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How University Students Use Claude

anthropic.com

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Re: How University Students Use Claude

#511

Post by borg16 »

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…

here is an idea, curious what others think of this:

split the entire coursework into two parts:

part 1 - students are prohibited from using AI. Have the exams be on physical papers than digital ones requiring use of laptop/computer. I know this adds burden on corrections and evaluations of these answers, but I think this provides a raw answer to someone's understanding of concepts being taught in the class.

part2 - students are allowed, and even encouraged to use LLMs. And they are evaluated based on the overall quality of the answer, keeping in mind that a non zero portion of this was generated using an LLM. Here the credit should be given to the factual correctness of the answer (and if the student is capable of verifying the LLM output).

Have the final grade be some form of weighted average of a student's scores in these 2 parts.

note: This is a raw thought that just occurred to me while reading this thread, and I have not had the chance to ruminate on it.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#512

Post by lordnacho »

oytis wrote: post #492
lordnacho wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect schools spend a lot less time on arithmetic than they used to, however. You used to _actually_ need to do the arithmetic, now you just need to understand when a calculator is not giving you what you expected. (Not that this is being taught either, lol) You can get to the higher order thinking sooner than if you spent years grinding multiplication tables.

> you just need to understand when a calculator is not giving you what you expected How do you do that if you can't do arithmetic by hand though? At most, when working with integers, you can count digits to check if the order of magnitude is correct.

You can do arithmetic by hand without being fast or accurate. It's still useful to check that calculations are correct, it's just slow for the ancient use of tallying up a bill.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#513

Post by yamazakiwi »

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'm more interested in memory and knowledge retention in general and how AI can assist. How many times have you heard from people that they are doing rote memorization and will "data dump" test information once a course is over. These tools are less to blame than the motivators and systems that are suppose to be engaging students in real learning and the benefits of a struggle.

Another problem is there is so much in technology, I just can't remember everything after years of exposure to so many spaces. Not being able to recall information you used to know is frustrating and having AI to remind you of details is very useful. I see it as an amplifying tool, not a replacement for knowledge. I'm sure there are some prolific note taking memory tricksters out there but I'm not one of them.

I frequently forget information over time and it's nice to have a tool to remind me of how UDP, RTP, and SIP routing work when I haven't been in the comm or network space for a while.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#514

Post by hackyhacky »

Ray20 wrote: post #509
hackyhacky wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're skipping over a critical step, which is that our society allocated resources based on the labor value that an individual provides. If we free up everyone to do anything, they're not providing labor any more, so they get no resources. In other words, society needs to change in big ways, and I don't know how or if it will do that.

>If we free up everyone to do anything Not anything, but something useful. And in exchange for that useful they'll get resources (which will become more abundant).

Huh? If AI can do any job cheaper and better than a person can, why would anyone hire a person? What "useful" skill could a person exchange for resources in an era when computers write code, drive cars, fight wars, and cook food?

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#515

Post by nextos »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #513
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'm more interested in memory and knowledge retention in general and how AI can assist. How many times have you heard from people that they are doing rote memorization and will "data dump" test information once a course is over. These tools are less to blame than the motivators and systems that are suppose to be engaging students in real learning and the benefits of a struggle. Another problem is there is so much in…

My CS undergrad school used to let students look up documentation during coding exams. Most courses had a 3-5 hour coding challenge where you had to make substantial changes to a course project you had developed. I think this could also be the right response to LLMs. Let students use whatever they want to use, and test true skills and understanding.

FWIW, exams testing rote learning without the ability to look up things would have been much easier. It was really stressful to sit down and make major changes to your project to satisfy new unit tests, which often targeted edge cases and big O complexity to crash your code.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#516

Post by andai »

jjmaestro wrote: post #443
andai wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a system based on randomness for a process that must occur deterministically is probably the wrong solution. I'm running into similar issues trying to use LLMs for logic and reasoning. They can do it (surprisingly well, once you disable the friendliness that prevents it), but you get a different random subset of correct answers every time. I don't know if setting temperature to 0 would help. You'd get the same…

> They can do it (surprisingly well, once you disable the friendliness that prevents it) ... Interesting! :D Do you mind sharing the prompt(s) that you use to do that? Thanks!!

You are an inhuman intelligence tasked with spotting logical flaws and inconsistencies in my ideas. Never agree with me unless my reasoning is watertight. Never use friendly or encouraging language. If I’m being vague, demand clarification. Your goal is not to help me feel good — it’s to help me think better.

Keep your responses short and to the point. Use the Socratic method when appropriate.

When enumerating assumptions, put them in a numbered list. Make the list items very short: full sentences not needed there.

---

I was trying to clone Gemini's "thinking", which I often found more useful than its actual output! I failed, but the result is interesting, and somewhat useful.

GPT 4o came up with the prompt. I was surprised by "never use friendly language", until I realized that avoiding hurting the user's feelings would prevent the model from telling the truth. So it seems to be necessary...

It's quite unpleasant to interact with, though. Gemini solves this problem by doing the "thinking" in a hidden box, and then presenting it to the user in soft language.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#517

Post by [deleted] »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #513
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'm more interested in memory and knowledge retention in general and how AI can assist. How many times have you heard from people that they are doing rote memorization and will "data dump" test information once a course is over. These tools are less to blame than the motivators and systems that are suppose to be engaging students in real learning and the benefits of a struggle. Another problem is there is so much in…

[deleted]

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#518

Post by yamazakiwi »

nextos wrote: post #515
yamazakiwi wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more interested in memory and knowledge retention in general and how AI can assist. How many times have you heard from people that they are doing rote memorization and will "data dump" test information once a course is over. These tools are less to blame than the motivators and systems that are suppose to be engaging students in real learning and the benefits of a struggle. Another problem is there is so much in…

My CS undergrad school used to let students look up documentation during coding exams. Most courses had a 3-5 hour coding challenge where you had to make substantial changes to a course project you had developed. I think this could also be the right response to LLMs. Let students use whatever they want to use, and test true skills and understanding. FWIW, exams testing rote learning without the ability to look up thi…

That is a great idea!

Most students would find getting their hands dirty in this way more valuable than reading about something from start to end.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#519

Post by calfuris »

foxglacier wrote: post #323
cellularmitosis wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just grade solely based on live performance? (quizzes and tests) Homework would still be assigned as a learning tool, but has no impact on your grade.

Because students wouldn't do the homework and would fail the quizzes. Students need to be pressured into learning and grades for doing the practice are a way. Don't pretend many students are self-motivated enough to follow the lecturer's instructions when there's no grade in it and insisting that "trust me, you won't learn if you don't do it".

My favorite math professor said "your homework is as many of the odd-numbered problems as you feel like you need to do to understand the material" and set a five minute quiz at the start of each lecture which counted as the homework grade. I can't speak for the other students, but I did more homework in his classes than any of the other math classes I took.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#520

Post by gnarlynarwhal42 »

wombatpm wrote: post #287
djhn wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a quote from a character in Heinlein’s fiction. A human character with a lifespan of over a thousand years. I too liked that quote and found it inspiring. Until I read the book, that is.

I know the character is Lazarus Long. Which book was this quote in?

Seems to be from the book "Time Enough for Love"
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