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How University Students Use Claude

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Re: How University Students Use Claude

#371

Post by anon35 »

el_benhameen wrote: post #320
enjo wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's literally "let me paste the assignment into ChatGPT and see what it spits out, change a few words and submit that". My wife is an accounting professor. For many years her battle was with students using Chegg and the like. They would submit roughly correct answers but because she would rotate the underlying numbers they would always be wrong in a provably cheating way. This made up 5-8% of her students. Now she…

I wonder to what extent this is students who would have stuck it out now taking the easy way and to what extent it’s students who would have just failed now trying to stick it out.

This is an extremely important question, and you’ve phrased it nicely.

We’re either handicapping our brightest, or boosting our dumbest. One part is concerning, the other encouraging .

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#372

Post by HPsquared »

deepsun wrote: post #329
cellularmitosis wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just grade solely based on live performance? (quizzes and tests) Homework would still be assigned as a learning tool, but has no impact on your grade.

I've heard that's how studying is done in Oxford/Cambridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutorial_system

Funnily enough, the best use of AI in education is to serve as exactly this kind of tutor. This is the future of education.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#373

Post by 9rx »

Stubbs wrote: post #365
samuel wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this students don't pass, do they? I don't think that's a particularly hard concern. It will take a bit more, but will learn the lesson (or drop out). I'm more worried about those who will learn to solve the problems with the help of an LLM, but can't do anything without one. Those will go under the radar, unnoticed, and the problem is, how bad is it, actually? I would say that a lot, but then I realize I'm p…

As someone already said, parents used to be concerned that kids wouldn't be able to solve maths problems without a calculator, and it's the same problem, but there's a difference between solving problems _with_ LLMs, and having LLMs solve it _for you_. I don't see the former as that much of a problem.

> there's a difference between solving problems _with_ LLMs, and having LLMs solve it _for you_.

If there is a difference, then fundamentally LLMs cannot solve problems for you. They can only apply transformations using already known operators. No different than a calculator, except with exponentially more built-in functions.

But I'm not sure that there is a difference. A problem is only a problem if you recognize it, and once you recognize a problem then anything else that is involved along the way towards finding a solution is merely helping you solve it. If a "problem" is solved for you, it was never a problem. So, for each statement to have any practical meaning, they must be interpreted with equivalency.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#374

Post by oerdier »

chrisvalleybay wrote: post #348
_tom_ wrote: post #321

No one seems to be talking about the fact that we need to change the definition of cheating. People's careers are going to be filled with AI. College needs to prepare them for that reality, not to get jobs that are now extinct. If they are never going to have to program without AI, what's the point in teaching them to do it? It's like expecting them to do arithmetic by hand. No one does. For every class, teachers nee…

I believe we need to practice critical thinking through actual effort. Doing arithmetic by hand and working through problems ourselves builds intuition in ways that shortcuts can't. I'm grateful I grew up without LLMs, as the struggle to organize and express my thoughts on paper developed mental muscles I still rely on today. Some perspiration is necessary for genuine learning—the difficulty is actually part of the v…

Critical thinking is not a generic/standalone skill that you can practise targetedly. As in, critical thinking doesn't translate across knowledge domains. To think critically you need extensive knowledge of the domain in question; that's one reason why memorizing facts will always remain necessary, despite search engines and LLMs.

At best what you can learn specifically regarding critical thinking are some rules of thumb such as "compare at least three sources" and "ask yourself who benefits".

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#375

Post by miningape »

vmilner wrote: post #347
deepsun wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that's how studying is done in Oxford/Cambridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutorial_system

Certainly with maths you’re marked almost totally on written exams, but even if that weren’t true you’re also required to go over example sheets (hard homework questions that don’t form part of the final mark) with a tutor in two-student sessions so it’d be completely obvious if you were relying on AI.

I really like oral exams on top of regular exams. The teacher can ask questions and dive into specific areas - it'll be obvious who is just using LLMs to answer the questions vs those who use LLMs to tutor them.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#376

Post by namaria »

gh0stcat wrote: post #241
kibwen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irreducible answer to "why should I" is that it makes you ever-more-increasingly reliant on a teetering tower of fragile and interdependent supply chains furnished by for-profit companies who are all too eager to rake you over the coals to fulfill basic cognitive functions. Like, Socrates may have been against writing because he thought it made your memory weak, but at least I, an individual, am perfectly capable…

Why do people keep parroting this reduction of Socrates' thoughts... I don't think it was just as simple as he thought writing was bad. And we already know that writing isn't everything, anyone who as done any study of a craft can tell you that reading and writing don't teach you the feel of the art form, but can also nonetheless aid in the study. It's not black and white, even though people like to make it out to be…

Thank you for bringing light to this.

I think it makes a very relevant point to us as well. The value of doing the work yourself is in internalizing and developing one's own cognition. The argument of offloading to the LLM to me sounds link arguing one should bring a forklift to the gym

Yes, it would be much less tiresome and you'd be able to lift orders of magnitude more weights. But is the goal of the gym to more efficiently lift as much weight as possible, or to tire oneself and thus develop muscles?

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#377

Post by oerdier »

9rx wrote: post #358
samuel wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this students don't pass, do they? I don't think that's a particularly hard concern. It will take a bit more, but will learn the lesson (or drop out). I'm more worried about those who will learn to solve the problems with the help of an LLM, but can't do anything without one. Those will go under the radar, unnoticed, and the problem is, how bad is it, actually? I would say that a lot, but then I realize I'm p…

Back in my day they worried about kids not being able to solve problems without a calculator, because you won't always have a calculator in your pocket. ...But then.

Not being able to solve basic math problems in your mind (without a calculator) is still a problem. "Because you won't always have a calculator with you" just was the wrong argument.

You'll acquire advanced knowledge and skills much, much faster (and sometimes only) if you have the base knowledge and skills readily available in your mind. If you're learning about linear algebra but you have to type in every simple multiplication of numbers into a calculator...

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#378

Post by stevenhuang »

oerdier wrote: post #374
chrisvalleybay wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe we need to practice critical thinking through actual effort. Doing arithmetic by hand and working through problems ourselves builds intuition in ways that shortcuts can't. I'm grateful I grew up without LLMs, as the struggle to organize and express my thoughts on paper developed mental muscles I still rely on today. Some perspiration is necessary for genuine learning—the difficulty is actually part of the v…

Critical thinking is not a generic/standalone skill that you can practise targetedly. As in, critical thinking doesn't translate across knowledge domains. To think critically you need extensive knowledge of the domain in question; that's one reason why memorizing facts will always remain necessary, despite search engines and LLMs. At best what you can learn specifically regarding critical thinking are some rules of t…

I think you'd find many would disagree with each of those claims.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#379

Post by oerdier »

moltar wrote: post #93
dtnewman wrote: post #14

> A common question is: “how much are students using AI to cheat?” That’s hard to answer, especially as we don’t know the specific educational context where each of Claude’s responses is being used. I built a popular product that helps teachers with this problem. Yes, it's "hard to answer", but let's be honest... it's a very very widespread problem. I've talked to hundreds of teachers about this and it's a ubiquitous…

I think it’s finally time to just stop the homework. All school work must be done within the walls of the school. What are we teaching our children? It’s ok to do more work at home? There are countries that have no homework and they do just fine.

There are such legal, cultural and economic differences between countries that no homework might work in one country but not at all in another.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#380

Post by namaria »

lunarboy wrote: post #99
moojacob wrote: post #86

How can I, as a student, avoid hindering my learning with language models? I use Claude, a lot. I’ll upload the slides and ask questions. I’ve talked to Claude for hours trying to break down a problem. I think I’m learning more. But what I think might not be what’s happening. In one of my machine learning classes, cheating is a huge issue. People are using LMs to answer multiple choice questions on quizzes that are o…

This sounds fine? Copy pasting LLM output without understanding is a short term dopamine hit that only hurts you long term if you don't understand it. If you struggle first, or strategically ping-pong with the LLM to arrive at the answer, and can ultimately understand the underlying reasoning.. why not use it? Of course the problem is the much lower barrier for that to turn into cutting corners or full on cheating, b…

> can ultimately understand the underlying reasoning

This is at the root of the Dunnin-Kruger effect. When you read an explanation you feel like you understand it. But it's an illusion, because you never developed the underlying cognition, you just saw the end result.

Learning is not about arriving at the result, or knowing the answers. These are by products of the process of learning. If you just short cut to the end by products, you get the appearance of learning. And you might be able to play the system and come out with a diploma. But you didn't actually develop cognitive skills at all.

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