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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

#541

Post by hombre_fatal »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #538
Balgair wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've identified the main issue here: LLMs aren't destroying the University or the essay. LLMs are destroying the cheap University or essay. Cheap can mean a lot of things, like money or time or distance. But, if Universities want to maintain a standard, then they are going to have to work for it again. No more 300+ person freshman lectures (where everyone cheated anyways). No more take-home zoom exams. No m…

>I guess, I'm advocating for the Oxbridge/St. John's approach with under 10 class sizes where the proctor actually knows you and if you've done the work. And I know, that is not a cheap way to churn out degrees. I could understand US tuition if that were the case. These days with overworked adjuncts make it McDonalds at Michelin star prices.

Funnily enough I only had 10-person-classes when I paid $125 for summer courses in a community college between expensive uni semesters.

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

#542

Post by stonemetal12 »

MrDarcy wrote: post #89
baby_souffle wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I expect the system will only catch a small fraction of the cheating that occurs. It'll depend a lot on who/where/how is doing the screening and what tools (if any) are permitted. Remember that bogus program for TI8{3,4} series calculators that would clear the screen and print "MEMORY CLEAR"? If the proctor was just looking for that string and not actually jumping through the hoops to _actually_ clear the memory th…

Was I at university in a small window in time when a TI-89 and TI-92 was allowed? In the years since, I’ve only ever heard mention of older models, not newer ones which makes me wonder if this is a special case and situation where technology is frozen in time intentionally to foster learning.

They are not "older models" just lower end. TI-92 came out in 1995 and discontinued in in 1998. TI-83 was introduced in 1996 and discontinued in 2004. TI-89 came out in 1998 and was discontinued in 2004.

At my high school we were allowed to have TI-83s but not TI-89s, because 89s had built in CAS (computer algebra system) and could do your algebra homework for you. When I went to college I already had an 83 so I didn't feel the need to upgrade.

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

#543

Post by [deleted] »

plantwallshoe wrote: post #477

I’m enrolled in an undergraduate CS program as an experienced (10 year) dev. I find AI incredibly useful as a tutor. I usually ask it to grade my homework for me before I turn it in. I usually find I didn’t really understand some topic and the AI highlights this and helps set my understanding straight. Without it I would have just continued on with an incorrect understanding of the topic for 2-3 weeks while I wait fo…

[deleted]

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

#544

Post by wrs »

kamaal wrote: post #484
Aurornis wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conversations are always eye-opening for the number of people who don’t understand homework. You’re exactly right that it’s practice. The test is the test (obviously) and the homework is practice with a feedback loop (the grade). Giving people credit for homework helps because it gives students a chance to earn points outside of high pressure test times and it also encourages people to do the homework. A lot of…

>>You’re exactly right that it’s practice. Thinking is a incremental process, you make small changes to things, verify if they are logically consistent and work from there. What is to practice here? If you know something is true, practicing the mechanical aspects of it is text book definition of rote learning. This whole thing reads like the academic system thinks making new science(Math, Physics etc) is for special…

>Thinking is a incremental process, you make small changes to things, verify if they are logically consistent and work from there. >What is to practice here?

You just described the homework for a college-level math class (which will consist largely of proofs). That’s what you’re practicing.

Also, it’s 2025, if you want to discover new truths in math and science you’re going to need quite a lot of background material. We know a heck of a lot of old truths that you need to learn first.

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

#545

Post by JoshTriplett »

ecb_penguin wrote: post #525
JoshTriplett wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than a subset of interviews, what do you have in mind that has a structure similar to an exam? Because I'd agree with the comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44106325 .

> what do you have in mind that has a structure similar to an exam? All of life! An exam is a time boxed challenge. Sometimes it's open notes, sometimes it's not. I've had exams where I have to write an essay, and I've had exams where I've had to solve math problems. All things I've had to do in high pressure situations in my job. Solving problems with no help and a clock ticking happens a million times per day. We e…

I understood the point of your comment; I disagreed with it. I think there's a meaningful distinction between high-pressure situations at work and exams in school, sufficiently so that the latter is poor preparation for the former. More to the point, everyone is subjected to the latter, while "thrives under pressure" is not a universal quality everyone is expected to have or use. It's a useful skill, and it's more useful to have than to not have, but the same can be said of a thousand skills, and many of them are things I'd prioritize higher in a colleague or employee, given the choice.

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

#547

Post by xandrius »

squigz wrote: post #472
xtracto wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I was doing my BSc in Software Engineering, we had a teacher who did her Data Structure and Algorithms exams with pen and paper. On one of them, she basically wrote 4 coding problems (which would be solved in 4 short ~30 LOC). We had to write the answer with pen and paper, writing the whole program in C. And the teacher would score it by transcribing the verbatim text in her computer, and if it had one sing…

Yeah, this is absurd. And if you have poor handwriting, the chances of "syntax errors" goes up. My above comment is getting downvoted, and it's honestly a bit baffling. I'd be furious if I were paying tens of thousands of dollars to receive a university-level education in software engineering in 2025... and I had to write programs with pen and paper. It is so far detached from the reality of, not only the industry, b…

The professor is not actually compiling your code, the idea is to know whether you can pseudo code a solution, of course.

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

#548

Post by yazantapuz »

squigz wrote: post #416
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?

Yes, pen and paper.

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

#549

Post by selfselfgo »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #526
plantwallshoe wrote: post #477

I’m enrolled in an undergraduate CS program as an experienced (10 year) dev. I find AI incredibly useful as a tutor. I usually ask it to grade my homework for me before I turn it in. I usually find I didn’t really understand some topic and the AI highlights this and helps set my understanding straight. Without it I would have just continued on with an incorrect understanding of the topic for 2-3 weeks while I wait fo…

I have a friend who is self-medicating untreated adhd with street amphetamines and he talks about it similarly. I can't say with any certainty that either of you is doing anything wrong or even dangerous. But I do think you both are overconfident in your assessment of the risks.

[dead]

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

#550

Post by SoftTalker »

tgv wrote: post #476
Balgair wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've identified the main issue here: LLMs aren't destroying the University or the essay. LLMs are destroying the cheap University or essay. Cheap can mean a lot of things, like money or time or distance. But, if Universities want to maintain a standard, then they are going to have to work for it again. No more 300+ person freshman lectures (where everyone cheated anyways). No more take-home zoom exams. No m…

10 is a small number. There's a middle ground. When I studied, we had lectures for all students, and a similar amount of time in "work groups," as they were called. That resembled secondary education: one teacher, around 30 students, but those classes were mainly focused on applying the newly acquired knowledge, making exercises, asking questions, checking homework, etc. Later, I taught such classes for programming 1…

Very common. Large lecture with a professor, and small "discussion sections" with a grad student for Q/A, homework help, exam review.
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