Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine • Hacker News Board

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

#641

Post by throwaway2037 » Wed, May 28, 2025, 11:04 AM UTC

BrenBarn wrote: post #633

throwaway2037 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can say from some working experience in the United States that way too many jobs require a university degree. I remember being an intern or my first job after uni (which I struggled a great deal to complete), looking around and thinking: "There is no way that all of these people need a uni degree to do their jobs." I couldn't believe how easy work was compared to my uni studies (it was hell). I felt like I was play…

I agree. I tend to think though that the best way forward is to ignore all of these education issues and just focus on raising the floor. The difference between a "good-paying job" and a "not-so-good-paying job" should be small, and everyone should be able to have a good life regardless of what job they have. Then people can choose to go to college if they want to learn about things, and maybe to learn about subjects…

Well, see Germany. They do it pretty well. The expected lifetime earnings difference between university graduates and someone who took the trade/apprenticeship route is very similar. Does anyone know of other countries that are similar? Is it also true in Austria or Switzerland?

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

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Post by kaashif » Wed, May 28, 2025, 12:52 PM UTC

armchairhacker wrote: post #432

aaplok wrote: post #61

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> 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…

> They should be a baseline, not a challenge for students who understand the material.

You've made this normative statement but not explained why.

I think exams should not require huge amounts of computation (I agree) but should contain a range of questions - from easy to very difficult - so that the best and average students can be differentiated.

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

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Post by jsnider3 » Wed, May 28, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #369

vkou wrote: post #275

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> Were the 3 tests administered on 3 separate occasions, so nobody caught you repeatedly cheating the same way? I imagine that it would be utterly trivial for two people to nearly-undetectably cheat in this way, by both of them simply writing the other person's name on their exam.

My impression was that in high school, girls and boys had pretty distinct handwriting. Not sure if that impression is accurate though, or if it's true of mathematical writing.

Yes, high school boys and girls have clearly distinct handwriting.

If you're just filling in bubbles on a scantron, then handwriting isn't very visible and each person can just write their own name on the scantron they're submitting as their own.

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

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Post by DrillShopper » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:05 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #212

DrillShopper wrote: post #122

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> Since when did universities care almost solely about renevnue and growth? Since endowments got huge.

Could you explain this more? At first glace, a large endowment should either free you from worrying about revenue or move your focus to managing an endowment with a school as a side hustle.

A large endowment requires more management, so you bring in a finance department to manage it. With what metric are those employees going to be evaluated, given that there is always going to be someone who will want the stability of a government job? It's not going to be "just maintain, don't worry". It's going to be "who can get us the most ROI?".

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

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Post by sota_pop » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:56 PM UTC

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 haven’t personally tried it, but the high-level demos of “khanmigo” created by khan academy seem really promising. I’ll always have a special place in my heart (and brain) for the work of Sal Khan and the folks at khan academy.

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

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Post by ecb_penguin » Wed, May 28, 2025, 3:11 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #630

ecb_penguin wrote: post #629

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> 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.

> It seems like you have equated "excel" with "must thrive under pressure"

Thriving and excelling are not that far apart :).

Thrive: grow or develop well Excel: be exceptionally good at or proficient in an activity

> It is not the single most important skill

Nobody said it was!

> everyone must be filtered on

It's a data point. Exam scores don't matter when you apply for a job, or do anything else in life.

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

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Post by vonneumannstan » Wed, May 28, 2025, 3:55 PM UTC

hirvi74 wrote: post #617

vonneumannstan wrote: post #450

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Its a problem of incentives. For many courses the psets make up a large chunk of your grade. Grades determine your suitability for graduate school, internships, jobs, etc. So if your final goal is one of those then you are highly incentivized to get high grades, not necessarily to learn the material.

I think you somewhat touched upon what I believe is the root of the problem: > highly incentivized to get high grades, not necessarily to learn the material Based on my own experiences and observations, I think grading is a far larger issue than cheating. I am not convinced that good grades are necessarily reflective of enrichment nor how much material has been learned. If a person makes the a high grade in a particu…

>Based on my own experiences and observations, I think grading is a far larger issue than cheating. I am not convinced that good grades are necessarily reflective of enrichment nor how much material has been learned. If a person makes the a high grade in a particular class, what does that actually mean?

Exactly. Grades and learning have become decoupled.

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

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Post by Snowfield9571 » Wed, May 28, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

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…

One can memorize a piano piece, write out the notes on a grand staff and tell you all the different musical patterns in it, but if they never put there hands on the keys they won’t be able to play it. Rote learning is part of learning. This trope that’s gotten popular that if you teach concepts the rest will follow is just false. You need both.

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

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Post by gr4vityWall » Wed, May 28, 2025, 6:57 PM UTC

california-og wrote: post #266

BrenBarn wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that pressure as well. I find that a lot of the problems we have with AI are in fact AI exposing problems in other aspects of our society. In this case, one problem is that the people who do the teaching and know what needs to be learned are the faculty, but the decisions about how to teach are made by administrators. And another problem is that colleges are treating "make money" as a goal. These problems exist…

I totally agree. I think the neo-liberal university model is the real culprit. Where I live, Universities get money for each student who graduates. This is up to 100k euros for a new doctorate. This means that the University and its admin want as many students to graduate as possible. The (BA&MA) students also want to graduate in target time: if they do, they get a huge part of their student loans forgiven. What has…

> Some thesises had hallucinated sources, some had AI slop blogs as sources, the texts are robotic and boring. But should I fail them, out of principle on what the ideal University should be?

I don't think you should fail them - instead, give them feedback on how to improve their thesis themselves, and how to make better use of tools like ChatGPT.

If instead of flat out failing to turn in their thesis, instead they are submitting work that needs more iteration due to bad use of AI, that sounds like a net win to me. The latter can be turned into something useful.

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

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Post by voilavilla » Wed, May 28, 2025, 7:30 PM UTC

phito wrote: post #636

voilavilla wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me that studying a collection of every test over the years, without knowing what questions will be on the exam is... actually learning? >_<

Not really. I had fellow students who understood nothing, could not program at all, but could tell you the answer to question 6 of the 2015 Java exam because they had memorized it all.

Then I would hire that person to be a requirements & specifications archival expert! ;)