Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Implications of AI to schools

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 447 posts

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#431

Post by snickerbockers »

calgoo wrote: post #348
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 >=…

Well, for one thing, people learn differently and comparing a "standard" test result just measures how much crap someone has been able to cram into their brain. I compare it to people memorizing trivia for Jeopardy. Instead what needs to be tested and taught is critical thinking. Yes a general idea of history and others is important, but again its teaching people to think about those subject, not just memorizing a bu…

That's an argument against ranking students in a way which can potentially determine their entire lives, not an argument against standardized testing. The alternative to standardized testing is GPA which is an extremely subjective metric masquerading as some objective datapoint. Kids from different schools don't even have the same curricula let alone the same grading standards.

Also the teachers have a vested interest in giving the highest grades they can to as many students as they can without making it obvious that they aren't actually grading them fairly. i don't mean this as an accusation against anybody or some sort of insult against teachers as a whole, I merely mean to point out that this is what they are incentized to do by virtue of the fact that they are indirectly grading themselves by grading their students.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#432

Post by yberreby »

ghaff wrote: post #374
fhgh2 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some university systems it seems to be possible (I'm thinking of the khôlle system in France), so I don't see how the much better funded US system would not be able to do it.

Google tells me that is more of a system with preparatory schools in France. That said, there is more of an emphasis at some schools than others in individual interactions and seminars at the undergraduate collegiate level. I had some of that--just not mostly in engineering. In US elite schools, there's certainly time conflict for professors given research priorities.

Yes, this is part of the French prépa/CPGE system, which is the "standard" way for students to enter elite engineering schools. You do your first 2-3 years of undergrad in prépa.

Source: I did prépa.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#433

Post by tptacek »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #423
wombatpm wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, they used to do IQ tests which were found discriminatory (and don't correlate with job performance). Tests and problems directly or indirectly related to the job are not only legal, but are commonly used (leetcode).

IQ tests are perfectly legal in US hiring, but you're right, they're not done because they don't work well.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#434

Post by fhgh2 »

ghaff wrote: post #374
fhgh2 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some university systems it seems to be possible (I'm thinking of the khôlle system in France), so I don't see how the much better funded US system would not be able to do it.

Google tells me that is more of a system with preparatory schools in France. That said, there is more of an emphasis at some schools than others in individual interactions and seminars at the undergraduate collegiate level. I had some of that--just not mostly in engineering. In US elite schools, there's certainly time conflict for professors given research priorities.

This is a false friend translations - CPGE are undergraduate programs (that are prepatory to further studies at the graduate levels).

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#435

Post by ghaff »

fhgh2 wrote: post #434
ghaff wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google tells me that is more of a system with preparatory schools in France. That said, there is more of an emphasis at some schools than others in individual interactions and seminars at the undergraduate collegiate level. I had some of that--just not mostly in engineering. In US elite schools, there's certainly time conflict for professors given research priorities.

This is a false friend translations - CPGE are undergraduate programs (that are prepatory to further studies at the graduate levels).

It happens to some degree in the US. I got a Masters at a school (after a BS at another school) that had 4-year BA degrees that you could extend to an additional 1-year BE degree.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#436

Post by thinkindie »

fluorinerocket wrote: post #428
thinkindie wrote: post #115

this is a very American issue. In my entire student career in Italy, home assignments were never graded. Maybe you had a project or two through university, but otherwise I got all my grades for onsite tests.

When I was a kid in Italy in the late 80s early 90s the elentary school teachers also did "interrogazione" at the blackboard. That is individual kids would go up to the blackboard and get asked questions front of the rest of the class. Not sure if those two were just old school (they'd occasionally hit us/ pull ears too) but damn was I ahead of all the other kids when I came back to the USA Also the two teachers had…

I started my school career in 1991 and it was still a thing, but more during middle school.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#437

Post by addaon »

alpinisme wrote: post #293
somenameforme wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a world where some but not all programs are “diploma treadmills,” you would expect that the reputation of the bad credentials would go down and the good credentials would go up. In some sense if the credentials were really being used (and not just as a perfunctory first pass elimination), you’d expect the most elite programs to have the highest signal to noise ratio. But the market doesn’t seem to respond to chang…

> But the market doesn’t seem to respond to changes in credentialing capability

I mean, it certainly seems to. I've been in hiring roles in tech for 20-ish years, and have definitely seen changes in how college hire patterns based on credential values. Some schools have gone way up in how much we value their credentials (Waterloo), some have gone somewhat down (MIT), etc.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#438

Post by aleph_minus_one »

jwiz wrote: post #414
bmacho wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They promise education, but really they give you tests and scores And they predictin' prison population by who scoring the lowest

For those who are out of the loop:

Run The Jewels - Walking In The Snow

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-M15L4BTqI

> https://genius.com/Run-the-jewels-walking-in-the-snow-lyrics

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#439

Post by aleph_minus_one »

eloisant wrote: post #382
somenameforme wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Rather:

Grades exist to decide who gets a stressful, but rather high-paying job, and who has to work 2 low paying labor intensive job just to live paycheck to paycheck.

Laid-back high-paying job (unluckily) barely exist.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#440

Post by mgfist »

FloorEgg wrote: post #130
darkwater wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will take 0 time to have some (smarter?) student create an AI agent that mimick keystrokes.

Not 0 time, but yes, integrity preservation is an arms race. The best solutions are in student motivations and optimal pedagogical design. Students who want to learn, and learning systems that are optimized for rate of learning.

That's the best solution. The easiest solution is to move away from homework and into classwork.
Post reply on HN