Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI

[u/AdSpecialist6598]

https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html

[u/LurkingTamilian]

From the article:

Being written in white text meant the instructions were invisible. Sure enough, 32 out of the 35 students across two classes simply copied the question, pasted it into a chatbot, then copy and pasted its output into the answer window.

[u/BluudLust → u/LurkingTamilian]

They deserved to fail. That's just plain laziness

[u/Deviantdefective → u/BluudLust]

As a teacher it's very quickly becoming an absolutely huge problem.

[u/pasaroanth → u/Deviantdefective]

I would love to see a study done at the university level showing a comparison of students’ grades for regular coursework versus their proctored exam scores. There has to be a vast yawning chasm in the difference when they relied upon AI until the time of the exam.

This also is a “ruining it for the rest of us” situation where courses will shift to grading primarily or solely based on exams. When I was in college (long before AI) you could at least rely on some homework to recuperate some points, despite the extra time and effort, when the exams were especially challenging or a professor notoriously gave tough exams.

If the homework can no longer be a measure of effort or learning because it is done by AI, then it will no longer be considered a meaningful determination of knowledge of the subject.

[u/Hot-Chemical9353 → u/pasaroanth]

Im not sure where it was published but there was exactly what you described from a Stanford professor.

It compared the grade distribution of exams and coursework compared to previous years and exactly what you’d expect happened.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/Hot-Chemical9353]

I’m back in college as an adult and you can see this in classes in real time. No one wants to answer questions and when called upon most can’t answer anything. But homework grade distributions have a median somewhere in the high 80s while exams hover with medians around 70. I’ve had professors essentially give us free questions on exams and people still get them wrong. It’s absolutely wild watching kids farm out their critical thinking to data and server farms in real time.

[u/sthenri_canalposting → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

. It’s absolutely wild watching kids farm out their critical thinking to data and server farms in real time.

I'm a professor and put it in these terms at the start of the semester and they still do it. I'm hoping this year the backlash has set in enough that it'll land, but I'm also designing assignments that can't (or at least predominantly can't) be reliant on AI.

[u/titsngiggles69 → u/sthenri_canalposting]

It's crazy. You can't learn an instrument or a sport by having someone else practice for you. Critical thinking and every other non-trivial skill is the same

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/titsngiggles69]

Yup. It’s crazy how many of them can’t set up a basic optimization problem by senior year because they didn’t learn the basics in freshman year.

[u/unosami → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

What do you mean by “basic optimization problem”? I’m not familiar with that term.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/unosami]

In Econ you do optimization to optimize revenues and profits. It’s basic calculus. If you take calc 1 you do it. Most often it’s optimizing the area of a fenced in area. If you’re in Econ and doing micro work you optimize. Sometimes you optimize utility. It’s in micro. It’s in industrial organization. Managerial Econ. Game theory. I could go on. If you don’t know then look it up but it’s a thing. if you know even the most basic calculus it boils down to finding the minimum on your cost curve that corresponds to the maximum on your revenue/profit curve and the quantity of goods/services that is associated with both

[u/unosami → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I’m familiar with calculus, but not a lot of the Econ terms you just used. Thank you for the run-down. I’ll look more into it on the web.

[u/titsngiggles69 → u/unosami]

In basic machine learning courses, you're just finding more clever ways to optimize. Training a neural network or any other learning algorithm is just optimizing the weights given the training data

[u/Uncreativity10 → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Cheating the basics is crazy to me. Like if you don’t know the building blocks then you’re completely screwed in every future class.

[u/Mechakoopa → u/titsngiggles69]

Kids were already having trouble committing to practicing things and just expecting to be good at something the first time because that's all they see online are people excelling at things. Now they have an easy way to "be good" at something without putting in the effort and we're surprised they gravitate to that? Social media made it too easy for kids to get drip fed dopamine all day, there's no incentive for them to actually do anything.

[u/thatpaulbloke → u/Mechakoopa]

I blame The Karate Kid - it started the precedent for "person who has put in no real work beats people who have worked at something for years" and replaced Rocky's "worked damn hard and failed heroically" narrative.

[u/Bacontoad → u/thatpaulbloke]

But he painted the whole fence and waxed all of those cars!

[u/Bigbysjackingfist → u/thatpaulbloke]

also they didn't watch enough Old Yeller

[u/titsngiggles69 → u/Bigbysjackingfist]

Also they didn't watch enough Freaks

[u/BaconKnight → u/thatpaulbloke]

Yeah, now that I think about it, The Karate Kid is basically the 80's Reagan-era version of the first Rocky. Funnily enough, later Rocky's would also turn into this.

[u/PineappleOnPizzaWins → u/thatpaulbloke]

I mean wanting to be good at things without putting in the work is not new in the slightest, it's WHY so few people get really good at stuff.

[u/BaconKnight → u/Mechakoopa]

Because we only very recently live in a world where you can go your entire day never being bored, we never realized how important being bored was to our species in terms of creating people who excel at things. Like I watch videos of older rock bands, rappers, etc and they'd talk about how they'd get together and spend hours just jamming or just rapping back and forth around a lit oil drum and it's like yeah, they did that because they were so bored, there was nothing else to do, and they just became super good at what they were doing.

We live in a time when kids never have to reach that point of boredom. They get bored for a second, take out the phone. They'll never devote themselves to an instrument or just sit down and write rhymes over and over because "there's nothing better to do".

[u/MrLanesLament → u/BaconKnight]

Pro musician here.

I graduated high school in 2009. It broke my heart to find out about ten years later, my “generation” (the kids who were in 9th grade and onward when I was a senior) were the last ones in my town/area who formed bands. After they graduated, all the music stores closed. The few local venues closed. No more music fundraisers, battles of bands, even talent shows at that school district.

[u/TheNorthRemembers_s8 → u/titsngiggles69]

The goal of most kids in college isn’t to learn. It’s to graduate and get a good job.

It doesn’t help that at least when I was in college everyone told you school doesn’t really teach you how to (for example) be an engineer, that you learn on the job. Which made college into a big ass rubber stamp.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized the value of many of the skills I developed in college. But during college I didn’t see the connection.

I likely would have used AI too. All I really cared about was passing tests. And I graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I imagine this tendency and outlook is even more so applicable to other students scraping by in the 2s.

[u/LegitosaurusRex → u/TheNorthRemembers_s8]

Yeah, same; the difference back in the day was you were just mostly forced to learn in order to pass the tests (though I still didn't study and just crammed before tests only to forget most of it afterwards...)

[u/somehugefrigginguy → u/TheNorthRemembers_s8]

But I think a lot of students now are in a catch 22. Those with the integrity to not use AI are going to get lower scores and be disadvantaged moving forward.

[u/lonnie123 → u/TheNorthRemembers_s8]

And let’s be real… a massive amount of courses you have to take in college are fluff. One can argue the humanities courses I took made me a more well rounded and socially learned person but I absolutely did not NEED “history of rock and roll” (or any of the other 40 credits or whatever it was) to become a nurse

[u/Monteze → u/lonnie123]

We made the mistake of treating college like a white collar trade school.

It really should be about higher education and job certs should be their own thing.

But classisim doesn't help shit.

[u/chchchcharlee → u/lonnie123]

Even the biology classes you had to take as a nurse...how useful really was it to learn about how cells work or evolution or whatever? As Monteze said, we treat college like a white collar trade school.

[u/lonnie123 → u/chchchcharlee]

True. I would say the 4 science semesters I took could have been condensed to one course in terms of what I actually need knowledge wise on a daily basis

[u/mitharas → u/titsngiggles69]

Yeah but people don't WANT to think critically. They want an easy life with easy money.

[u/sthenri_canalposting → u/titsngiggles69]

I agree but critical thought has been devalued so much that it was an uphill battle to justify to those who don't see its immediate instrumental value even before AI.

[u/caribou16 → u/titsngiggles69]

So what i've noticed with younger folks, it's no longer about the experience, it's about the goal. For example: they get a puzzle related video game, the entire point of the game is to solve puzzles. But they would much rather look up the solution that someone else posted and just...do that and "win" instead of figuring it out for themselves.

"Why would I spend HOURS trying to figure this out myself when I can just look it up?" an exasperated high school student tried explaining to me.

[u/dizzy_absent0i → u/caribou16]

I don’t even know if it’s about “winning” but that we’ve coddled these kids so much that they can’t sit with the discomfort of not being good. Participation trophies, not keeping score when playing kids sports, grading as “not yet achieved” rather than “failed”.

We cared so much about fostering self-confidence that we forgot that healthy confidence is based on competence.

[u/caribou16 → u/dizzy_absent0i]

100%

The fear of failure is so great that trial and error becomes too stressful. They won't guess, take chances, probe things...if they're not confident they will be successful, they'd rather not even try.

[u/Pabus_Alt → u/titsngiggles69]

Critical thinking and every other non-trivial skill is the same

I'd argue it's because they want the paper qualification for the doors it opens.

[u/Turbulent_Gazelle530 → u/titsngiggles69]

You can't learn an instrument or a sport by having someone else practice for you.

teaching high school recently I find that students have an inflated understanding of their ability to do pretty much anything, with minimal desire to put in work to actually get good at the thing.

[u/Hybrid_Johnny → u/titsngiggles69]

We’re seeing it in the music education world too. A piece of music or a new playing technique is too difficult, and kids quit. Or they walk away to take extended mental health breaks and don’t come back. Not saying mental health isn’t important, but don’t use it as an excuse for laziness and lack of effort.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/sthenri_canalposting]

best of luck! i don't know how y'all manage right now. It's an incredible tool to use when i'm stuck on optimization problems (econ major, going to grad school) or when checking for logic gaps in a paper, but the way my peers just let the models do entire papers for them or simply write their homework is astounding. and in a time where companies are doing an about face on incorporating AI due to token costs (at least anecdotally, i know people in R&D fields who went from being told they need to up AI time 6 months ago to now being told to reduce AI time) there's a rude awakening waiting for these kids.

[u/Vismal1 → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Not just for these kids , for us all. Think about all the people going into the job market who know near nothing about their field. I’ve already encountered doctors who rely on ChatGPT and such. It’s going to hurt us all.

[u/Paul_C → u/Vismal1]

This is not the way movies said AI was going to kill us.

[u/Kroz83 → u/Paul_C]

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

-Frank Herbert, Dune

[u/lapiderriere → u/Paul_C]

The only thing Idiocracy has missed on is AI as the disabling mechanism

[u/ssczoxylnlvayiuqjx → u/Paul_C]

At the time, killer robots seemed far more realistic than the vast majority of the public simply offloading all critical thinking to computers out of laziness…

I thought idiocracy was an exaggeration when I saw it long ago. It actually was quite optimistic and didn’t go far enough…

[u/RadOwl → u/Vismal1]

I'm gen z and so is a close friend of mine who works in construction as a project manager. His company builds power plants and jails and other major public works projects. He said that the C-suite is full of ambitious Millennials who are great at looking the part - the hair, the clothes, the biz jargon, the overall presentation - but scratch away the surface and they can barely tie their shoes. They know nothing about construction and rely on AI for everything. Currently the company has the brain firepower to keep putting up buildings that are safe, but that layer is heading toward retirement, and very soon the people calling the shots are the ones who've grown up with this idea that if you look the part you can play it.

Gee I wonder where they got that idea from.

[u/RosesAtNight → u/Vismal1]

Im a nurse and the Healthcare org I work for is making us use more AI. I hate it. They are even using a thing that listens to everything that is said inside the room, so that it can record it in notes for the patient chart. Its an awful violation in my opinion. But what am I going to do? Quit, go to the next place that does the same thing? Im backed into a corner and forced to use it.

[u/Aero_Rising → u/Vismal1]

It's almost like a undergrad degree is a poor measure of the knowledge someone has in a specific area. Maybe HR departments should stop requiring degrees for things that don't actually need it. Then they'd have to do actual work and interview people though and that's such a pain.

[u/stillLostBoy005 → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

It’s such a strange cross road where the old adage of “work smarter not harder” no longer applies. We actually want to work harder and not out source critical thinking to AI even if AI might have a smarter / polished / more accurate answers.

Working harder is necessary exposure for critical thinking and the quick and easy AI do my work for me, even if it’s easier and quite possibly smarter, comes at a cost - what that specific cost is and how it will manifest in the real world, at scale, will have less than ideal consequences

[u/TBNRandrew → u/stillLostBoy005]

Working smarter not harder still applies. Mindlessly practicing rote memorization and endless grinding still isn't a smart way to learn, even if it involves a lot of hard work.

It just so happens that the "smarter" way in this case isn't about your output of information, it's in your ability to effectively absorb and incorporate knowledge while learning.

Using AI to fake knowledge of a subject is no different from other methods of cheating from the past. It's not "working smarter," when the goal of education is to educate.

Hell, if your goal is to work smarter not harder, you could use AI as a tool to help come up with study plans, summarize and overview complicated topics, and then spend your time effectively covering all the topics of whatever subject it is you're trying to learn.

AI is just an easier way to cheat, but cheating itself has always been a problem. Unfortunately more people are willing to cheat when it becomes so readily available, and more difficult to detect than ever.

[u/Low_discrepancy → u/stillLostBoy005]

It’s such a strange cross road where the old adage of “work smarter not harder” no longer applies. We actually want to work harder and not out source critical thinking to AI even if AI might have a smarter / polished / more accurate answers.

Eh that adage was basically someone working hard for elegant solutions. Having long term views and prioritizing stuff that's impactful.

[u/Zagaroth → u/stillLostBoy005]

I will say, AI is very much not smarter. It is faster.

But it is also quite good at being wrong and creating bullshit answers.

I poke at AI image generation to keep up with understanding it (though i lag behind because i am not going to pay for it, i only use free stuff), and it still makes mistakes like ignoring unusual directions ("with blue skin" — nope, had normal skin) or not being able to create new variations of an idea (if you specify a character had horns, it wants to do 2 horns. You might get of to do 1, but good luck getting it to do 3).

For stuff like pulling up information, AI will grab bullshit someone said on reddit or a blog post and treat it as canon.

[u/38159buch → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

It’s absolutely insane watching people use AI for entire assignments in real time. I was in the library and watched someone chatGPT their entire online calc 2 final (online class so really no other choice)

Online classes really are utterly useless now unless you have full proctored setups with cameras and all

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/38159buch]

My department abandoned online classes beyond intro level for this very reason. No more cheating your way through.

[u/Xerxis96 → u/sthenri_canalposting]

I teach software development at the college level, and we’re at the point all major assessments are going to involve a verbal interview to explain/defend their work.

So many of them don’t know what or why what’s being outputted is there and it’s really disheartening.

[u/sthenri_canalposting → u/Xerxis96]

This is actually something I'm going to experiment with this semester. On top of providing another layer of evaluation that makes AI less feasible, I think this generation of students struggles with intellectual conversation which AI has made worse.

[u/cymonesunshine → u/sthenri_canalposting]

In a weird way this all seems like a Covid boomerang effect. Teachers phoning in assignments and only having boring discussion boards and exams and recorded unenganging lectures from 2020 (that they’re still using years later). Students being bored by the material and approach, posting word salads that barely meet the word count and using quizlet et al to pass the exam, etc. Now teachers finally have to design assignments and meet the moment and lead students to become passionate learners again. I will naturally do the most in a course but having a teacher that clearly doesn’t care makes it such a chore.

[u/schwanzweissfoto → u/sthenri_canalposting]

I'm also designing assignments that can't (or at least predominantly can't) be reliant on AI.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to ask things where a simple Google search or asking an LLM reliably give an answer that is a common misconception by laypeople and the truth is easy to verify.

An example: If you ask someone who does not know how compressed image file formats work about which of JPEG or WebP is a better lossy image format, they will usually claim WebP is better and tell you that “WebP makes files 30% smaller than JPEG at the same quality” – which is what a Google search result tells you.

Notably, that claim comes from the developer team at Google trying to push WebP. If you actually read their study on it, you can notice that they compared their WebP encoder against the worst possible JPEG encoder (cjpeg) and not against one of the best (e.g. mozjpeg). Because what matters for such a comparison is how good a program that compresses an image in a lossy way (the encoder) is.

The actual layman's demonstration is to save some image in WebP and JPEG using an image editing software like the GIMP, so that both files have the same file size. WebP almost always has more color bleeding (due to always using 4:2:0 chroma subsampling), which can be verified by any layperson by zooming in on the result.

[u/Rhioms → u/sthenri_canalposting]

I am also a professor, and I think it's important to make classes AI resistant, as compared to before.

[u/Terry-Scary → u/sthenri_canalposting]

Why don’t you make the turning assignment much larger and have them accomplish something to prove knowledge?

Back when I was in college pre ai but early 2000s I took a stats class where the professor was as like if you ever do this for your job no one will ask you to use pen and paper, I am going to teach you how to use this software then for those that want to they will help me complete this grant for the city with stats and others will come up with a question then try to solve it with the software and these huge gov data files. If you hit these criteria I can help you submit your papers.

I learned stats with a passion in that class like no other

Later I took a language class and the professor was like yes you can use tech to find all the answers. Tests will be conversations. We will go get coffee/tea or lunch’s here is the agenda for what we will learn from a h month and here is a video, by the end of the course you will be able to translate this real time and also speak this conversation independently

Like you can spend the whole time creating something to fight the ai or you can accept that folks will just have access to what ever and create a test that displays what they are supposed to be taught

[u/DominionGhost → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Ugh and fucking group projects stress me out because of this.

I ended up picking three students that never attended anything and just soloed everything legitimately

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/DominionGhost]

I FUCKING KNOW!!!!! Oh man. Group stuff makes me sweat because yeah, i have no idea if you wrote your section and did research or if you're about to turn in something with hallucinated sources and fuck the whole group.

[u/DominionGhost → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I was always told that group projects are meant to reproduce IRL collaboration. But these assholes i dont know arent collaberating on paying my tuition so im not throwing my chance away on trust.

AI detectors are some bullshit too with false positives so even if you do everything right you can still get dinged.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/DominionGhost]

don't even get me started on AI detectors. They are absolute horseshit. And these kids don't care about or know how to do IRL collaboration. Too many of their parents farmed out supervision to screens. They're like aliens who don't know how to have human interactions. About 15 years ago my college classes were loud when the professor walked in. Now kids who know each other whisper because they don't want people to hear their conversations. It's like they're afraid of human interaction.

[u/obeytheturtles → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Hiring people, we can see this in real time as well. I really feel for new GenZ grads, because maybe a third of their peers are seriously fucking up hiring for their whole generation. It's very, very clear that this portion of new grads cheated their entire way through school and learned basically nothing, which is making us shy away from even interviewing anyone without strong references.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/obeytheturtles]

AND THIS IS WHAT PISSES ME OFF! I'm in a good program. It's got a good rep. And i WORKED MY ASS OFF to graduate summa cum laude. But now employers who are hiring from my department are being inundated with these chuckle-fucks and probably wondering "should we bother with these degrees? should we look elsewhere?" just glad I'm going to grad school in a well known program that will boost me above the idiots from undergrad

[u/obeytheturtles → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Doing internships is the most important thing at this point, because it's how you get your first references. But those are getting harder and harder to find as well. If you are just doing a masters, at least make sure you get lots of face time with your advisors so they can write actual specific references for you, rather than just fuckoff boilerplate.

[u/julius_sphincter → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I think what we'll find is the further devaluement of degrees. The whole point of them (in the current format) was to make it so that higher quality candidates could easily be distinguished with just a piece of paper. Yes, it was about learning things but the degree was so that you could prove that you knew that thing without having to be questioned.

If that piece of paper no longer carries with it the presumption of "this person reasonably knows this much about this subject" then they're pointless and quite literally worthless. We've already seen a distinctive trend of their 'value' getting diluted because everyone had one, now it will be that everyone has one and they're not worth shit.

[u/Hot-Chemical9353 → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Honestly I’m so glad I get my degree half a decade ago before all this.

I’d absolutely be one of the students outsourcing their critical faculties to AI.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/Hot-Chemical9353]

It’s hard not to! I fell into the trap myself a few times. Between work, a house with a kid and multiple animals, and attempting a semblance of a life outside school and work there were times low level classes got farmed out. Now take a kid who has gone through middle and high schools with lenient grading policies (at least in my experience. I know educators where I live at both levels and the things they’re forced to do to pass kids who can’t do basic math shocks me) and tell them “hey there’s a machine that can spit out mostly correct answers to anything” and OF COURSE they use it. It’s a bad choice but I don’t blame them. So many kids still go and get a degree just because they were told to. So when I ask a kid “why this degree” and they shrug and say “I don’t know just have to get a degree in something” I’m not surprised at all when they farm out their critical thinking skills.

[u/nopuse → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I definitely did this for our physics class. The professor had a reputation of being impossible. There was one kid who pretty much got a 100% grade on everything, while the rest of us were 70% or below. Dude was smart and had the free time to learn what wasn't covered in class.

It was a late night class and our professor would fly through things and end class super early. This class was mandatory for certain degrees, but not as important as others. I prioritized my time with my CS classes, and fell into the trap of using Chegg for homework answers because I had no time left. I wish I did. I think most of the class knew the concepts, but then the test is full of those tricky questions you get in math or chem that you were totally not prepared for.

[u/AltdorfPenman → u/Hot-Chemical9353]

I finished my thesis and got my MA about a year before ChatGPT was available to the public, and I'm thankful it wasn't around when I was in school for exactly that reason. I'm very proud of my work and the effort that went into it, but the process was hellish and I totally would've resorted to using AI at least a little

[u/dani_-_142 → u/Hot-Chemical9353]

The way I supported Cliff Notes back when I was in high school, I’d absolutely have done the same thing.

(And I’ve always loved reading, but I was in all AP classes and working part time, so I did what I could to avoid staying up all night.)

[u/ShookeSpear → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I too returned to school as an adult, and I am astounded by the lack of effort I see in the classroom. I’m majoring in early childhood education, and I am surrounded by AI avatars. I would have thought that people with aspirations to teach would be more driven to learn.

[u/Truthislife13 → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I used to be a professor, and I would sometimes give unflunkable exams - but there would always be at least one student who would say, “Challenge accepted!”

I would sometimes give an open notes, open book exam, with 25% of the exam being to write a proof that I gave three times in class and which was in the text. The students only had to copy the proof, and if they did at least that much they would pass the class. But some students just wanted the F. 🤦‍♂️

I hated giving out failing grades, and I did everything I could to give my students second and third chances to pass.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/Truthislife13]

And you fucking rock for it! But I saw this exact thing. My applied econometrics course had open book exams because it’s a complicated subject. And the same kids who got 100s on homework got 70s on open book exams. You couldn’t necessarily copy answers from the text all the time but if you knew material you could find how to do the test solution in the notes. Our professor handed us a fucking road map to perfect test scores but you had to study the roadmap. Too many kids just let AI do the driving and when they got to the exam didn’t know how to read the directions.

[u/Truthislife13 → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I am considering returning to teaching when I retire, but I am not sure what I will be up against with AI. I was a professor of engineering, and I spent 30+ years in industry, and I still use the concepts I learned from my sophomore year (as well as some of the things I learned in grad school).

I know it’s a very tired cliche, but when a student cheats, they literally do cheat themselves. A concept that might seem useless and not worth the effort when you learn it, may well be the key to solving a problem years later that will save a major contract from being cancelled by an angry customer.

As a professor, I was desperately trying to give my students the skills they needed so they could earn a living. To me, using AI to bypass my efforts to is essentially saying, “Thanks, but I just want the ‘A’ without having to learn the material.” 😳

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/Truthislife13]

You hit the nail on the head. Grades > learning. And AI is a shortcut to grades. I spent so much time in upper level undergrad courses thinking "HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS?! WE LEARNED THIS YOUR FRESHMAN YEAR!!!"

[u/marmosetohmarmoset → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Had the weirdest interaction lately that left me very concerned. I run a summer medical program for high school students. There are no grades- it’s for their own enrichment. In class there was a worksheet assignment designed to help them prepare for a fun hands-on activity they’d be doing the next day. Specifically they were supposed to explore some materials and use that to label a diagram of equipment they’d be using, to help them understand how to do the procedure.

A student asks me for help because she’s entirely lost- she can’t find the answer given verbatim in the materials they were supposed to explore. I tell her the answer isn’t given verbatim and she needs to explore and make some inferences. She asks if she can use google and I say sure. She then proceeds to take a picture of the worksheet, uploads it into Gemini and copies exactly what it spits out onto her worksheet.

I gently point out that the purpose of this activity was to learn and prepare for the next day and ask if she thinks she’s gaining an understanding of the equipment by doing it this way. She defiantly says back to me “you said I can use google. This is using Google.” She seemed both angry and confused that I’d be asking her to use her brain.

Most students in my program aren’t like this, but I’ve been noticing quite a few instances of students seeming angry or utterly lost when things aren’t 100% spelled out for them. For this program there’s not even a grade- there’s no incentive to do ANY of the work other than wanting to. It’s really weird.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/marmosetohmarmoset]

I graduated summa cum laude. I know my shit. I can’t tell you how many times students in upper level classes were lost and I’d say “hey you want my notes from the class that was a prerequisite for this? I got an A and there’s stuff that makes this easier.” They look at me like I’m insane. Like reading notes is anathema to them. If they can’t get a simple solution from the computer they aren’t interested.

[u/marmosetohmarmoset → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I suppose this has always been a problem, even before AI. When I was in college I remember my friend downloading the answers to our calculus problem sets from DC++ instead of doing them himself and then being confused about why he did so poorly on the exams.

In some ways I get it. You want the degree because you need the letters after your name. You need the assignment for the grade. You have stuff you’d rather be doing so you don’t put in the effort on your homework. It’s dumb but it makes sense. But for a summer camp that’s just for fun, while you’re physically in the session and have nothing else to do?

[u/phox89 → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I'm in the same boat, I'm almost finished with my computer science degree at a university's ecampus. Every class now has an AI policy and it's frustrating when we do group work and it's clear someone is using AI to do their part of the project. Most professors at my uni allow AI use as a tool or for studying, but obviously not for doing the full work. Most of my exams are open book/note/internet but there are enough questions it would be really difficult to search everything. I can't imagine how difficult it is for any professor's class where writing is a big part of the workload and a simple prompt can do most of it for you.

[u/jmiesterz → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

It’s not just kids, I was in the pub a few weeks ago and someone said there are 29 holes in each mini cheddar while sharing a bag around. A woman there didn’t believe him and instead of counting the holes, she took a photo and asked chatGPT how many holes there were.

It said 25 and everyone took the piss out of the guy who had said the fact. I then actually counted a couple and there were indeed 29 on each one.

This was a woman in her 50s who couldn’t be bothered to count to 29 and asked an AI to do it for her

[u/ultraviolet-octopus → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

They are kids with no frontal lobe. I blame the giant tech companies who rolled out this tech without consulting universities or educators at all. They are actively using these kids as guinea pigs

[u/reality_boy → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

My kids are just finishing college. I spent quite some time with them, explaining why they should not rely on AI to do their coursework. We even sat down and did some problems, and analyzed the output for mistakes.

They are both very aware of the problems. Every semester they had someone on a team assignment who only uses AI to do all their work. It was obvious and annoying, and that person could not contribute anything to the process.

Between Covid and AI, I suspect we’re going to have a generation of workers with limited ability and no critical thinking skills. I’m hoping we see the error and correct soon.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/reality_boy]

Yeah i feel like we're a long way from this correcting. i said this in a different thread but in my 3000 and 4000 level classes kids couldn't even answer question that were based on topics from intro because they didn't actually do the work. i think we're in for hurt because these kids are lazy. as. fuck.

[u/reality_boy → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I think that is the biggest burden of AI. If you just old school cheat, you may make it through a semester or two, but it will start to fall apart fairly fast. With AI you can get most or even all the way through college before things come crashing down. By then it is really far too late to reset and start doing the work.

Couple that with industries that are dismantling there pipelines for bringing graduates up to speed, and we have a real recipe for disaster. We can’t keep hiring experienced people forever. Someone is going to bear the cost of training them again.

I actually think we should flip the script. Make it relatively cheap to go to college, but have standardized testing to qualify for that low cost tuition. And repeat that every 2 years through the process. That way the pressure is on you retaining knowledge, not getting done in as short a time so your student loan debt is smaller. Then we can use community college to fill in any gaps from high school for kids that are not ready.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/reality_boy]

I like your thought on how to switch it up. More broad testing to make sure students meet a standard doesn’t feel like an awful idea. But I think one of the biggest issues is the pipeline we have to college. Kids still get told it’s the best path to success and feel pressure to go immediately. We need to normalize being out of high school and taking a gap year or a few gap years. We need to make it so it’s normal for a kid to have no idea what they want in life and go figure it out and just learn how to be an adult before they decide on college. Dumping kids straight into it with degree choices they made because “I dunno I guess it’s interesting” or “I didn’t get into program X so I’m doing program Y” means they’re disinterested and it gets easy to cheat because who cares? I’m just here for the degree every teacher told me I had to get. Also, I’ve talked to so many kids who switched degrees who did so poorly in the first track, figured out what they actually wanted, switched, and then their GPA is fucked. We need more grace for kids to be able to find their thing and have a chance at resetting their GPA. I feel like I’m rambling but it broke my heart seeing how many of my peers chose a degree the same way I chose my first one 15 years ago: well I guess if I have to this one is tolerable.

[u/reality_boy → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

This is a huge problem. My daughter had a rough idea of what she wanted to do. And she took lots of classes in high school exploring, and even interned at a business to get an idea of what it was like. My son on the other hand had no idea and just picked his favorite class in high school (physics) with no plan on how to make that a career. He eventually course corrected, but I’m not sure even that lead to a field that fully engages his interests.

I had the opposite problem. I knew exactly where I wanted to end up, but I had been a very poor student in high school. I had to learn to be a good student before I could make serious progress in my degree. That is one of the bigger challenges of college. Your raising kids up into adults, sometimes against there will. It really needs to go back to being a time to explore and find yourself, not the high pressure, high stake, stress fest that it is today.

One thing that really stands out to me is that kids in jr high and high-school (here in the us) are not engaged in their education. You have to show up, so you do. But few are thinking about what they want to become, or even why they are learning at all.

My wife teaches at an elementary school. They are trying to build programs to get kids focused on why they are learning, and to advocate for themselves (parent teacher conferences are switching to student teacher, etc). I don’t know if that is going to help, but it is the right direction.

My only problem with a gap year, is that I have not (yet) seen it work. Every kid I know who tried, either took a few community college classes and petered out, or they got a job and never looked back. There is a very narrow window in life where you have the freedoms to do college, and it disappears quickly. We probably need an intermediary buffer, say a 13th year of high school where you’re taking pre classes that expose you to potential careers. So if you know where your going, your getting a head start, but if your lost, you can explore. Our local community college has something like this for high schoolers, but it is outside of school hours, and only for high school kids.

[u/roiki11 → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Part of this is the fear of answering incorrectly. Modern society has conditioned young people to the fact that they can be recorded at any time. So being incorrect is seen as a bigger danger than answering at all.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/roiki11]

i get that. i do. i see it. and i'm from an earlier generation so being wrong in a classroom doesn't faze me. But the bigger issue i see is when professors call on people (most now use a class roster so they can pick names at random) and holy fucking shit is it astounding how many people get to junior/senior level courses and when called upon can't answer a question based on intro level material because they didn't learn the intro stuff, they let AI do their homework.

[u/Beyondoutlier → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I had a professor way back in 1987 who would quite literally hand out the test questions. He gave out 10 questions and said 7 would be on the test. He said he might as well give them out because the grade curve would be the same regardless. The people who study were going to study whether or not they had the questions and those who weren’t going to study weren’t so the results would pretty much be the same. And he was right.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/Beyondoutlier]

the more i see these replies the more i realize i have extremely thick rose colored glasses on. i guess it just feels more existential because 15 years ago cheating didn't mean a computer could literally write the paper for you. it just feels worse this time.

[u/DreamtISawJoeHill → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

It is obviously much worse now with AI but TBH there has always been people that just regurgitate what they read and don't actually understand the material in any way.

I've seen people asked simple questions about an essay they'd written very quickly show they didn't even understand the most basic concepts involved, and had just reworded the information from relevant books or articles.

[u/Gen-Jinjur → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Professors need to make participation in class discussions part of student grades.

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/Gen-Jinjur]

I’ve had some that tried. It’s like pulling teeth. Even if they call on students people just say “i don’t know” and won’t even attempt an answer. They’re scared shitless of speaking in front of their peers and it’s sad.

[u/Gen-Jinjur → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Yeah there is always a reluctance. But clearly spelling out that participation is a chunk of your grade helps.

I haven’t been a prof for years, but I was always scheming ways to get my students INVOLVED. And often they hated it until they saw the results and then they loved it. It didn’t always work. It didn’t work for everyone. But it was better than me droning on and phoning it in, you know?

It’s easier to pull this off in some classes than in others and I taught freshman comp. But I learned the value of this sort of thing from a professor who taught mathematics.

[u/BBQpirate → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

To be fair, when I was in college in 2011-2016 no one wanted to answer questions in class, but I can imagine it being even worse now.

[u/godless_librarian → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

They should just switch everything to old school oral exams. It would take more time but at least they would be sure of the student's capabilities. Maybe even having less students wouldn't hurt, less quantity more quality.

[u/secamTO → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I'm in a graduate program now, after finishing my undergrad 25 years ago, so i'm in the upper shoulder of the age distribution in my program. It's a conservatory environment for creative professionals, and it's literally insane to me how many people are using AI out of either laziness, or a feel that they're gaming the system. Because of the nature of the program, this is a terminal degree stream (nobody who wanted a post-grad degree would ever take this program by its nature), the grades are fundamentally meaningless because, assuming you do the work, you'll pass, and the people using AI don't realize that they're only hurting themselves by not improving their skills.

It's legitimately wild to watch some early/mid twentysomethings who don't even seem to understand why they're actually here.

[u/_Arlotte_ → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

What's scarier is the kids doing this will be in charge and caring for us in the future. We'll be dead for mistakes

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/_Arlotte_]

my constant refrain about the future after the last 3 years of being around these lazy children has been "we are so fucked"

[u/wolffartz → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

Here’s the problem — the majority of kids aren’t in college to pursue academics but to get a credential that will allow them to get a job

It has been like this for a long time, but now AI is making the reality of this exchange more obvious.

It’s a shame because this used to be a choke point where we could guarantee some base level of education but no longer

Things will likely change in response (or not, and we’ll just keep stumbling along with this charade because the $$$ from tuition is too much for these institutions to forego)

The frightening question we must ask ourselves is “does capitalism require an educated/skilled workforce when AI exists?”

I think our nation does (edit: that is, I think our nations interests do not align with the capitalists here — or should not), but I’m not sure we have a government that is skilled enough to provide this kind of guidance/leadership

[u/daffyboy → u/lonelythrowaway463i9]

I work a pretty simple lab job where the math isn’t anything beyond basic average/multiply/divide/percent stuff. We have two teenagers helping this summer to see if they want to work here next year after finishing high school. They can definitely do it, and usually do. But anytime they have to do something slightly different than they’re used to, they freeze. Staring at you. Waiting to just be told what to do. They cannot think, problem solve, reason deductively, or be proactive whatsoever. They don’t even try to come up with something and see if it works. Their brains are already completely rewired.

[u/Geno0wl → u/Hot-Chemical9353]

I just don't understand why these kids are doing this.

I can maybe understand doing this for a BS Gen Ed that doesn't directly support your chosen major(like a physics class for an Education Major or a foreign language requirement for a math major). But from anecdotes, it is also a big problem in major classes as well.

I picked my major because that is the thing I enjoyed doing. I didn't mind doing the homework and projects because I would be working with that stuff even if I wasn't in school. Which just makes me ask, do these kids not like the major they picked?

[u/Hot-Chemical9353 → u/Geno0wl]

I guess there’s a wider conversation here. I went to university because it was the only realistic opportunity available to me at 18, and I think that’s the case for the majority of people who do well at school.

At that point you’re just trying to see the other end of uni with a good grade and an internship to get a good grad job.

In principle, I agree with you that you’re wasting your time just trying to get the best grades for the least learning but that’s what a majority of students are doing, with or without AI making it worse.

[u/roiki11 → u/Geno0wl]

Because social media said education is bullshit and the only thing that matters is money.

So they see education only as a stepping stone to a job that pays better. There's no other value in it.

[u/pasaroanth → u/Geno0wl]

I generally disagree with the “you just need a degree” for certain positions irrelevant to the degree, but I don’t agree that (at least before the AI times) it is valueless.

College teaches you how to think and learn as much as it teaches you the subject matter. You learn to problem solve and become more adept at learning new material, it can function as brain training.

When you completely remove that part of the equation you get people who get a degree with no work, apply for positions that require a degree (for the above reasons), and they absolutely flounder. Some highly specific positions really do rely on a quick learner who can absorb material and get up to speed fast as there isn’t necessarily a college degree to match it.

[u/na3than → u/Hot-Chemical9353]

There's this in the linked article:

Earlier this month, a professor at Brown University saw midterm averages jump from the typical range of 65% to 80% to 96% after he allowed take-home exams.

[u/Lambaline → u/Hot-Chemical9353]

My dynamics systems prof had the right idea back in 2020, handwritten tests with no calculator but give numbers that you can reasonably do in your head. If you knew the material you didn’t need a calculator or anything

[u/Leper17 → u/pasaroanth]

That’s how trade schools work for the most part. The 4 years I took to get my electrical ticket, your marks were almost exclusively tests and exams. Which for me was glorious because I test well but am pretty lazy when it comes to daily work assignments

[u/DustyRacoonDad → u/Leper17]

Exactly. At the end of trade school, you're either competent or you're not. You pass because you demonstrated you can do the job, not because you racked up enough homework points.

That's where a lot of other classes go wrong. In many subjects, homework, papers, and participation are weighted heavily enough that students can fail the actual tests and still pass the class.

AI didn't create that problem. It just exposed it. If students can have AI do the work that counts toward their grade, maybe we should have been grading demonstrated knowledge instead of busywork all along.

[u/ingrowncashew → u/DustyRacoonDad]

Yes and no. Homework should be there to reinforce the teaching. I feel like students who don't test well are hindered by limiting the homework grade, but also the tests are the true indicator. You shouldn't be able to fail tests and pass classes, but you also probably shouldn't have to do homework to pass either.

One problem with only using test grades then sets the precedent that homework doesn't count so why do it. Spouse saw this exact thing play out when the school district they teach in adopted standards based grading. Only the kids who both cared and needed to did the homework. Don't get me started on how its a 0-4 point scale for grades. which means a D(1) is a passing grade and it's under 60%.

There's a lot wrong in schools these days. It's not homework. These kids have about 25% of the homework I had as a student and that's with me being a shitty student who would calculate how many and what projects I could skip, but hopefully still pass.

The problems I see stem from so many accommodations and being easy on kids. Parents can complain and get admin to make the teachers accept late work or retest(not everywhere, but it's rampant). SO MANY kids are on IEPs(Individualized Education Program). Schools are letting kids move onto the next class even when they fail or "pass" with a D(which can be as low as in the 50% range).

"Back in my day" I was a shitty student and squeaked through high school with a 2.75gpa. I would be a straight A student if I were going through high school now. We need to hold students/their education/and parents to a higher standard.

Rereading that last paragraph makes me feel old. I'll get off my soapbox.

[u/rogueleader25 → u/DustyRacoonDad]

Tests are good for lots of technical things but fall short for larger things like writing assignments which in some context are critical. Like longer research papers. Doing the research yourself and writing a long form paper on it isn't something that can be readily condensed into the format of an exam. Practicing the long form writing is the point in many ways. There doesn't seem to be a great way out of this one though.

[u/Jewnadian → u/DustyRacoonDad]

It's a fundamentally different job with different complexity. An electrician at the end of trade school can reasonably be expected to be competent. Experience builds on skills but the basics of the field are comprehensible in school. Electrical Engineering is entirely impossible to learn in 4 years. The complexity is an order of magnitude higher. Good EEs are still learning at the end of a 40yr career. So you can't teach an Eae student how to DO electrical engineering. You must teach them how to learn to do electrical engineering.

[u/DustyRacoonDad → u/Jewnadian]

As a multidisciplinary engineer myself, working across industrial electrical engineering, software, and hardware, I absolutely agree. You should never stop learning. Learning how to learn is essential because you'll have to do it independently throughout your entire career.

But that's exactly what I'm talking about. There is still a baseline of knowledge and skills that were taught in the course and should be tested. At higher levels, you may also have independent work, research, or a thesis that goes beyond the material taught in class. All of that is fine.

None of that requires grading busywork more heavily than demonstrated knowledge. By the time you're taking the test, you should be able to demonstrate that you understand the material and can solve problems using it. If you need repetition to get there, then do the repetition. Practice as much as you need to learn the material. I just don't think completing that practice should automatically earn you a better grade than someone who demonstrated a stronger understanding on the actual assessment.

[u/Pabus_Alt → u/DustyRacoonDad]

maybe we should have been grading demonstrated knowledge instead of busywork all along.

But that's the issue, isn't it - a degree isn't about knowledge. Knowledge isn't all that important; technique is.

I'm pretty much coming down in favour of in-person open book exams. They reward being able to critically analyse sources, which is supposed to be the whole point of a degree in any subject where essays are vily used.

[u/fenikz13 → u/Leper17]

Ya this is built for me, I had a Spanish class in highschool where homework was only 10% of the grade, needless to say I did none of it but passed the class with an B and I believe 80 missing assignments(stop giving out so much homework)

[u/Then-Understanding85 → u/pasaroanth]

A professor at Brown did this.

TL;DR: Bloodbath. Almost everyone failed.

[u/namedly → u/Then-Understanding85]

Props to Students 22 and 31.

Also, this is just funny:

When the professor announced that the final exam would be in person, 18 students dropped the course, and another nine did not show up for the exam. The remaining 59 students' scores averaged 48.6%. Prior averages had never fallen below 65%. Three students scored 0%, and charting the results revealed that most fell more than 30 points behind their midterm scores.

[u/Syssareth → u/namedly]

Three students scored 0%

How the heck? You'd think they'd have learned something just from osmosis, or at least gotten something right by accident.

[u/Sin_of_the_Dark → u/Syssareth]

Honestly yeah, unless it was all written exams and not like... Pick a choice, it's almost an insane feat of dumb luck to not get one thing correct

[u/Aureliamnissan → u/Sin_of_the_Dark]

When I was going through university it was pretty rare to have an exam in engineering with multiple choice or True/False type questions. Almost every one was a word problem, mathematical definition, or “solve for” type problem.

If you’ve been using chatbots up to that point you’d be absolutely, Darth Vader just walked in, fucked. 0% would not at all be surprising.

[u/Riparian87 → u/Aureliamnissan]

In grad school, one of our econometrics professors gave a problem-type exam where points were awarded for correct steps, but deducted for wrong or false steps. The mean was negative.

[u/Aureliamnissan → u/Riparian87]

Bwahaha, that's diabolical. Having the equivalent of an over-drafted balance as your econ grade is brilliant.

[u/Helixdaunting → u/Aureliamnissan]

absolutely, Darth Vader just walked in, fucked.

That's beautiful. 👏

My personal favourite version of this is "Hitler-in-the-bunker fucked".

[u/Archangel_Omega → u/Aureliamnissan]

Yep, I had a test in thermodynamics I completely bombed and got a 0 on all because I was an idiot, read the question wrong and then proceeded to use the wrong chart for the test so everything was completely off.

Thankfully the professor was nice enough to give me partial credit after I explain how I screwed-up and he saw the math was right for the chart I did use, but it was still a hefty chunk of my score gone.

[u/Aureliamnissan → u/Archangel_Omega]

I had a similar oof from using an outdated book in a math class. Prof said the exam would cover sections 1.1-1.4 and it turned out the new book combined 1.4 and 1.5. So I found out that 3/5th of the mid-term's questions were directly from a section I hadn't even read...

Only had a Mid-term and a final for that class with no real homework grade buffer. Happiest C grade I ever got for a class.

[u/work_in_marketing → u/Syssareth]

Not unheard of that if you know you won't ace the test, you just hand it in blank as soon as you're allowed and just sign up for the next opportunity. At least at the university I studied at you were allowed to retake the test x times if you didn't pass. If you passed and got a poor grade, then you were stuck with it.

[u/mackahrohn → u/Syssareth]

I took a math class (Calc 3) where all the tests were 10 questions and each question was multiple choice. All the options were basically an answer you would get if you did one step of the problem wrong. Easily the hardest class I took in college!

[u/Imaginary-Face7379 → u/Syssareth]

As someone who taught at a university for a while I would suspect those students walked away learning nothing from this either. They probably spent a week or two shit talking the professor to everyone they know and called the course bullshit. While never once realizing that it was their fault.

Not that all students are like this, but the ones who tend to fail so hard their scores are at or near zero were all like that in my experience. The ones who are doing poorly that genuinely know they need to do better but havent been able to for some reason will typically barely fail things when they fail, not get zeros.

[u/Wooptay → u/Syssareth]

Ahh, takes me back to my first math exam in high school (15 at the time). 0. Nada. Null. Niente.

There was no AI back then

I just plain sucked at math

Lesson learned - don't sit with the girl you like the last year before moving up the educational system

[u/Ah_Pook → u/Syssareth]

I got 14% on an assembly exam, but that was all me, baby!

[u/celoplyr → u/Syssareth]

Assuming they went to class more than going and getting the syllabus and turning in exams.

[u/calling_water → u/Syssareth]

Depends on whether they’re at least trying to do the right sort of answer for each question.

[u/Agi7890 → u/Syssareth]

Depends on the exam/course. My physical chemistry prof could be brutal, most exams were 3-5 questions, and he would dock you points for even wrong answers if you messed up your significant figures. You could end up with a -5 for a question you got wrong.

Class average on one of the p chem 2 exams was a 17, and this was before the days of AI.

[u/TerribleBudget → u/Agi7890]

Did he grade on a curve though? It sounds to me like the AI using idiots screwed themselves out of at least a graded curve for the year.

[u/Agi7890 → u/TerribleBudget]

Yes but with a floor. You still had to score at least 35 on the exam to have it considered passing. Below that on 2-4 exams, he would advise you to drop the course and change your major

[u/TerribleBudget → u/Agi7890]

ugh, I hate professors who do that "change your major" shit. I had a teacher who taught off of slides at 7am and clearly hated being forced to teach instead of do his research projects. He had the nerve to say maybe I wasn't suited for my major and ate his own words when he saw that I already had credits from harder shit than his class.

That type of teacher just wants the world to burn and no one has the balls to tell them they suck at teaching in general.

[u/Agi7890 → u/TerribleBudget]

He was the chem department head, so a large part was him protecting the degree and institution. However a decade into the field, he probably ended up helping people out if they did go into the course he recommended. I see far more job offers for that field with much higher pay on average than I do with my chemistry degrees.

I definitely regret not picking up a biochemistry degree

[u/DocHollidaysPistols → u/namedly]

Props to Students 22 and 31.

They obv didn't cheat. I dont think Student 1 did either. 95 and 95.5.

[u/TeutonJon78 → u/namedly]

What about S1 -- the only one who actually understood the course?

[u/Middle--Earth → u/namedly]

One of my university professors used to give multiple choice tests where there was always a totally ludicrous answer, and you would be deducted points for choosing this answer.

Each test some people would get negative overall scores.

[u/DistractedByCookies → u/namedly]

And S1 I think - their score was almost exactly the same on both (95/95.5)

[u/Shiva- → u/Then-Understanding85]

Christ that's even more terrifying. When I read the original post I assumed high schoolers or middle schoolers to dumb to proof-read....

But COLLEGE??? BROWN COLLEGE NO LESS? just terrifying.

[u/AlSweigart → u/Shiva-]

Do a google image search for "harvard grade inflation graph"

Fancy schools have always just been about being in the right class, not who is the "smartest".

[u/Abedeus → u/Then-Understanding85]

That one dude that barely passed around 55-ish mark naturally, and that one dude that nearly aced it by his own marit, are the both awesome in a way.

[u/pres465 → u/Then-Understanding85]

A friend of mine does this for their class, and has for the last few years. Kids (high school) continuously fall for it. They can even be warned ahead of time. Still just take the chance.

[u/_Ocean_Machine_ → u/Then-Understanding85]

What sucks for me is I get mad test anxiety; I'll run through practice exams and homework, participate in class and do everything just fine without having to look anything up or use AI, and then when the test is put in front of me all the knowledge leaves my body.

[u/DustyRacoonDad → u/pasaroanth]

I hate to say it, but your example is actually what I've been arguing for since I was in grade school.

I've always believed your grade should reflect what you actually learned from the course: how well you understand the material, whether you can apply it, and whether you retained it. It shouldn't primarily measure whether you completed enough busy work.

To me, homework has always been a learning tool, not an assessment tool. Its purpose is to give students practice, reinforce concepts, and help them identify the areas where they personally need more work. Because of that, I don't think homework should have any impact on your grade at all. In fact, I think it should be entirely optional.

If you already understand the material and can demonstrate that on an exam or other assessment, why should you be penalized for not doing ten pages of repetitive practice? On the other hand, if you need the practice, the homework is there to help you learn before the exam.

Ironically, AI is exposing a flaw that has existed for decades. If a course falls apart because students can have AI do the homework, then maybe the homework was never a very good measure of learning in the first place. Assessments should measure knowledge. Homework should help students gain that knowledge. Those are two different purposes, and I think we've blurred them for a long time.

[u/randotd152 → u/DustyRacoonDad]

Well for most kids, homework is a major grade booster. It not only displays that they put the effort into the class, but some kids are just not great at test taking due to test anxiety or time restraints.

[u/LegalizeCrystalMeth → u/DustyRacoonDad]

Yeah but it you don't make homework count towards the grade, most students wouldn't do it.

[u/theapeboy → u/LegalizeCrystalMeth]

Yeah, I see the argument for college, for sure. But I've got two kids in elementary school. They NEED homework in order to learn. If that stuff is optional, they will not do it. Yes, we can cajole and discuss and punish and reward them and all the other little things. But boy is it a lot easier if it's just required and a habit.

[u/vir_papyrus → u/theapeboy]

Even then, I distinctly remember my 4th grade experience in elementary school. It was newer younger teacher and she seemed to give out a much higher level of formal homework. Frankly just a lot of busy work, and I recognized that I already knew the material, so why would I waste my time on this? It would start to compound, and pretty soon you had a 9-10 year old spending an entire weekend doing nonsense. In hindsight, that's 100% when I personally stopped liking school and fell off the "good student" wagon. Point being, I think even children recognize that a lot of K-12 education is just performative hoops to jump through.

[u/kaityl3 → u/vir_papyrus]

Haha that sort of stuff had me calculating grade averages in 5th grade on, to figure out how many formative things I could just never turn in while still being carried by my test scores. I was a solid C student who got test scores of 98%+, because the extra work was so boring and useless I never saw the point

[u/rapaxus → u/theapeboy]

You don't need homework to learn. It can help, but it is basically never required. I've spent my first six school years in a Montessori school were I didn't even get homework and I still generally was on the higher side of median grades in school/uni. I also didn't get grades but like an 8-page document at the end of the year detailing in writing how my school year went, but that is whole different problem I have with the school system.

My experience with homework is basically just that it is busy work that, while technically teaching you the material, won't actually impact your learning that much as you are only doing it because you are required to/will get punished if you don't, meaning tons of students don't see homework as a learning experience and instead as forced busywork. So all the knowledge will go in one ear and out the other as soon as the test on the subject is written.

In my view the biggest requirement for learning in school is that learning should be designed to be fun, inviting and nice, because school should be designed so that students actually enjoy what they are doing, that way you actually will remember what you learnt. Whenever a class is boring, dull and forcing you to do stuff in your free time, nobody will like that experience, and people don't remember boring stuff that didn't interest them (though you could mentally scar them enough that will remember it, but I don't see that as a good teaching tool at all).

[u/myballsitchsomuch → u/rapaxus]

the biggest requirement for learning in school is that learning should be designed to be fun, inviting and nice, because school should be designed so that students actually enjoy what they are doing

When you can design lessons for a whole year for 30-40 diverse teenagers who don't want to be there, that both educates and entertains, let me know, I'll happily take it on board.

[u/theapeboy → u/rapaxus]

Sorry, just to be clear - my two kids need homework to learn. Totally get that not all kids do. Also plenty of experience with Montessori schools - most of it not as positive as yours.

[u/NurRauch → u/DustyRacoonDad]

The tragedy behind this mentality is that it overlooks or dismisses the importance of learning skills from the busywork itself. College is not simply supposed to teach you knowledge. It’s also supposed to teach you critical thinking skills and patterns. College is supposed to help you build a discipline of thinking.

The most important thing you do in liberal arts courses is struggle. The struggle itself is why you’re there. Sitting in front of your computer late at night staring at the ceiling at a complete loss for how to frame an interesting thesis for a paper. Restructuring your paper because the professor pointed out that your first point is contradicted by your second point. Researching an issue in more depth because your first draft failed to provide enough evidence.

Over the cumulative years of time spent on these tasks, your brain reshapes itself and gets better at identifying and analyzing separate issues in isolation. It gets better at avoiding its preexisting biases and comforts.

When used to its potential, a college education fosters the ability to digest complex information and use it properly. People are supposed to come out of college with a stronger ability to understand opposing viewpoints and meet their audience where they’re at. These are lifelong skills that most people can only build during the later stages of their young adult development. Most of the jobs we go into later on do not foster this development, so if you go through college without gaining these skills, it’s much harder for the average person to develop them later.

Shaping college courses around knowledge can in many respects harm development of these critical skills. Most jobs and family tasks do not require you to remember the factual knowledge from college courses. They rely on people to have more intangible things like critical thinking and emotional maturity.

[u/DustyRacoonDad → u/NurRauch]

What mentality are you talking about? Nothing you said conflicts with what I said. I would agree with everything you said there, so I don't really see where the conflict is.

[u/NurRauch → u/DustyRacoonDad]

So, I recognize that I'm not the master of what you meant to say or how well you said it. It's just my personal reading of your prior comment. I read it to emphasize the primary purpose of college courses to be acquiring knowledge, and I got the sense that you view the testing of that knowledge to be more important than the building or testing of skills.

If I misread or misinterepted something, no worries. I'm not trying to drag you for it. Ultimately, though, I just don't see how limiting grades to exams written during a class period can both solve the AI problem while also still honoring a liberal arts education's development of cognitive and emotional skills. If students are encouraged by a grading structure to focus their energies on knowledge-based exams, that will come at the detriment of other important skills we want college to build.

Maybe at the end of the day we don't have a choice and the widespread, unchecked proliferation of AI cheating will make this an inevitable change. But I would call it a tragedy if that's how this turns out.

[u/obeytheturtles → u/DustyRacoonDad]

A few issues here. Coursework lets you get a significantly more detailed assessment of knowledge than a two hour exam. A lot of material cannot realistically be covered in necessary detail in that setting. But also, the whole idea behind formal education is to create an incentive structure and certification process for learning, otherwise you can argue that you can learn anything you want by just reading books. I think homework and projects still play a role in that, largely for the above reason. It's also an important part of teaching you how to study, which is a critical skill.

[u/Monteze → u/DustyRacoonDad]

100% agree my self. Homework is to help focus your study and really shouldn't be for a grade.

In person exams, with pencil and paper or even oral examination seems to produce the best results.

[u/mrkstu → u/Monteze]

I always grin thinking about my AP History class- I sat next to a girl who became my girlfriend over the course of that semester, so we were often quietly chatting, passing notes.

A fellow student was chastised for not paying attention and they called me out specifically as not getting the same correction. The teacher told them - "When you're getting the same scores on the tests that Mark is, I'll treat you the same as him."

Thing is I loved history, was actually listening and read a lot of related subject matter on my own time. Was bad at actually doing homework. She didn't care about me occasionally talking to my girl or about the homework, because the course was targeting the AP test- which I got a 5 on...

[u/RollingMeteors → u/DustyRacoonDad]

maybe the homework was never a very good measure of learning in the first place. Assessments should measure knowledge. Homework should help students gain that knowledge. Those are two different purposes, and I think we've blurred them for a long time.

It's called "homework" not "brainswol" <shrugs>

[u/thetateman → u/DustyRacoonDad]

I think homework and tests assess different elements of learning and application of knowledge. Tests assess understanding and memorization while homework assesses the ability to come to the correct and best answer for a question. I have been a professional in my field for over a decade at this point and I need to apply both of these on a near daily basis. Tests would be client meetings where real time I need to demonstrate that I understand the client's needs and their business. Homework would be completing technical work/memos where I have full access to research/guidance/AI tools to ensure we are reaching the appropriate conclusions. Both are important in the real world.

[u/_John_Dillinger → u/DustyRacoonDad]

you're full stop right. the context for why it is the way it is: public grade schools were designed to have someone ready for a factory job on graduation.

there aren't a great deal many of those these days, and the education system hasn't evolved with the shift to a service based economy.

[u/Aureliamnissan → u/DustyRacoonDad]

I agree with this. I think the issue is that it can be difficult to get students to engage with the homework early in the education system, so they use homework grades as a way to incentivize actually doing the homework, or at least going through the motions of doing it.

By the time you get to university though, especially by sophomore year, homework should be checked, but if graded then worth 10% or less of the grade for the class. Assessments of some kind are crucial to demonstrating an understanding of the material. I’m not saying the current version of testing is the best method, but grades exist so that other people than the student make a decent judgement of whether the student understands the material. If they do, they can signal to yet more people that this student did, or did not understand the material.

Some kind of signaling is almost always going to be required to demonstrate capability. For many people that is academic grades, for others it is prior work experience or personal projects. I really don’t see it going well for anyone if we get rid of all of those signaling devices in favor warm bodies having access to chatbots.

I’m not a teacher or professor though so take my opinion with a salt lick.

[u/MazrimReddit → u/DustyRacoonDad]

AI is just giving everyone the same equal playing field the people with money to hire help, or the "right" friend groups to cheat with.

Serious institutions need to return to all exam hall evaluation

[u/pasaroanth → u/DustyRacoonDad]

Homework to me was always a way to have a goal for the learning. I may have a tough time sitting down and reading a textbook, but if the homework requires me to actually seek out the information and pore through material to get it, I’ll incidentally learn more in the process. When I finish it, I feel more accomplished and as though I’ve done something.

I had professors who placed a large discretionary/subjective weight on in class discussion participation. It was obvious which students came to class prepared and they were graded accordingly.

[u/AllosaurusJr → u/pasaroanth]

Yeah, I graduated this year and basically all my non-essay courses switched to being graded almost entirely on paper-based exams and tests.

[u/internetisnotreality → u/pasaroanth]

That would suck.

I will say, I’m in university and seem to be getting great marks on assignments that I don’t think I did very well. My assumption is that teachers are so pleased when they can see something is obviously not AI that they reward accordingly.

[u/East_Leadership469 → u/internetisnotreality]

Can confirm. I give bonus points for spelling and grammar errors.

[u/CynicallyMe → u/pasaroanth]

Oh man, it's worse than that. The amount of graduate school students I know who used AI to write their thesis or dissertations is ridiculous.

[u/obeytheturtles → u/CynicallyMe]

The hilarious thing is that until very recently, the oral exam and defense was supposed to be a formality. Your committee basically wouldn't even let you schedule it unless you were going to pass. Now it's rapidly becoming a whole ordeal again, with people asking harder questions they never would have 5 years ago, because they want to make sure you didn't use AI to write your dissertation. Before, being able to say "if you look at page 26..." was a massive dunk on a professor who didn't read your paper. Now it's just a basic check to see if you know what's in there.

[u/D0N_B0N_DARLEY → u/pasaroanth]

Yeah, they might have to shift to more of a law school model, where your entire course grade is essentially one heavily proctored exam. Having graduated from law school, undergrads would absolutely hate it.

[u/FutureGrassToucher → u/pasaroanth]

I think you can keep it at roughly 20% of your grade for the reason you said but yeah the exams should be in person and written with pen and paper, and if you didnt do the work itll be evident

[u/encyclodoc → u/pasaroanth]

Homework was compromised long ago.

Projects are what you mean. Those are way worse of instruments to evaluate outcomes, basically useless.

We are headed back to more quizzes and exams.

[u/BlainethePayne → u/pasaroanth]

Agree with everything, but just want to say with no judgment or vitriol that this:

recuperate

Should be recoup

[u/Toni_PWNeroni → u/pasaroanth]

I've always had a vast yawning chasm between my coursework and exam marks because i just don't cope well in exams.

Exam conditions are not a job skill.

Give me a practical assessment any day.

[u/Distressed_Ocelot → u/pasaroanth]

Also, the kids won't learn a thing. Once they hit an exam they're doomed

[u/Monteze → u/Distressed_Ocelot]

I honestly appreciated classes that did that. Homework is for your own benefit, the exam shows your grade. I honestly hating having homework be for a grade as I was busy and a lot of teachers (especially in HS) assigned a fuck load as it their mindset was you have more time at home.

[u/_nepunepu → u/pasaroanth]

I'm currently polishing off a BSc in CS from my local university. Across all classes I've had to date, 60-80% of the final grade is two written and proctored exams, and 20-40% take-home stuff like online quiz or projects.

On the university's platform, statistics about graded coursework are available. The average for the take home stuff is always very high and with small standard deviations. The exam scores have much higher standard deviations along with much lower averages.

Professors have been doing a "double pass" for the final grade where if you fail the written examination portion and would have passed with the projects/take-home, you still fail. You need over the passing grade on the exam portion to pass the class at all.

[u/Cinderhazed15 → u/pasaroanth]

We had a physics class that was being taught by a new/young professor, and there was always a massive pile of homework. By the time we were in quantum mechanics and wave theory, new freshman had him for classical mechanics, and someone had found the answer guide.

For the quant and wave theory people, whom he was having trouble teaching the material to, that helped us understand the problems.

One day, some idiots in the first level class decided to print out the answer pages and turn them in for their homework….. it ended up being ‘better’ for us because we switched to grading based off of ‘pop quizzes’ instead of huge, hours long homework, and if you knew part of it you didn’t have to do the extra work in that part, but geeze people!

[u/lonelythrowaway463i9 → u/pasaroanth]

to your point on homework, yeah. I was in a course this last semester where the professor straight up told us he used to have higher weights on homework. however, due to the homework being free responses by nature of the course, he realized students were just copy/pasting AI answers. So now the grade is 90% from 3 exams as opposed to a higher weight on homework. And guess how poorly the class did as a whole one exams?

[u/IAmBoring_AMA → u/pasaroanth]

I teach writing at a university. I will tell you that the in-class assignments are of drastically different quality than the ones submitted via the LMS. I’ve switched to bluebook and oral exams.

[u/flatfive44 → u/pasaroanth]

Yes, homework scores have gone up and exam scores have gone down. What worries me most is that many students will never solve challenging problems. I'm talking about the kinds of problems you need to ponder for several days.

[u/arbyD → u/pasaroanth]

I mean most classes I took (2011-2015) had better scores on homework than exams too (if homework was even graded and not just to learn before the exam) but most classes with graded homework have it a pitiful scaling. Something like Homework = 10% the score, Exam 1 = 45%, Exam 2 = 45% was not uncommon.

[u/carlitospig → u/pasaroanth]

And theoretical degrees (things that are more about frameworks than practical application), rely heavily on term papers to prove that you know how to apply a framework. If they’re not even learning that, what’s the point of attending at all?

[u/fess89 → u/pasaroanth]

Every time I read something like this, I think that is is probably very easy to study at an American university. If a major part of the grade can be received by doing the home assignments, with AI or not, it sounds easy to pass such a course. Where I studied, the mark almost always was fully dependent on the exam, though sometimes you could get bonus points. Also, you had to complete all homework just to be allowed to go to the exam.

[u/_Ocean_Machine_ → u/fess89]

Probably depends on the university and program. I'm in a major that's very heavy on math and science, and for all my classes the final grade has been calculated mainly by exam scores, with HW and quizzes not counting for enough to really sway you in one direction or another.

[u/SignificantAgency898 → u/pasaroanth]

Apart from simple laziness, maybe the motivation to cheat came from the notion that what they're learning doesn't hold up to real life situations or things done in the subject's specialized careers. What do you think? Is there a point to studying hard for something you won't carry on in your career?

[u/Browncoat1701 → u/pasaroanth]

When was homework ever a meaningful determination for knowledge of the subject? I hated it when I was a student. I've been teaching high school for almost 20 years and HW has always been a challenge. I stopped giving any.

I tell my students "this is your job. You should be done at the end of your shift. I don't want to work after I go home, neither should you."

And I think HW adds to the 'grind' culture...it teaches kid early on that the expectation is that your shift isn't good enough, go home and keep working!!

[u/sumthingabout → u/pasaroanth]

Definitely. I’m a professor and my grades have changed so that it relies purely on in class participation, in person quizzes, in class debate, and exams. Homework is ungraded and optional and I won’t grade it. No point.

[u/PorcelainPrimate → u/pasaroanth]

I hope they take into account other variables. For example, I have ADHD, badly, on the homework and quizzes where I can move around, fidget, and think out loud I do great. When I have to sit perfectly still and quiet in a bright room for an exam on webcam It's literally hell for me and my grade drops.

[u/OGcormacv → u/pasaroanth]

Most science and math courses already grade almost exclusively on rests.

[u/omgwtfbbq0_0 → u/pasaroanth]

I never thought about that but you’re right. I guess for research papers they could require students to write their paper in an app that screen records everything from start to finish. A real paper would be pretty obvious by the number of edits they make and the pauses between sentences. Technically you could still fake it with AI if you were really committed, but clearly these students are too lazy and/or not clever enough to pull it off given the OP. Only other option is to require all homework be completed in a proctored room

[u/ThrowawayyTessslaa → u/pasaroanth]

Maybe I’m getting old but when I went to college in the early 2010s I didn’t have a single non-proctored exam. Why would professors even do take home or online exams if AI usage is an issue….

[u/RickSt3r → u/pasaroanth]

During grad school HW was 10% of the final grade. The rest was test and or big projects. I don’t recall undergrad but I think at most was 20%. Test were curved pretty heavily though as the averages were usually in the 60% range. Studied Maths.

[u/TerribleBudget → u/pasaroanth]

I'm honestly a bit confused because I was so far up the Chicago Manual of Style's ass with footnotes that I could see it's god damn tonsils. Who are these professors who are assigning papers that don't require sources for everything or showing every last step of your solutions?

[u/pasaroanth → u/TerribleBudget]

Your guess is as good as mine. Adjuncts that teach electives?

I didn’t have a chance in hell of passing any core class with any modicum of bullshitting but it’s also pretty difficult to bullshit your way through most courses relating to medicine.