacher's test of how observant we were. The extra credit question on the test was "what is your teacher's favorite color?", which she had so far given no indication of. But while watching us she was walking all over the room in every possible direction, because the answer was on a piece of paper taped to her back.

Sounds like something Restivo would do.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#278

Post by lelanthran »

bee_rider wrote: post #15
zamadatix wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always preferred the "you get some grades along the way to gauge your progress but the lion's share of the weight went to the proctored exams" method unless the lion's share of the normal work was also proctored anyways (at which point it doesn't really matter how it's done). The reason was less for myself and more because anything group related suddenly shot up in quality when the other individual work classmates…

The things I don’t like about putting too much weight in the exams are: * It’s sort of unnecessarily high stakes for the students; a couple hours to determine your grade for many hours of studying. * It’s pretty artificial in general; in “real life” you have the ability to go around online and look for sources. This puts a pretty low ceiling on the level of complexity you can actually throw at them.

> It’s pretty artificial in general; in “real life” you have the ability to go around online and look for sources.

I dunno how you work, but I'd be getting raised eyebrows from people watching my hit google for any question required of my role.

I mean, we're not talking about using calculators here, and we're not talking about vocational training (How do I do $FOO, in docker? In K8s? How do I write a GH runner? Basically any question that involves some million-dollar company's product).

We're talking about college stuff; you absolutely should not be allowed to look up linked lists for the first time during an exam, copy the implementation from wikipedia, port it to your language and move on.

In the real world, we want people who mostly know what to do. The real world is time-constrained (you could spend 2 hours learning to do what they thought you could do based on your diploma, but they'd be pissed to find out that you need to look up everything because that's how you coasted through college).

Exam situations are more like the real world than take-home assignments: High-stakes, high-pressure, timeboxed.

If your real world does not have high-stakes, high-pressure, timeboxed tasks, then you really haven't had much contact outside of your bubble.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#279

Post by Cthulhu_ »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #30

When I did my Computer Science degree the vast majority of courses were 50% final, 30% midterm - even programming exams were hand written, proctored by TAs in class or in the gymnasium - assignments/labs/projects were a small part of your grade but if you didn’t do them the likelihood you’d pass the term exams was pretty darn low. We already had AI proof education.

Yeah none of the problems with AI in education are new; some schools (or news articles) are just panicking because they gave their students laptops (and/or made them a mandatory part) and now the genie is out of the bottle.

But there were already heaps of problems with tech in education before AI.

My CS projects were often pretty free-form so in theory I could've just used AI - today, anyway. But a big part of the grade was a face to face interview where you actually had to talk about the code you wrote. Anyone lifting along with other people who didn't actually do any work would fall through then.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#280

Post by Cthulhu_ »

nsyne wrote: post #55
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #30

When I did my Computer Science degree the vast majority of courses were 50% final, 30% midterm - even programming exams were hand written, proctored by TAs in class or in the gymnasium - assignments/labs/projects were a small part of your grade but if you didn’t do them the likelihood you’d pass the term exams was pretty darn low. We already had AI proof education.

I personally dislike placing a heavy emphasis on exams. Assignments/projects have been consistently the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the courses I've taken so far in university. It's a shame that they are also way more susceptible to cheating with AI.

I also think assignments and projects work best, but only for the percentage of students that are self-motivated, curious, interested, etc.

Unfortunately a lot aren't, they feel like they have to be there or these courses are the only path for them to get a good job. And unfortunately they end up in the workforce, too. You'll often see teams with one good developer and a lot of hangers-on.

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