> AI merely exposes the inherent flaws in how we do education (exams, especially failure) [...] but I also wouldn't be able to suggest a framework where students aren't rewarded for skirting around being educated
As someone who graduated from college in the 2000s, I've been surprised to hear from recently-graduated colleagues that doing exams in person is no longer the default. That strikes me as the obvious first line solution for (at least) the STEM subjects that lend themselves to exams centered around technical problem-solving: exams in person, no phones or similarly capable devices, cheaters get a failing grade with no possibility for appeal.
The conventional wisdom when I was in school was that classes where homework isn't graded aren't really any easier for most students, because the homework is where you learn the skills, and if you don't do it then you'll fail the exams. Frankly, the same will be true either way for students who use LLMs for all the exercises: they won't learn the skills, and they will fail the exams. This is a working-as-intended outcome.
So why not start there? It's how school has ~always worked, so there's no question of feasibility. The only question is whether our will to give committed students a real education is stronger than our desire to productize education as a rent extraction scheme tailored to a nepotistic and shallowly credentials-obsessed society where having 'B.Sc.' on your resume sorts you one bucket higher in the algorithmic hiring queue to flip burgers at your local McDonald's.
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It's less obvious how to fix the humanities subjects where take-home writing assignments carry most of a student's grade, though I'm tempted to think that even a relatively simple and tightly scoped writing exercise given as an in-person exam could conclusively weed out most of the students who've been relying on LLMs to do the assignments for them.
As someone who graduated from college in the 2000s, I've been surprised to hear from recently-graduated colleagues that doing exams in person is no longer the default. That strikes me as the obvious first line solution for (at least) the STEM subjects that lend themselves to exams centered around technical problem-solving: exams in person, no phones or similarly capable devices, cheaters get a failing grade with no possibility for appeal.
The conventional wisdom when I was in school was that classes where homework isn't graded aren't really any easier for most students, because the homework is where you learn the skills, and if you don't do it then you'll fail the exams. Frankly, the same will be true either way for students who use LLMs for all the exercises: they won't learn the skills, and they will fail the exams. This is a working-as-intended outcome.
So why not start there? It's how school has ~always worked, so there's no question of feasibility. The only question is whether our will to give committed students a real education is stronger than our desire to productize education as a rent extraction scheme tailored to a nepotistic and shallowly credentials-obsessed society where having 'B.Sc.' on your resume sorts you one bucket higher in the algorithmic hiring queue to flip burgers at your local McDonald's.
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It's less obvious how to fix the humanities subjects where take-home writing assignments carry most of a student's grade, though I'm tempted to think that even a relatively simple and tightly scoped writing exercise given as an in-person exam could conclusively weed out most of the students who've been relying on LLMs to do the assignments for them.