Implications of AI to schools • Hacker News Board

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#361

Post by raincole » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #335

raincole wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the opposite. > focused upon memorization and regurgitation This is what is easy to test in-class. Teachers worry about AI because they do not just care about memorization. Before AI, being able to write cohesive essays about a subject is a good proxy to prove your understanding beyond simple memorization. Now it's gone. A lazy, irresponsible teacher who only cares about memorization will just grade students via…

Again, the essay you're talking about is the "regurgitation." Who do you think will "learn" archery quicker? The kid writing an essay about it or the kid shooting a bow?

If it's your definition of "regurgitation," then I consider "regurgitation" the most important part of learning.

> Who do you think will "learn" archery quicker? The kid writing an essay about it or the kid shooting a bow?

The kid who imitates good archer's posture and motion.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#362

Post by nkrisc » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:13 PM UTC

lucideng wrote: post #351

To me the solution is: Ban homework. All projects, essays, tests, etc are done at school on air-gapped machines or written by hand. Work is monitored by the teacher with video surveillance in 'test halls'. Cell phones can be kept in a small locker. If the student needs to be reached, a parent or whomever can call the school. Internet research should be done in a separate environment, printed out, then taken to the 'w…

Assign homework that, if one actually does the work themselves, will help them hone the skills they'll need for the in-class assessment.

Then allow students who want their homework evaluated for feedback to turn it in, but no homework will be graded.

This relegates the use of AI to personal choice of learning style and any misuse of AI is only hurting the student.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#363

Post by HDThoreaun » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

lucideng wrote: post #351

To me the solution is: Ban homework. All projects, essays, tests, etc are done at school on air-gapped machines or written by hand. Work is monitored by the teacher with video surveillance in 'test halls'. Cell phones can be kept in a small locker. If the student needs to be reached, a parent or whomever can call the school. Internet research should be done in a separate environment, printed out, then taken to the 'w…

The problem with this strategy is that homework is mostly a tool for learning, not checking progress. Most teachers use homework as a way to get an extra hour or two of learning in each week for the students. If we remove it there will be less learning time available. So you’re gonna have to expand the school day or school year which means more teachers which is expensive.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#364

Post by polynomial » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #258

edwcross wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always stunned by how much teachers can accuse without proof and invert the "innocent until proven guilty". Honestly, students should have a course in "how the justice system works" (or at least should work). So should the teachers. Student unions and similar entities should exist and be ready to intervene to help students in such situations. This is nothing new, AI will just make this happen more often, revealing ho…

It’s strange watching people put so much faith in these so called “AI detection tools”. Nobody really knows how they work yet they’re treated like flawless judges. In practice they’re black boxes that quietly decide who gets flagged for “fraud”, and because the tool said so everyone pretends it must be true. The result is a neat illusion that all the “cheaters” were caught, when in reality the system is mostly just p…

Famously, a popular AI detector "determined" the Declaration of Independence was written by AI.

https://decrypt.co/286121/ai-detectors-fail-reliability-risk...

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#365

Post by HDThoreaun » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

polyrand wrote: post #281

There is too much focus on students cheating with AI and not enough on the other side of the equation: teachers. I've seen assignments that were clearly graded by ChatGPT. The signs are obvious: suggestions that are unrelated to the topic or corrections for points the student actually included. But of course, you can't 100% prove it. It's creating a strange feedback loop: students use an LLM to write the essay, and t…

When I was in high school none of my teachers actually read any of the homework we turned in. They all skimmed it, maybe read the opening and closing paragraph if it was an essay. So I guess the question is if having an ai grade it is better than having a teacher look at it for 15 seconds, because that’s the real alternative.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#366

Post by rdudek » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:19 PM UTC

ubj wrote: post #7

One of my students recently came to me with an interesting dilemma. His sister had written (without AI tools) an essay for another class, and her teacher told her that an "AI detection tool" had classified it as having been written by AI with "100% confidence". He was going to give her a zero on the assignment. Putting aside the ludicrous confidence score, the student's question was: how could his sister convince the…

This stuff is getting more pervasive too. I'm working on my Master's degree right now and any code I submit, I make sure it has spelling mistakes and make it god awful because I don't want to get flagged by some 3rd party utility that checks if it was AI generated or copied from someone else.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#367

Post by gspencley » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

darkwater wrote: post #238

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that the cheating student didn't know that he was copying answers from someone who was doing poorly. It was third graders after all; one wouldn't necessarily expect them to be able to pick the best target every time.

Oh. That would have never crossed my mind! So the cheater student was copying from GP who had worse results, and when they both redid it all by themselves the cheater answered correctly, and GP did not. How the heck is that even possible? :o

> How the heck is that even possible? :o

Because what the cheater is trying to accomplish is to avoid having to think.

It's an act motivated by either laziness, apathy or rebellion (or some combination thereof). Not motivated by trying to get a good grade.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#368

Post by tpdly » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

FuckButtons wrote: post #325

Balgair wrote: post #311

Again, AI is not getting rid of degrees or learning or education. It's getting rid of cheap methods. Scantrons and bluebooks were always a way that made it cheap for institutions to produce results. Now those methods kinda seem silly, right? 500 person freshman lectures seem kinda absurd now, right? Teaching via adjuncts that had 3 days notice for the class and are paid nothing is kinda scammy, right? R1s professors…

Hurray! We’ve just made education only viable for the wealthy! Good job everyone, I can see this technology revolution is already living up to its promise of distributing wealth and power more evenly throughout society.

I just looked up some numbers for UCLA as an example. 5k faculty (and another 30k on staff)— so thats a pessimistic ratio of 1 to 9.

If you imagine students take 4 classes per semester and faculty teach 4 per semester… it seems stunningly feasible.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#369

Post by ghaff » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #256

amrocha wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re gonna have to talk about your work to people that matter at some point in your life. You can’t keep hiding behind being an introvert your whole life.

1. I'm not introvert :-) 2. Speaking about your work in front of 1-2-5 people is one thing, but being tested in front of an entire class (30 people?) is a totally different thing.

In high school English, someone (rotating order) had to give a 5-10 minute talk about something in front of the class every week/class. Seems like a pretty good idea in general.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#370

Post by seanw265 » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

vondur wrote: post #10

ubj wrote: post #7

One of my students recently came to me with an interesting dilemma. His sister had written (without AI tools) an essay for another class, and her teacher told her that an "AI detection tool" had classified it as having been written by AI with "100% confidence". He was going to give her a zero on the assignment. Putting aside the ludicrous confidence score, the student's question was: how could his sister convince the…

I agree. Most campuses use a product called Turnitin, which was originally designed to check for plagiarism. Now they claim it can detect AI-generated content with about 80% accuracy, but I don’t think anyone here believes that.

If they are serious they should realize that "80% accuracy" is almost meaningless for this kind of classifier. They should publish a confusion matrix if they haven't already.