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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

#431

Post by criddell »

jmmcd wrote: post #381
ghusto wrote: post #374

I've always though that the education system was broken and next to worthless. I've never felt that teachers ever tried to _teach_ me anything, certainly not how to think. In fact I saw most attempts at thought squashed because they didn't fit neatly into the syllabus (and so couldn't be graded). The fact that AI can do your homework should tell you how much your homework is worth. Teaching and learning are collabora…

> The fact that AI can do your homework should tell you how much your homework is worth. A lot of people who say this kind of thing have, frankly, a very shallow view of what homework is. A lot of homework can be easily done by AI, or by a calculator, or by Wikipedia, or by looking up the textbook. That doesn't invalidate it as homework at all. We're trying to scaffold skills in your brain. It also didn't invalidate…

> A lot of homework can be easily done by AI

Then maybe the homework assignment has been poorly chosen. I like how the article's author has decided to focus on the process and not the product and I think that's probably a good move.

I remember one of my kids' math teachers talked about wanting to switch to in inverted classroom. The kids would be asked to read a some part of their textbook as homework and then they would work through exercise sheets in class. To me, that seemed like a better way to teach math.

> But things have changed now.

Yep. Students are using AIs to do their homework and teachers are using AIs to grade.

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

#432

Post by armchairhacker »

aaplok wrote: post #61
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…

> Students don’t seem to mind this reversion. Those I ask are unanimously horrified that this is the choice they are given. They are devastated that the degree for which they are working hard is becoming worthless yet they all assert they don't want exams back. Many of them are neurodivergent who do miserably in exam conditions and in contrast excel in open tasks that allow them to explore, so my sample is biased but…

IMO exams should be on the easier side and not require much computing (mainly knowledge, and not unnecessary memorization). They should be a baseline, not a challenge for students who understand the material.

Students are more accurately measured via long, take-home projects, which are complicated enough that they can’t be entirely done by AI.

Unless the class is something that requires quick thinking on the job, in which case there should be “exams” that are live simulations. Ultimately, a student’s GPA should reflect their competence in the career (or possible careers) they’re in college for.

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

#434

Post by aerhardt »

fn-mote wrote: post #83
sien wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia Universities that have remote study have places where people can do proctored exams in large cities. The course is done remotely but the exam, which is often 50%+ of the final grade, is done in a place that has proctored exams as a service. Can't this be done in the US as well ?

Variations in this system are in active use in the US as well. Do you feel it is effective? It seems to me that there is a massive asymmetry in the war here: proctoring services have tiny incentives to catch cheaters. Cheaters have massive incentives to cheat. I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs.

I did a proctored exam for Harvard Extension at the British Council in Madrid. The staff is proctoring exams year-round for their in-house stuff so their motivation notwithstanding they know what they’re doing.

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

#435

Post by postalrat »

mac-mc wrote: post #198
math_dandy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proctoring services done well could be valuable, but it’s smaller rural and remote communities that would benefit most. Maybe these services could be offered by local schools, libraries, etc.

It does feel like easy side money for local schools and teachers that will have empty classrooms after 5pm.

Depends on how many students would use the service. If its just a 1 or 2 at a time then its going to be quite expensive for those students.

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

#436

Post by mrweasel »

ghusto wrote: post #374

I've always though that the education system was broken and next to worthless. I've never felt that teachers ever tried to _teach_ me anything, certainly not how to think. In fact I saw most attempts at thought squashed because they didn't fit neatly into the syllabus (and so couldn't be graded). The fact that AI can do your homework should tell you how much your homework is worth. Teaching and learning are collabora…

> The fact that AI can do your homework should tell you how much your homework is worth.

Homework is there to help you practise these things and have help you progress, find the areas where you're in need of help and more practise. It is collaborative, it's you, your fellow students and your teachers/professors.

I'm sorry that you had bad teachers, or had needs that wasn't being meet by the education system. That is something that should be addressed. I just don't think it's reasonable to completely dismiss a system that works for the majority. Being mad at the education system isn't really a good reason for say "AI/computers can do all these things, so why bother practising them?"

Schools should learn kids to think, but if the kids can't read or reasonably do basic math, then expecting them to have independent critical thinking seems a way of. I don't know about you, but one of the clear lessons in "problem math" in schools was to learn to reason about numbers and result, e.g. is it reasonable that a bridge span 43,000km? If not, you probably did something wrong in your calculations.

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

#437

Post by aerhardt »

ghusto wrote: post #374

I've always though that the education system was broken and next to worthless. I've never felt that teachers ever tried to _teach_ me anything, certainly not how to think. In fact I saw most attempts at thought squashed because they didn't fit neatly into the syllabus (and so couldn't be graded). The fact that AI can do your homework should tell you how much your homework is worth. Teaching and learning are collabora…

Current AI can ace math and programming psets at elite institutions, and yet prior to GPT not only did I learn loads from the homework, I often thoroughly enjoyed it too. I don’t see how you can make that logical leap.

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

#438

Post by brilee »

jumploops wrote: post #55

A bit off-topic, but I think AI has the potential to supercharge learning for the students of the future. Similar to Montessori, LLMs can help students who wander off in various directions. I remember often being “stuck” on some concept (usually in biology and chemistry), where the teacher would hand-wave something as truth, this dismissing my request for further depth. Of course, LLMs in the current educational land…

I am building such an AI tutoring experience, focusing on a Socratic style with product support for forking conversations onto tangents. Happy to add you to the waitlist, will probably publish an MVP in a few weeks.

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

#439

Post by bsenftner »

keiferski wrote: post #380
falcor84 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been my experience too, and I think it actually makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective - if the students are smart enough to learn well regardless of the level of the instruction, then the professors don't face any pressure to improve. Taking this to the extreme, I think that a top-tier university could do very well for itself by only providing a highly selective admission system, good facilities…

Universities don’t pick professors because they are good teachers, they pick them for their research publications. The fact that some professors end up being good teachers is almost coincidental.

For the most part, most universities, that is true. I was dissatisfied with the quality of my undergrad college education, and had the resources to try other universities. After two state schools, I figured out that Boston is The University City with 700,000 college students in the larger Boston area when I attended Boston University, MIT and Harvard. I found Boston's over sized undergraduate population created a credit sharing system for all the Boston area colleges, and if one wanted they could just walk onto anther campus and take their same class at your university. So, of course, I took at the classes I could at Harvard. I was formally an engineering student at BU, but as far as the professors at Harvard and MIT knew I was a student at their school. What I found was that at Harvard, and about 75% of the time at MIT, the professors are incredibly good, they are the educational best self actualizing as teachers. Every single Harvard professor took a personal interest in my learning their subject. I saw that no where else.

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

#440

Post by rtkwe »

dataflow wrote: post #220
rtkwe wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote proctoring programs at least are pretty rough these days. Their environment conditions are pretty exacting and then they expect you to just stare at the screen and think for basically the whole exam. Minor normal webcam problems can invalidate the entire exam through no fault of the examee or if you look around or fidget a lot it can trigger their cheat detection as well. I'm glad I finished my test taking tim…

What do they do if you don't have a webcam? Or if your webcam is broken? Or if you don't feel comfortable sharing your video?

You get a working web cam. It's a requirement for many remote proctoring services and if you don't have access to one you're screwed.

I get why they use it, without it there's no way to know you're not on your phone or another device cheating since they can only really see what's on the device you've installed the proctor software/rootkit on.

Sadly Linus Tech Tips video of him taking the CompTIA A+ exam has been taken down after threatening letters from CompTIA but they demanded a basically baren room, 360 photos and spotless web cams.

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