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Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

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Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#321

Post by dirkc »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #300
sien wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia Universities that have remote study have places where people can do proctored exams in large cities. The course is done remotely but the exam, which is often 50%+ of the final grade, is done in a place that has proctored exams as a service. Can't this be done in the US as well ?

Can you tell us: Is "remote study" a relatively recent phenom in AU -- COVID era, or much older? I am curious to learn more. And, what is the history behind it? Was it created/supported because AU is so vast and many people a state might not live near the campus? Also: I think your suggestion is excellent. We may see this happen in the US if AI cheating gets out of control (which it well).

The same thing exists in South Africa, the university is called UNISA [1]. It has existed for a long time - my parents time. Lots of people that can't afford to go to university (as in, needs to earn an income) studies with them.

[1] - https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#322

Post by thresher »

sshine wrote: post #69

I teach computer science / programming, and I don't know what a good AI policy is. On the one hand, I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible. Once they're past this hurdle, they can mind their own business again. To them, AI is not…

I teach computer science / programming, and I know what a good AI policy is: No AI.

(Dramatic. AI is fine for upper-division courses, maybe. Absolutely no use for it in introductory courses.)

Our school converted a computer lab to a programming lab. Computers in the lab have editors/compilers/interpreters, and whitelist documentation, plus an internal server for grading and submission. No internet access otherwise. We've used it for one course so far with good results, and and extending it to more courses in the fall.

An upside: our exams are now auto-graded (professors are happy) and students get to compile/run/test code on exams (students are happy).

>Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible.

This is the real demon to vanquish. We're approaching course design differently now (a work in progress) to tie coding exams in the lab to the homework, so that solving the homework (worth a pittance of the grade) is direct preparation for the exam (the lion's share of the grade).

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#323

Post by timr »

falcor84 wrote: post #313
bee_rider wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sorta depends on the material… I always thought paper programming tests were dumb: when I was taking them and when I was proctoring/grading them. It is not that similar to writing a program in an IDE where it will tell you if you make a little mistake, and often help you work your way through it. We made it. But, that’s survivorship bias, right? We can’t really know how much potential has wasted.

Hear, hear! Doing programming on paper seems to me like assessing someone's skills in acrobatics by watching them do the motions in a zero-gravity environment. Without the affordances given by the computer, it's just not the same activity.

Computer science, the academic discipline, is to programming as mechanics is to bowling.

You can very easily test CS concepts on paper, and programming is demonstrated via group projects.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#324

Post by hyperbovine »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #229

My essay-writing process for my MBA was: - decide what I wanted to say about the subject, from the set of opinions I already possess - search for enough papers that could support that position. Don't read the papers, just scan the abstracts. - write the essay. Scan the reference papers for the specific bit of it that best supported the point I want to make. There was zero learning involved in this process. The produc…

> - search for enough papers that could support that position. Don't read the papers, just scan the abstracts.

Wrote wrote those papers? How did they learn to write them? At some point, somebody along the chain had to, you know, produce an actual independent thought.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#325

Post by neepi »

jmb99 wrote: post #190
MrDarcy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was I at university in a small window in time when a TI-89 and TI-92 was allowed? In the years since, I’ve only ever heard mention of older models, not newer ones which makes me wonder if this is a special case and situation where technology is frozen in time intentionally to foster learning.

I wasn’t allowed anything more complex than a Casio FX-300ES. Even my 991ES wasn’t allowed, let alone something like a TI83/4. This (from what I’ve heard) is pretty standard in Canadian universities for calc 1-3, linear algebra, discrete, etc.

Supposed to be the same thing in the UK but no one cares. In fact most of our students (undergrad mathematics) appear to have HP Prime now which has a full CAS built in. The questions are designed to break the CAS sometimes. Try expanding (a-2b)^1000 on a calculator to get a coefficient out. It gets stuck and hoses the whole calculator.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#326

Post by protocolture »

gchamonlive wrote: post #318
protocolture wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, its just calculators for all the other classes. And tbh, lots of people historically would have loved a calculator that could write an essay about shakespeare or help code a simple game.

It's how you approach it. You tell it to act as a tutor, it'll act as one. Tell it to solve your homework in the form of a poem, it'll do that. That's not just a calculator, even though it's just calculating, just as much as a computer isn't just a voltage switcher, even thought it's just switching voltages.

Sure but even if a graphics calculator could recite poetry, its application to the maths class is to crunch numbers.

You can ask chat gpt to pretend to be Julius Caesar, it still probably shouldnt be in an english exam.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#327

Post by jorvi »

california-og wrote: post #294
halgir wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some thesises had hallucinated sources, some had AI slop blogs as sources, the texts are robotic and boring. But should I fail them, out of principle on what the ideal University should be? No, you should fail them for turning in bad theses, just like you would before AI.

That's probably what should happen, but it's not what happens in reality. In grading I have to follow a very detailed grading matrix (made by some higher-ups) and the requirements for passing and getting the lowest grade are so incredibly low that it's almost impossible to fail, if the text even somewhat resembles a thesis. The only way I could fail a student, is if they cheated, plagiarised or fabricated stuff. The…

> The University is a student-factory

In The Netherlands, we have a three-tier tertiary system: MBO (practical job education / trades), HBO (college job education / applied college) and WO (scientific education / university).

A lot of the fancy jobs require WO. But in my opinion, WO is much too broad a program, because it tries to both create future high tier workers as well as researchers. The former would be served much better by a reduced, focused programme, which would leave more bandwidth for future researchers to get the 'true' university education they need.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#328

Post by AllegedAlec »

doug_durham wrote: post #234
math_dandy wrote: post #28

I teach math at a large university (30,000 students) and have also gone “back to the earth”, to pen-and-paper, proctored and exams. Students don’t seem to mind this reversion. The administration, however, doesn’t like this trend. They want all evaluation to be remote-friendly, so that the same course with the same evaluations can be given to students learning in person or enrolled online. Online enrollment is a huge…

Hand written essays are inherently ableist. I would be at a massive disadvantage. I grew up during the 60's, but handwriting was alway slow and error prone for me. As soon as I could use a word processor I blossomed. It's probably not as bad for mathematical derivations. I still do those by hand since they are more like drawing than expression.

> Hand written essays are inherently ableist

So is testing; people who don't have the skills don't do well. Hell, the entire concept of education is ableist towards learning impaired kids. Let's do away with it entirely.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#329

Post by CalRobert »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #299
avhception wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the outcomes might be a devaluation of the certifications offered in the public job marketplace.

I can say from some working experience in the United States that way too many jobs require a university degree. I remember being an intern or my first job after uni (which I struggled a great deal to complete), looking around and thinking: "There is no way that all of these people need a uni degree to do their jobs." I couldn't believe how easy work was compared to my uni studies (it was hell). I felt like I was play…

Then there's Europe, where making it easy to get a master's degree just let to jobs requiring people to waste time getting yet another unneeded degree.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#330

Post by ccppurcell »

sshine wrote: post #69

I teach computer science / programming, and I don't know what a good AI policy is. On the one hand, I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible. Once they're past this hurdle, they can mind their own business again. To them, AI is not…

If there is another course where students design their own programming language, maybe you could use the best of the previous year's. That way LLMs are unlikely to be able to (easily) produce correct syntax. Just a thought from someone who teaches in a totally different neck of the mathematical/computational woods.
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