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How University Students Use Claude

anthropic.com

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Re: How University Students Use Claude

#41

Post by nyeah »

bko wrote: post #35
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…

When modern search became more available, a lot of people said there's no point of rote memorization as you can just do a Google search. That's more or less accepted today. Whenever we have a new technology there's a response "why do I need to learn X if I can always do Y", and more or less, it has proven true, although not immediately. For instance, I'm not too concerned about my child's ability to write very legibl…

Spell check isn't really adequate. You get a page full of correctly spelled words, but they're the wrong words.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#42

Post by delusional »

bko wrote: post #35
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…

When modern search became more available, a lot of people said there's no point of rote memorization as you can just do a Google search. That's more or less accepted today. Whenever we have a new technology there's a response "why do I need to learn X if I can always do Y", and more or less, it has proven true, although not immediately. For instance, I'm not too concerned about my child's ability to write very legibl…

"More or less" is doing a lot of work there. School, at least where I am, still spends the first year getting children to memorize the order of the numbers from 1-20 and if there's an even or odd number of a thing on a picture.

Do you google if 5 is less than 6 or do you just memorize that?

If you believe that creativity is not based on a foundation of memorization and experience (which is just memorization) you need to reflect on the connection between those.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#43

Post by nonethewiser »

vunderba wrote: post #33
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've been calling this out since the rise of ChatGPT: "The real danger lies in their seductive nature - over how tempting it becomes to immediately reach for the LLM to provide an answer, rather than taking a few moments to quietly ponder the problem on your own. By reaching for it to solve any problem at nearly an instinctual level you are completely failing to cultivate an intrinsically valuable skill - that of cri…

Somewhat agree.

I agree in principal - the process of problem solving is the important part.

However I think LLMs make you do more of this because of what you can offload to the LLM. You can offload the simpler things. But for the complex questions that cut across multiple domains and have a lot of ambiguity? You're still going to have to sit down and think about it. Maybe once you've broken it into sufficiently smaller problems you can use the LLM.

If we're worried about abstract problem solving skills that doesnt really go away with better tools. It goes away when we arent the ones using the tools.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#44

Post by noitpmeder »

bko wrote: post #35
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…

When modern search became more available, a lot of people said there's no point of rote memorization as you can just do a Google search. That's more or less accepted today. Whenever we have a new technology there's a response "why do I need to learn X if I can always do Y", and more or less, it has proven true, although not immediately. For instance, I'm not too concerned about my child's ability to write very legibl…

This is an insane take.

The issue is that, when presented with a situation that requires writing legibly, spelling well, or reading a map, WITHOUT their AI assistants, they will fall apart.

The AI becomes their brain, such that they cannot function without it.

I'd never want to work with someone who is this reliant on technology.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#45

Post by bluefirebrand »

fourseventy wrote: post #22
bluefirebrand wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We certainly improve productivity I think this is really still up for debate We produce more output certainly but if it's overall lower quality than previous output is that really "improved productivity"? There has to be a tipping point somewhere, where faster output of low quality work is actually decreasing productivity due to the efforts now required to keep the tower of garbage from toppling

It's not up for debate. Ask any programmer if LLMs improve productivity and the answer is 100% yes.

I am a programmer and my opinion is that all of the AI tooling my company is making me use gets in the way about as often as it helps. It's probably overall a net negative, because any code it produces for me takes longer for me to review and ensure correctness as it would to just write it

Does my opinion count?

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#46

Post by fallinditch »

yieldcrv wrote: post #5
stv_123 wrote: post #2

Interesting article, but I think it downplays the incidence of students using Claude as an alternative to building foundational skills. I could easily see conversations that they outline as "Collaborative" primarily being a user walking Claude through multi-part problems or asking it to produce justifications for answers that students add to assignments.

> I think it downplays the incidence of students using Claude as an alternative to building foundational skills I think people will get more utility out of education programs that allow them to be productive with AI, at the expense of foundational knowledge Universities have a different purpose and are tone deaf to why their students use universities for the last century: which is that the corporate sector decided un…

Yes, AI tools have shifted the education paradigm and cognition requirements. This is a 'threat' to universities, but I would also argue that it's an opportunity for universities to reinvent the experience of further education.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#47

Post by AlexandrB »

lblume wrote: post #31
brunocroh wrote: post #20

I simply don't waste my time reading an AD as an article. I take this as seriously as I would if McDonald's published articles about how much weight people lose eating at McDonald's.

If you had read the article, you would have been able to see that the conclusions don't really align with any economic goals Anthropic might have.

I think the point is that the situation is probably worse than what Anthropic is presenting here. So if the conclusions are just damaging, the reality must be truly damning.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#48

Post by HDThoreaun »

bko wrote: post #35
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…

When modern search became more available, a lot of people said there's no point of rote memorization as you can just do a Google search. That's more or less accepted today. Whenever we have a new technology there's a response "why do I need to learn X if I can always do Y", and more or less, it has proven true, although not immediately. For instance, I'm not too concerned about my child's ability to write very legibl…

It’s all about critical thinking. The answer to your kid is that LLMs are a tool and until they run the entire economy there will still need to be people with critical thinking skills making decisions. Not every task at school helps hone critical thinking but many of them do.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#49

Post by qwertox »

ozarkerD wrote: post #24

I loved asking questions as a kid. To the point of annoying adults. I would have loved to sit and ask these AI questions about all kinds of interests when I was young.

I'm pretty sure that kids at the age of 4 would get an amazing intelligence boost compared to their peers later when they are around 8 years old.

They will clearly recognize other kids which did not have an AI to talk with at that stage when curiosity really blossoms.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#50

Post by AlexandrB »

ikesau wrote: post #28
brunocroh wrote: post #20

I simply don't waste my time reading an AD as an article. I take this as seriously as I would if McDonald's published articles about how much weight people lose eating at McDonald's.

It's more like an analysis of what items people order from McDonald's, using McDonald's own data which is otherwise very difficult to collect. Your loss!

This is why I go to cigarette companies for analysis of the impact of smoking on users. They have the most data!
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