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Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

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Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#361

Post by magicmicah85 »

acaloiar wrote: post #218
matwood wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't just suddenly materialize. From the current article In addition to overreliance on AI, Garcia also pointed out that many students are underprepared mathematically, a concern echoed by campus associate teaching professor Gireeja Ranade. From the article discussed the other week: Over three years — from fall 2021 to fall 2023 — the letter said, at least 20% of Berkeley first-semester calculus students who too…

> It didn't just suddenly materialize. A sudden materialization is what's depicted by the data. > It's been steadily getting worse. I don't believe this is accurate. Failing grades are what the observation entails, and the data clearly depict an abrupt change; not a gradual one. In the section titled "Failing grades in 3 CS classes skyrocket in spring 2026 ", there's a clear jump in failing grades for all cited cours…

The jump is very likely due to AI usage and lack of skills in mathematics. It seems like prerequisite classes are not being fulfilled.

"Ranade said students are expected to enter the course having taken classes on linear algebra, vector calculus and mathematical proofs. However, she found out in office hours that many students struggled with linear algebra, and was even more shocked when one student told her the linear algebra class they took at UC Berkeley had an “open-internet, open-AI policy” for homework and exams."

Also, this professor doesn't grade on curves? Could be very specific to this teacher. I don't know. Would be great to have more data but it is a big jump and could be very specific to this professor or perhaps this class.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#362

Post by sumtechguy »

camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

> Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well

I noticed this before LLMs became a thing. It was by accident. We had a team of programmers. All decent at what they do. The management said 'hey you want to learn another language we are going to be using it for these upcoming projects'. So we set up a self learned at your own pace class curriculum. Maybe 10-20 hours of school work if you sat and really dug in. Maybe 3 to 4 hours if you breeze thru it and do not care much. We set up weekly check-ins doing about 1 hour a week. Easy. Watch a 20-30 min of vid 20-30 mins of do homework come to check-in and talk about what you learned and help others if needed.

Now this is where I was disappointed. The first 'class' was 40 people. By the last there were 3. Those 3 I noticed always are the ones who dug in. The rest wanted a proctored classroom and someone to tell them what to do.

Actual genuine curiosity is rare I think. We have a lot of people who are decent at what they do. But do not really care about it. IF you do not care you are going to just push the button and get the answer.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#363

Post by aleph_minus_one »

techblueberry wrote: post #348
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. You go to a university because you are deeply interested in understanding the subject that you study. Doing the homework and the tests are just the "goalposts" to check for yourself whether you made progress on this. So, as long as you are not under time pressure (which you in…

What a delightful fantasy world you live in. Doesn’t sound very predictive of actual human behavior though.

> What a delightful fantasy world you live in.

I can really certify that this was my lived experience. In the math degree course, basically everyone who was not incredibly passionate about mathematics (NB: "passionate" does not necessary imply "great academic achievements") changed their major or decided for a different kind of tertiary education.

Former co-students who attended the same university and degree course had the same experience.

I guess the reason was that it was a decent university in a "boring" town where learning for your studies was one of the more exciting things that you could do.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#364

Post by Altern4tiveAcc »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #330
camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

> If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. You go to a university because you are deeply interested in understanding the subject that you study. Doing the homework and the tests are just the "goalposts" to check for yourself whether you made progress on this. So, as long as you are not under time pressure (which you in…

> You go to a university because you are deeply interested in understanding the subject that you study.

I don't think I've met anyone who fits that description. The ones deeply interested in the subject would likely skip college anyway if not for future economic prospects.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#365

Post by cmrdporcupine »

SecretDreams wrote: post #347
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If, on the other hand, LLMs help you with making much faster progress in understanding the subject that you study My experience is that they uncomfortably do both. You can "understand" something conceptually quicker -- like you have a new brain-muscle-thing that lets you cut through the hard difficult tedious corners to get to the meat of the matter. But then you also can become reliant on it, and have difficulty d…

It's two fold. They're learning and understanding more things, but at a very surface level and without the nuance and ability to actually use the knowledge because they have none of the muscle memory and hard work associated with learning it. You can use AI or the internet to learn the basics of how a gas engine works in a couple of minutes. But you'd be incapable of actually working on a gas engine or designing one.…

If used correctly though I think the models in fact can be useful for gaining depth. With the right prompting they can actually perform a pedagogic role. One must just resist the temptation to have them do the work for you.

I've used my phone taking pictures + Codex + a PDF of my tractor manual to help me effectively diagnose and manage repairs in my tractor. (Though these models remain terrible at the physical world, getting physical orientations wrong, front back etc. Much like myself)

Likewise I had Gemini help me tear down my mower's carburetor and diagnose issues there.

(So much so that I've wondered about building some kind of "shop buddy" -- some kind of durable laptop and set of cameras ... on a cart. Running models that have access to manuals and cameras and TTS and voice input? "Hey, shop buddy, look at this fuse and tell me what is before and after it in the electrical system.")

This is helping me learn and do something I couldn't really effectively do before by walking me through steps.

My youngest has had Gemini write math questions for them, to help study. Not do the math, but write questions.

In the end it comes down to prompting, like everything.

Which makes me wonder if the answer for higher education is just to provide the students with specific coding agents they're specifically allowed to use -- ones that would push the student through problem solving and working on the problem together.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#366

Post by Ratelman »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #331
raphman wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A smart approach that does not solve the AI problem - actually flipped classrooms work worse now due to AI usage. My own experience with flipped classrooms (which seems to be shared by quite a few people who have tried it out): they only work well if all students actually read/watch the materials beforehand. In small, advanced courses, intrinsic motivation may be sufficient - but in most cases you need some extrinsic…

Research has shown that testing is far and away the most valuable academic tool. Just have a quiz every day. In fact, have _TWO_ quizzes, one at the start of class and one at the end, and take the higher of the two scores. In between the first quiz and the second, work through problems with the students designed to help people that bombed the first test figure out how to pass the second.

I actually like this idea - makes sense at face value - as long as they design the test in such a way that it aptly applies the knowledge instead of just learning for the sake of passing test like questions...

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#367

Post by nkrisc »

deadbabe wrote: post #294

It’s not that they can’t think deeply, these are smart people. It’s that there is no reward for doing so and in fact there is punishment . The punishment is that for all the thinking you do, someone else will arrive at the same result as you in less time, or maybe even a better result. You don’t get rewarded for the effort of thinking, only for the end result. Naturally, even if you are an intelligent individual, you…

But you are rewarded for the effort: you're rewarded with knowledge. Whether or not you value that reward depends on the individual.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#368

Post by etiam »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #330
camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

> If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. You go to a university because you are deeply interested in understanding the subject that you study. Doing the homework and the tests are just the "goalposts" to check for yourself whether you made progress on this. So, as long as you are not under time pressure (which you in…

It's easy to fool oneself into thinking one knows the subject because somebody explained it well / demonstrated skills, and it made perfect sense.

Unfortunately that, on its own, very much does not translate to being able to explain it all oneself, or to having the skills.

Ease and norms of outsourcing to software invites and amplifies this trap, I think.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#369

Post by eueje »

cj wrote: post #295
eueje wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ However, when looking at muscle, once you have it you don't need to use it as much in order to maintain it” No.. this depends on how much muscle you have. The appropriate comparison is mass and density of knowledge/understanding vs muscle. There’s not a chance in hell you will retain mass and dense muscle without pushing the body hard. Just in the same way you will not retain very deep understanding of things unles…

Building muscle is much harder than maintaining muscle. And if you went 3 years without exercising, you'll be able to get your muscles back much quicker than had you never had the muscle before. It's pretty comparable to skills. You don't need to practice as hard to maintain a skill than you do to build it. And if you let the skill atrophy, it's much easier to recover the skill compared to building it from scratch.

Again you are not understanding the comparison.

I’ve got 20 inch lean arms - I know far more about muscle building and retention than you. I train just as hard to maintain them as I did to get them there.

The people who say “oh it’s easy to maintain” LOL it’s easy to maintain 16 inch arms.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#370

Post by cj »

eueje wrote: post #369
cj wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building muscle is much harder than maintaining muscle. And if you went 3 years without exercising, you'll be able to get your muscles back much quicker than had you never had the muscle before. It's pretty comparable to skills. You don't need to practice as hard to maintain a skill than you do to build it. And if you let the skill atrophy, it's much easier to recover the skill compared to building it from scratch.

Again you are not understanding the comparison. I’ve got 20 inch lean arms - I know far more about muscle building and retention than you. I train just as hard to maintain them as I did to get them there. The people who say “oh it’s easy to maintain” LOL it’s easy to maintain 16 inch arms.

> I know far more about muscle building and retention than you

I am a competitive bodybuilder…

> I train just as hard to maintain them as I did to get them there.

Are you enhanced? Were you enhanced when you built the 20” arms? If so, yes I agree.

Edit: With 20" arms, there's nearly 0% chance you're natural. You can't compare your enhanced experience to naturals.

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