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Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

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Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#411

Post by anal_reactor »

sshine wrote: post #69

I teach computer science / programming, and I don't know what a good AI policy is. On the one hand, I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible. Once they're past this hurdle, they can mind their own business again. To them, AI is not…

> their bullshit is a waste of life and won't lead them to a meaningful existence as a professional programmer

That's where you're wrong. Being a professional programmer is 10% programming, 40% office politics, and 50% project management. If your student managed to get halfway through college without any actual programming skills, they're perfect candidate, because they clearly own the 90% of skills needed to be a professional programmer.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#412

Post by aerhardt »

math_dandy wrote: post #28

I teach math at a large university (30,000 students) and have also gone “back to the earth”, to pen-and-paper, proctored and exams. Students don’t seem to mind this reversion. The administration, however, doesn’t like this trend. They want all evaluation to be remote-friendly, so that the same course with the same evaluations can be given to students learning in person or enrolled online. Online enrollment is a huge…

I have a Software Engineering degree from Harvard Extension and I had to take quite a few exams in physically proctored environments. I could very easily manage in Madrid and London. It is not too hard for either the institution or the student.

I am now doing an Online MSc in CompSci at Georgia Tech. The online evaluation and proctoring is fine. I’ve taken one rather math-heavy course (Simulation) and it worked. I see the program however is struggling with the online evaluation of certain subjects (like Graduate Algorithms).

I see your point that a professor might prefer to have physical evaluation processes. I personally wouldn’t begrudge the institution as long as they gave me options for proctoring (at my own expense even) or the course selection was large enough to pick alternatives.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#413

Post by [deleted] »

intended wrote: post #405
gonzobonzo wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Conversely, if we're noticing what people actually do, you'll realize close to zero people who want to pursue computer science are doing it on their own. That's not true though? Many people are trying to increase their CS skills through self-study. This topic even comes up a lot here, with people recommending the self-studying they've been doing in CS. > I've had many people tell me they're going to learn to progra…

Mooc completion rates hovered at single degree percents. The vast majority of people do not complete. The people who do complete are outliers. I suppose we can build for outliers, but then most people are just going to be ignored in this system, and if they have way to respond (vote), they won’t be happy about it.

[deleted]

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#414

Post by HPsquared »

intended wrote: post #405
gonzobonzo wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Conversely, if we're noticing what people actually do, you'll realize close to zero people who want to pursue computer science are doing it on their own. That's not true though? Many people are trying to increase their CS skills through self-study. This topic even comes up a lot here, with people recommending the self-studying they've been doing in CS. > I've had many people tell me they're going to learn to progra…

Mooc completion rates hovered at single degree percents. The vast majority of people do not complete. The people who do complete are outliers. I suppose we can build for outliers, but then most people are just going to be ignored in this system, and if they have way to respond (vote), they won’t be happy about it.

Most academic education is already built for outliers. Courses are designed around building up to the next generation of professors. Most knowledge that's taught in university is unused, basically wasted education for 99% of the "person-facts" that are picked up by the class.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#415

Post by mountainb »

aerhardt wrote: post #412
math_dandy wrote: post #28

I teach math at a large university (30,000 students) and have also gone “back to the earth”, to pen-and-paper, proctored and exams. Students don’t seem to mind this reversion. The administration, however, doesn’t like this trend. They want all evaluation to be remote-friendly, so that the same course with the same evaluations can be given to students learning in person or enrolled online. Online enrollment is a huge…

I have a Software Engineering degree from Harvard Extension and I had to take quite a few exams in physically proctored environments. I could very easily manage in Madrid and London. It is not too hard for either the institution or the student. I am now doing an Online MSc in CompSci at Georgia Tech. The online evaluation and proctoring is fine. I’ve taken one rather math-heavy course (Simulation) and it worked. I se…

Professional proctored testing centers exist in many locations around the world now. It's not that complicated to have a couple people at the front, a method for physically screening test-takers, providing lockers for personal possessions, providing computers for test administration, and protocols for checking multiple points of identity for each test taker.

This hybrid model is vastly preferable to "true" remote test taking in which they try to do remote proctoring to the student's home using a camera and other tools.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#416

Post by squigz »

yazantapuz wrote: post #349

I teach on a small university. These are some of the measures we take: - Hand written midterms and exams. - The students should explain how they designed and how they coded their solutions to programming exercises (we have 15-20 students per class, with more students it become more difficult). - Presentations of complex topics (after that the rest of the students should comment something, ask some question, anything…

I hope by 'handwritten' you don't literally mean pen and paper?

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#417

Post by bearjaws »

anal_reactor wrote: post #411
sshine wrote: post #69

I teach computer science / programming, and I don't know what a good AI policy is. On the one hand, I use AI extensively for my own learning, and it's helping me a lot. On the other hand, it gets work done quickly and poorly. Students mistake mandatory assignments for something they have to overcome as effortlessly as possible. Once they're past this hurdle, they can mind their own business again. To them, AI is not…

> their bullshit is a waste of life and won't lead them to a meaningful existence as a professional programmer That's where you're wrong. Being a professional programmer is 10% programming, 40% office politics, and 50% project management. If your student managed to get halfway through college without any actual programming skills, they're perfect candidate, because they clearly own the 90% of skills needed to be a pr…

> Being a professional programmer is 10% programming, 40% office politics, and 50% project management.

I'd say that really depends on your job.

At smaller companies, your job will likely be 60% programming at a minimum.

Only at ~100 employees do companies fall into lots of meetings and politics.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#418

Post by seb1204 »

dehrmann wrote: post #207
globalnode wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I'm studying its proctored-online. They have a custom browser and take over your computer while you're doing the exam. Creepy AF but saves travelling 1,300 km to sit an exam.

Wouldn't spending $300 on a laptop to cheat on an exam for a class you're paying thousands for make sense? It would probably improve your grade more than the text book.

You have to install an app that is a Bowser that at the same time locks the entire computer. Only this browser works. Install it, give it the needed admin permission and participate in your test or don't. This is also used in Australian schools for NAPLAN https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/understanding-online-assessmen...

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#419

Post by lamename »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #338
throwaway2037 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instructors and professors are required to be subject matter experts but many are not required to have a teaching certification or education-related degree. I attended two universities to get my computer science degree. The first was somewhat famous/prestigious, and I found most of the professors very unapproachable and cared little about "teaching well". The second was a no-name second tier public uni, but I found…

This is universal. I’ve had largely the same experience. There’s several reasons for this. 1. Stupider people are better teachers. Smart people are too smart to have any empathic experience on what it’s like to not get something. They assume the world is smart like them so they glaze over topics they found trivial but most people found confusing. 2. They don’t need to teach. If the student body is so smart then the s…

It's simpler than that. "Prestigious" universities emphasize research prestige over all else on faculty. Faculty optimize for it and some even delight in being "hard" (bad) teachers because they see it as beneath them.

Less "prestigious" universities apply less of that pressure.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#420

Post by TimorousBestie »

Aerroon wrote: post #144
TimorousBestie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Prompt Engineer” as a serious job title is very strange to me. I don’t have an explanation as to why it would be a learnable skill—there’s a little, but not a lot of insight into why an LLM does what it does.

It's an experience thing. It's not about knowing what LLMs/diffusion models specifically do, but rather about knowing the pitfalls that the models you use have. It's a bit like an audio engineer setting up your compressors and other filters. It's not difficult to fiddle with the settings, but knowing what numbers to input is not trivial. I think it's a kind of skill that we don't really know how to measure yet.

When an audio engineer tweaks the pass band of a filter, there’s a direct casual relationship between inputs and outputs. I can imagine an audio engineer learning what different filters and effects sound like. Almost all of them are linear systems, so composing effects is easy to understand.

None of this is true of an LLM. I believe there’s a little skill involved, but it’s nothing like tuning the pass band of a filter. LLMs are chaotic systems (they kinda have to be to mimic humans); that’s one of their benefits, but it’s also one of their curses.

Now, what a human can definitely do is convince themselves that they can control somewhat the outputs of a chaotic system. Rain prognostication is perhaps a better model of the prompt engineer than the audio mixer.

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