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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

#361

Post by thedevilslawyer »

godelski wrote: post #347
djoldman wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continue to assign homework. Tie the homework to in class assessment such that if a student can do well on homework, without AI assistance, they are expected to do well on tests conducted in class, again without AI assistance. Set homework grades to be a relatively small percentage of the final grade. With the above framework, a student is incentivized to complete homework. If they cheat themselves and use AI, they'l…

I think this is easier said than done. It pretty much sounds like you're suggesting there are pop-quizes. We've seen that style of teaching before. IME it isn't as effective. Though I'm quite suspect that a big part of that is simply coordination with other classes. All it takes is one teacher who thinks their class is the most important and not give enough wiggle room so that there is room for triage and expected li…

It is easily done as well. In-class pen and paper assessments are a reality, and execution is well known. No rocket science.

Don't allow assessments to be gamed and everything will follow.

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

#362

Post by HPsquared »

azemetre wrote: post #353
HPsquared wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs democratize personal tutoring. AI can massively improve education, if done right.

There is nothing democratic about a technology being forced upon people. No one voted for this. IME when VC says “democratizing” you can substitute “degrading” for the real meaning.

Regular schools are already a forced experience. You're basically imprisoned for 12 years. A range of tutoring services seems like a massive upgrade in freedom.

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

#363

Post by azemetre »

HPsquared wrote: post #362
azemetre wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing democratic about a technology being forced upon people. No one voted for this. IME when VC says “democratizing” you can substitute “degrading” for the real meaning.

Regular schools are already a forced experience. You're basically imprisoned for 12 years. A range of tutoring services seems like a massive upgrade in freedom.

No, public schooling is something that lifts people out of poverty. 100 years ago public schooling only want to 6th or 8th grade in most states.

Equating government welfare programs to better society with for profit systems is frankly disgusting. One has provided real empowerment and nearly erased illiteracy rates, the only is simply a system used to extract wealth for a few individuals and not society.

I do not trust any system that has shown to be a degrading experience to raising literacy or teaching others to critically think for themselves.

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

#364

Post by godelski »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #361
godelski wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is easier said than done. It pretty much sounds like you're suggesting there are pop-quizes. We've seen that style of teaching before. IME it isn't as effective. Though I'm quite suspect that a big part of that is simply coordination with other classes. All it takes is one teacher who thinks their class is the most important and not give enough wiggle room so that there is room for triage and expected li…

It is easily done as well. In-class pen and paper assessments are a reality, and execution is well known. No rocket science. Don't allow assessments to be gamed and everything will follow.

  > Don't allow assessments to be gamed and everything will follow.
That's the hard part...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

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

#365

Post by DiscourseFan »

jeremyjh wrote: post #251
DiscourseFan wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

Did your kids spend a year doing virtual classes? Our district here did a pretty good job compared to most, but for many kids it was basically a lost year.

No I was a teacher before I started working in this industry

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

#366

Post by Planktonne »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #351
Planktonne wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't work particularly well; it's the same with getting students to mark each other's work and then having the teacher quality control. It's much faster to grade/give feedback on a piece of work than it is to verify the accuracy/comprehensiveness of existing grading/feedback.

Teachers who grade essays are not even reading them most of the time though. Maybe theyll read the first and last sentence and quickly skim the rest. The LLM will at least read it. The reality is the current education system doesnt work particularly well. Too many students not enough teachers

That's not true at all. Grading an essay requires reading it.

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

#367

Post by HDThoreaun »

Planktonne wrote: post #366
HDThoreaun wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers who grade essays are not even reading them most of the time though. Maybe theyll read the first and last sentence and quickly skim the rest. The LLM will at least read it. The reality is the current education system doesnt work particularly well. Too many students not enough teachers

That's not true at all. Grading an essay requires reading it.

Doing it well does, sure. That just means that most teachers are not grading essays well. Obviously just speaking from anecdotes here but my ~10 teachers in high school who graded essays only 2 actually read them

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

#368

Post by GianFabien »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #114
GianFabien wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the experience with calculators portends a dismal future. Before calculators, i.e. slide rules, log tables, hand arithmetic: by the time engineers completed their university education most could approximate relevant parameters in their work to +/- 5% or the actual value. Slide rules would give you a result to 3 (rarely 4) significant decimals, but you needed to know the expected result to within half an orde…

I agree completely. The amount of college educated people that do not now how to calculate a tip in their head is terrifying. I can understand not being able to get 17.5% down to the penny. But 10%, 15% or 20% can be calculated in your head faster than I can get my phone out. This level of math is pretty basic. Its also worth saying that I was never described as a "math person". The number of people that will blindly…

Working with computers I mentally use a hybrid of BCD and binary arithmetic. e.g. for the 17.5%, I mentally move the decimal point to the left, drop the cents, add half and then half of that, i.e. 10% + 5% + 2.5%
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