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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

#301

Post by ilovecake1984 »

doug_durham wrote: post #116
randoments wrote: post #99

Reading all these comments, I feel like US universities are a joke. I had to do all the exams in person. 100% of the grade was decided at the exam. Millions of people graduated this way and they are fine. No students were harmed in the process.

So you didn't have to do any course work? No collaboration? No labs? I'm not aware of any University that doesn't have coursework outside of online diploma mills.

We had a token portion for the grade from coursework. Eg 10%. Its enough to force you to do it, but not enough to influence the grade too much.

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

#302

Post by fho »

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…

Yeah... We had those bulky TI Voyage 200 graphical calculators in school [1]. They could do everything the teachers could throw at us up to the point of having all but a few formulas build in.

I would say that definitely shaped me in a way where I rarely bother with the underlying details and tend to focus on how high level abstractions interact. [2]

[1] German "Mathe-LK", we could chose specializing in two things, for me it was math and computer science, the later being quite novel back in 2003. [2] I _do_ tend to specialize in things, but e.g. for LLMs or GLMMs, while I do have the capability to understand the technical details, I just don't bother.

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

#303

Post by lupire »

nradov wrote: post #210
WoodenChair wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your premise about why accurate evaluation matters, but your post comes across as pretty bitter. Unless you’re at the job with him, you really don’t know that it’s a “I just need to show up” job he has at Booz Allen. Perhaps he has other great traits like a high social or emotional intelligence that make him good at his job beyond whatever was being evaluated on those projects you helped him with.

I think you're missing the point. The majority of jobs at companies like Booz Allen are sort of like Kabuki theater and don't require any technical competence. The main responsibilities are to show up on time and present a certain image to customers.

I think you're missing the point because PP addressed that concern.

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

#304

Post by lupire »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #295
jimbokun wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s important to signaling to employers you have obtained skills useful to them. And for most students that’s all they really care about. If the companies stop valuing the diplomas, students will stop paying tuition to attend, and the universities eventually collapse.

This assumes employers will still exist. You can imagine a world where the Corporate or State AI handles education, tailors it to individual student levels and talents, and assigns work based on its own direct experience of a lifetime of interaction. You can also imagine that in that world where most humans would be redundant - unless the AI was optimising for human-to-human jobs and for evidence of unusual insight a…

You're telling me the path to an A is to hook up the Teacher AI to a Student AI.

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

#305

Post by lupire »

nradov wrote: post #144
stingraycharles wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly, I remember having to write Java and C++ by hand in college in the early 2000s. It was also a good test how well you knew the syntax.

Syntax seems like a stupid thing to test in university level courses. That's trade school stuff. And I don't mean that as a criticism of trade schools, they just have a different focus.

Syntax is a stupid thing to test in trade school. That's compiler stuff.

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

#306

Post by lupire »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #88
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.

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

My AI assistant is configured to monitor the face-side camera feed and switch windows when someone standing enters the frame.

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

#307

Post by lorenzhs »

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.

If you can't transfer the course's material onto new, unseen questions, then you might have memorised it, but you didn't understand it. Getting an A requires understanding, not rote memorisation.

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

#309

Post by altmanaltman »

phatskat wrote: post #214
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.

My networking final in high school was probably my favorite test taking experience - there was a small written portion on eg subnets, but the bulk of our grade was setting up a physical network, testing it, and leaving the room. Our teacher sabotaged three parts of our network - could be hardware, router misconfiguration, etc. when we came in we had iirc 20-ish minutes to diagnose and fix it. The best was when she ba…

Sounds more like a gameshow than education, like IT version of Hogwarts
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