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Implications of AI to schools

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Re: Implications of AI to schools

#381

Post by SoftTalker »

nkrisc wrote: post #302
sfdlkj3jk342a wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the US has fallen behind in math, but where are you taking algebra in 3rd grade? We didn't get it until 8th..

My son is learning algebra in 2nd grade. They don’t call it “algebra” yet nor mention “variables”, but they’re working on questions like solving “4 + ? = 9”. He just goes to our local public elementary school.

Yeah I guess technically that's algebra but at that age it is based on memorization (you just learn that 4 + 5 = 9) and you're not actually using algebra to solve the problem e.g. "subtract 4 from both sides of the equation."

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#382

Post by eloisant »

somenameforme wrote: post #203
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 wouldn't mind seeing education return to its roots of being about learning instead of credentialization. In an age where having a degree is increasingly meaningless in part due to many places simply becoming thinly veiled diploma treadmills (which are somehow nonetheless accredited), this is probably more important than ever. This is doubly so if the AI impact extremists end up being correct. So why is the issue yo…

> In an age where having a degree is increasingly meaningless

I wish I would agree with you, but I think that having a degree (or rather the right degree) is more important than ever.

Basically grades exist to decide who gets a laid back high paying job, and who has to work 2 low paying labor intensive job just to live paycheck to paycheck.

As one teacher told me once: we could have all of you practice chess, make a big tournament and you get to choose your university based on your chess ranking. It wouldn't be any less stupid than the current system.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#383

Post by SoftTalker »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #329
huevosabio wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in college, there was a cheating scandal for the final exam where somehow people got their hands on the hardest question of the exam. The professor noticed it (presumably via seeing poor "show your work") and gave zero points on the question to everyone. And once you went to complain about your grade, she would ask you to explain the answer there in her office and work through the problem live. I thought i…

Story doesn't make sense. > the final exam where somehow people got their hands on the hardest question of the exam. They got the question but not the answer so they had to work it out before the test. They couldn't explain it later?

It's unstated as to whether they got the answer as well.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#384

Post by SoftTalker »

mavhc wrote: post #116
onion2k wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not great for the teacher though. They're the ones who will truly suffer from the proliferation of AI - increased complexity of work around spotting cheating 'solved' by a huge increase in time pressure. Faced with that teachers will have three options: accept AI detection as gospel without appeals and be accused of unfairness or being bad at the job by parents, spend time on appeals to the detriment of other du…

4. Use AI to talk to the student to find out if they understand. Tests were created to save money, more students per teacher, we're just going back to the older, actually useful, method of talking to people to see if they understand what they've been taught. You weren't asked to write an essay because someone wanted to read your essay, only to intuit that you've understood something

You were also asked to write an essay because to learn to write you have to ... write.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#385

Post by bmacho »

hamdingers wrote: post #341
snickerbockers wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why standardized testing gets so much pushback. Having the students do their work in a controlled environment is the obvious solution to AI and many other problems related to academic integrity. Its also the only way that students can actually be held to the same standards. When I was a freshman in college with a 3.4 highschool GPA, I was absolutely gobsmacked by how many kids with perfect >=…

> I still don't understand why standardized testing gets so much pushback. Goodhart's law.

Nah. Goodhart's law is literally just "if you play a matrix game don't announce your pick in advance". It is not a real law, or not different from common sense. (By matrix game I mean what wiki calls "Normal form game[0]", e.g. rock-paper-scissors or prisoner's dilemma.)

In education, regarding exams, Goodhart's law just means that you should randomize your test questions instead of telling the students the questions before the exam. Have a wide set of questions, randomize them. The only way for students to pass is to learn the material.

A randomized standardized test is not more susceptible to Goodhart's law than a randomized personal test. The latter however has many additional problems.

[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal-form_game

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#386

Post by SoftTalker »

pirates wrote: post #56
tyleo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had Turn It In mark my work as plagiarism some years ago and I had to fight for it. It was clear the teacher wasn’t doing their job and blindly following the tool. What happened is that I did a Q&A worksheet but in each section of my report I reiterated the question in italics before answering it. The reiterated questions of course came up as 100% plagiarism because they were just copied from the worksheet.

This matches my experience pretty well. My high school was using it 15 years ago and it was a spotty, inconsistent morass even back then. Our papers were turned in over the course of the semester, and late into the year you’d get flagged for “plagiarizing” your own earlier paper.

> you’d get flagged for “plagiarizing” your own earlier paper

Wow I'd have been screwed, so many of my high school papers were just rewrites and improvements on stuff I wrote in earlier years.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#387

Post by scruple »

ako wrote: post #379
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…

My son recently told me his teacher used him as an example for the class as someone who wrote a good piece himself. Teacher accused all the other students of using AI. He also told me that he had in fact used AI, but asked AI multiple times to simplify the text, and he had entered the simplified version. He liked the first version best, but was aware his teacher would consider it written by AI. Guess the teachers hav…

Further, what's to stop anyone from pumping text into an LLM and then re-writing it's output to match their own style, etc.?

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#388

Post by [deleted] »

ecshafer wrote: post #54
mercacona wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it's easy to shortcut AI plagiarism, but you need time. In most of the universities around the world (online universities especially), the number of students is way too big, while professors get more and more pressure on publishing and bureaucracy.

I did my masters in GaTech OMSCS (Chatgpt came out at the very end of my last semester). Tests were done with cameras on and it was recorded and then they were watched I think by TAs. Homework was done with automated checking and a plagiarism checker. Do you need to have in person proctoring via test centers or libraries? Video chats with professors? I am not sure. Projects are importants, but maybe they need to beco…

[deleted]

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#389

Post by SoftTalker »

theptip wrote: post #336
throwaway31131 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hinted to it but at what point are you basically giving individual oral exams to the entire class for every assignment? There are surveys where 80% of high school students self report using AI on assignments. I guess we could go back to giving exams soviet Russia style where you get a couple of questions that you have to answer orally in front of the whole class and that’s your grade. Not fun…

My current idea for this is to have AI administer the 1:1 oral exam. I’m quite confident this would work through grade school at least. For exams you’d need a proctored environment of some sort, say a row of conference booths so students can’t just bring notes. You’d want to have some system for ephemeral recording so the teachers can do a risk-based audit and sample some %, eg one-two questions from each student. Ho…

These days a teacher cannot ever be with a student in a 1:1 situation. At least not in K-12.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#390

Post by wombatpm »

ghaff wrote: post #330
array_key_first wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, in an ideal world we'd peer into the minds of people and compute what they know. But if we did that, our eyes would probably catch on fire like that lady in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We need some way to distill the unbelievable amount of data in human brains into something that can be processed in a reasonable amount of time. We need a measurement - a degree, a GPA, something. Imagine if in every job inter…

I did have interviews with a government agency many years ago that, among other things, involved a battery of tests including what I assume were foreign civil service exams. I got an offer though I didn't take it. But assuming in-person day long batteries of tests for universities and companies is probably not very practical. You can argue whether university is a very efficient use of time or money but it presumably…

Companies and governments use to do testing all the time. A number of lawsuits about those practices being discriminatory resulted in them going away.
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