AI, ChatGPT, and LLMs "have absolutely blown up what I try to accomplish with my teaching."

I asked teachers to tell me how AI has changed how they teach.

The response from teachers and university professors was overwhelming. In my entire career, I’ve rarely gotten so many email responses to a single article, and I have never gotten so many thoughtful and comprehensive responses.

One thing is clear: teachers are not OK.

They describe trying to grade “hybrid essays half written by students and half written by robots,” trying to teach Spanish to kids who don’t know the meaning of the words they’re trying to teach them in English, and students who use AI in the middle of conversation. They describe spending hours grading papers that took their students seconds to generate: “I’ve been thinking more and more about how much time I am almost certainly spending grading and writing feedback for papers that were not even written by the student,” one teacher told me. “That sure feels like bullshit.”

  • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
    103·
    2 days ago

    In my unqualified opinion having gone through academia to get a master’s degree in engineering, graded homework or assignments are way too simple for quantifying understanding of a subject.

    For what it’s worth I think, at least from my perspective having gone through a STEM education, it should be broken down into the following categories:

    Exams

    Open book, reference-sheet, or closed book depending on the subject and the desired objective.

    Closed book

    Closed book exams work well for simple questions where it is more about memorising a method or theory that will be required to be memorised when the subject is applied for quick thinking. For example V = I / R for calculating voltage, current, and resistance and Kirchoff’s law: the sum of all currents into and out of a node must equal zero.

    Then lots of these little questions and problems can be presented and it can be marked via a weighted measure of both how many you got correct and how many you did with no expectation that you would finish all of the questions exam paper.

    There should only be a one of these types of exams in a given academic year and it should make up the smallest percentage of the grade for the year.

    Reference Sheet

    Reference sheet exams work well as an in-between for when you want to test memorised knowledge of how to apply a method or theory but not memorising of what that theory is. For example, the quadratic formula for finding the roots of a quadratic equation.

    I’d say that a max of two exams of this type is suitable making up the next largest percentage of the grade and with the expectation that students can finish all the questions on the exam.

    Open Book

    Open book exams are perfect for essay style exams or exams with a few big problem questions which require the application of two or more theories / methods to get a (correct) answer.

    These exams should be the largest percentage of exam grades from the year as these are about the students demonstrating their ability to find the knowledge they need in their reference sources (text books, literary works, etc.) and apply it in a long form answer with lots of working out or justification shown. Finding and thinking critically about information is a more pertinent skill in the modern day than just memorisation.

    Coursework / Labwork

    This should be ongoing throughout the academic year with the workload co-ordinated between subject teachers to ensure the students aren’t overwhelmed perhaps split into half-year and quarter-year sections, with one solo piece and one group piece.

    It will allow the students to demonstrate group work and independent learning, with assistance from the teachers if the students require guidance. Ideally it should be a mixture of theoretical and practical with a written report of the outcomes or essay to reflect how the knowledge is applied in the world outside of academia.

    To combat an over-reliance on Wikipedia, ChatGPT, etc. a portfolio of marked up reference materials should also be submitted. This isn’t just citing a source in the correct format you found on Wikipedia, a copy of the page(s) with the relevant text highlighted or a website print out or photographs or videos, anything to show that you have gone and done the work.

    Depending on the subject, this should ideally be the largest contribution to your overall grade as it is the method that best demonstrates an understanding of a subject.

    Presentations

    This category encompasses everything from presenting and defending a thesis, demonstrating physical skill by showing something the student made, to delivering training of learnt knowledge.

    This is key because no matter the subject, a student should have some ability to pass on the knowledge they have learnt to other students.

    This assesment format has the most freedom in how the assessment should be performed and marked and will differ the most between subjects.

    Finding a balance between these is key but if this framework was applied throughout the whole of a student’s time in academia from primary school to university and give the students some agency in how they approach the learning then the education system would produce better students who are able to find how to engage with the subjects and therefore produce work to the best of their ability.

  • TankieTanuki [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    102·
    2 days ago

    Another option would be to do hand-written in-class essays, but I have a hard time asking that of students. I hardly write by hand anymore, so why would I demand they do so?

    Because first graders can do it?

    • youngalfred@lemm.ee
      8·
      2 days ago

      Yeah what’s with that? Doesn’t seem like they want to really try and fix the problem.

      Essay in class works. Doesn’t even have to be done in one sitting. We sometimes give students a sheet with 100 squares and they’re allowed to write 100 words to bring in.

      Granted it doesn’t work for everything. There are some assignments that can’t be done in that mode.
      But another great technique is interviewing students about their work. 99% of the time, they have no idea what they’ve written. And you grade accordingly.

  • Oni_eyes@sh.itjust.works
    93·
    2 days ago

    Any ai/chatgpt gets an automatic 0 and discipline from the school for me. I don’t care how well crafted the paper or assignment is.

    • Shayeta@feddit.orgEnglish
      131·
      2 days ago

      The problem is RELIABLY identifying fully/partially AI written work.

      • Oni_eyes@sh.itjust.works
        51·
        2 days ago

        It can be, but there are usually some pretty obvious signs in punctuation or vocabulary use. If it looks too good, I go ask them about what they mean in different parts of their response and that’s usually enough to identify who would be able to write it vs who used ai.

        Again, not 100% reliable but probably closer to 60-80. As I posted the last time this same link went around, I’m probably going to be moving to handwritten work and no phones in class to make it easier on myself.

  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.todayEnglish
    72·
    2 days ago

    Seems pretty simple to me: No graded homework. Grade based on test scores, quizzes, and in-class work.

    If a student needs heavily weighted homework/essay grades to offset mediocre test scores, they are a mediocre student and deserve their mediocre score.

    Hard work is not a replacement for talent.

    • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      Most real life challenges take more time than a test though. You can ace tests and be shit at anything real.

      My solution would be to give complex projects and have a mandatory presentation component with questions and discussion.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.todayEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        A presentation component is the kind of class work I mentioned.

        When you hire someone to do a job for you, do you want someone who will bust their ass all day and turns in mediocre work? O

        Or do you want someone who does the job quickly, efficiently, competently?

        When you’re working, do you want to bust your ass all day on something you are barely but technically qualified to perform? Or would you prefer to follow your passion?

        Heavily weighting effort for effort’s sake favors the talentless over the talented, and does neither any favors.

        • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
          2·
          2 days ago

          I will counter that even for talented people it’s important to learn work ethic and how to study.

          Even someone who is not naturally talented can learn topics by disciplined study, that too is an important skill in life.

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.todayEnglish
            2·
            20 hours ago

            “Work ethic” does not mean “appreciation of hard work for the sake of working hard”. “Work ethic” means, primarily, an appreciation for the maximization of your own productivity. That lesson is not being taught by compelling the student to spend excess time in a subject after achieving mastery.

            The issue isn’t that homework is assigned. The issue is when it is a heavily weighted component of the final grade. The instructor can go ahead and assign homework to allow the student to learn the topic through “disciplined study”, but the effectiveness of that study (their developed “talent” for the subject matter) determined from testing and other in-class work.

            The effort they put into their homework is irrelevant: they either master the subject matter, or they do not.

            Bringing this back to “work ethic”, their failure to achieve demonstrable mastery of the subject matter indicates the ineffectiveness of their “disciplined study”. They should learn from this that “hard work” is a means to an end. “Hard Work” is not an achievement in and of itself.

            Meanwhile, the students for whom such “study” is wasted effort are no longer unduly burdened. They are free to focus their time-intensive “disciplined studies” on subjects for which they need to make that effort, or they can take on additional non-burdened coursework. They can learn “work ethic” by mastering a greater variety of subjects, maximizing their productivity.

            • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
              1·
              18 hours ago

              I don’t think we should send kids out to break rocks just so they experience hard work, what I mean is kids should be challenged enough that they have to do research and learn to study so they can come up with strategies that are useful in life.

              I do agree, working hard for hard works sake isn’t super important, but being able to work hard when you need to is.

              And as an example, I found pretty much all school easy until university, when I got a harsh reality check that doing the coarse work the morning it was due was a bad strategy in life. Avoiding that type of outcome would be preferable.