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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

#621

Post by noisy_boy »

sshine wrote: post #589
noisy_boy wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, I've had teachers like that, who tell you that you're a "waste of life" and "what are you doing here?" and "you're dumb", so motivational. I'm sure GP isn't calling them dum-dum to their face. If they can't even do basic stuff, which seems to be their criteria here for the name calling, maybe a politely given reality-check isn't that bad. Some will wake up to the gravity of their situation and put in the hard…

> I'm sure GP isn't calling them dum-dum to their face. If they can't even do basic stuff, which seems to be their criteria here for the name calling, maybe a politely given reality-check isn't that bad. Some will wake up to the gravity of their situation and put in the hard work and surprise their teacher. I certainly am not out to hurt anyone. I have a great deal of sympathy for someone who spent 18 months learning…

When I was a student, my teachers basically didn't care; I may have not liked it then due to immaturity, but a blunt teacher would have been more beneficial to me than the apathetic ones I got.

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

#623

Post by qotgalaxy »

bongodongobob wrote: post #454
obscurette wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general – why I'd put my effort into visiting (and paying for) a school and learning in such case? That's not what schools are for. I can get any amount of grades I want from LLM myself.

Grading is already mechanical, it's just a human does it. I'm not sure what you're objecting to here.

[dead]

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

#624

Post by lowbloodsugar »

sshine wrote: post #592
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming with AI is the job now. That’s what you need to be teaching if you want your graduates to get a job programming. What’s changed is that “some working code” is no longer proof that a student understands the material. You’re going to need a new way to identify students that understand the material.

There really are two opposite policies at play: - Just say no to AI - Just embrace AI I ran one semester embracing AI, and... I don't know, I don't have enough to compare with, but clearly it leaves a lot of holes in people's understanding. They generate stuff that they don't understand. Maybe it's fine. But they're certainly worse programmers than I was after having spent the same time without LLMs.

I learned to program computers by reverse engineering. I don’t have a CS degree. I wonder if that’s what we need to teach kids now. The AI did this, but why? If the curriculum doesn’t change, then kids aren’t going to learn anything useful, because the AI can do the curriculum.

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

#625

Post by a_bonobo »

Balgair wrote: post #455
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 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 think this is where it's going to end up.

The masses get the cheap AI education. The elite get the expensive, small class, analog education. There won't be a middle class of education, as in the current system - too expensive for too little gain.

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

#626

Post by Footprint0521 »

> An infinitely patient digital tutor that can tackle any question…..You might feel like you are learning when querying a chatbot, but those intellectual gains are often illusory.

I get the shade here (kind of?) and have seen both sides in my life, but isn’t having a tutor exactly what you need to learn?

IMO, using it as an information butler is leagues different from a digital tutor. That’s the key— don’t bring forklifts to the gym lol

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

#627

Post by Footprint0521 »

brilee wrote: post #438
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.

Do you have capacity for more developers? I’ve been wanting to help make this for a long time

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

#628

Post by marcus_holmes »

TrackerFF wrote: post #303
marcus_holmes wrote: post #229

My essay-writing process for my MBA was: - decide what I wanted to say about the subject, from the set of opinions I already possess - search for enough papers that could support that position. Don't read the papers, just scan the abstracts. - write the essay. Scan the reference papers for the specific bit of it that best supported the point I want to make. There was zero learning involved in this process. The produc…

To be honest, that's a problem on your part. It is completely possible to write a paper on anything, using the scientific method as your framework. But the problem is that in many cases, the degrees (like MBA, which I too hold) are merely formalities to move up the corporate ladder, or pivot to something else. You don't get rewarded extra for actually doing science. And, yes, I've done the exact same thing you did, m…

Is there even such a thing as the "science of business"? One can form a hypothesis, and then conduct an experiment, but the experimental landscape is so messy that eliminating all other considerations is impossibly hard.

For example, there's a popular theory that the single major factor in startup success is timing - that the market is "ready" for ideas at specific times, and getting that timing right is the key factor in success. But it's impossible to predict when the market timing is right, you only find out in retrospect. How would you ever test this theory? There are so many other factors, half of which are outside the control of the experimenter, that you would have to conduct the experiment hundreds of time (effectively starting and failing at hundreds of startups) to exclude the confounding factors.

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

#629

Post by ecb_penguin »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #545
ecb_penguin wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 us…

> I think there's a meaningful distinction between high-pressure situations at work and exams in school

Sure, in school there is no real consequence. That's why it's important. School exams are orders of magnitude easier than the real world.

> "thrives under pressure" is not a universal quality everyone is expected to have or use

School isn't intended to imbue everyone with universal qualities. Some people will excel and some wont. The ones that excel will go on to work in situations where you must thrive under pressure.

> 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

This is a different discussions then.

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

#630

Post by JoshTriplett »

ecb_penguin wrote: post #629
JoshTriplett wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 us…

> I think there's a meaningful distinction between high-pressure situations at work and exams in school Sure, in school there is no real consequence. That's why it's important. School exams are orders of magnitude easier than the real world. > "thrives under pressure" is not a universal quality everyone is expected to have or use School isn't intended to imbue everyone with universal qualities. Some people will excel…

It seems like you have equated "excel" with "must thrive under pressure". That is precisely the point I am disputing. It's a skill, like any other. It is not the single most important skill everyone must have and everyone must be filtered on.
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