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395 points pseudolus | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.245s | source
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karpour ◴[] No.43633999[source]
My take: While AI tools can help with learning, the vast majority of students use it to avoid learning
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jillesvangurp ◴[] No.43641331[source]
Most of us here took their education before AI. Students trying to avoid having to do work is a constant and as old as the notion of schools is. Changing/improving the tools just means teachers have to escalate the counter measures. For example by raising the ambition level in terms of quality and amount of work expected.

And teachers should use AIs too. Evaluating papers is not that hard for an LLM.

"Your a teacher. Given this assignment (paste /attach the file and the student's paper), does this paper meet the criteria. Identify flaws and grammatical errors. Compose a list of ten questions to grill the student on based on their own work and their understanding of the background material."

A prompt like that sounds like it would do the job. Of course, you'd expect students to use similar prompts to make sure they are prepared for discussing those questions with the teacher.

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chii ◴[] No.43642515[source]
> Of course, you'd expect students to use similar prompts to make sure they are prepared for discussing those questions with the teacher.

what's the point of the teacher then? Courses could entirely be taught via LLM in this case!

A student's willingness to learn is orthogonal to the availability of cheating devices. If a student is willing, they will know when to leverage the LLM for tutoring, and when to practise without it.

A student who's unwilling cannot be stopped from cheating via LLM now-a-days. Is it worth expending resources to try prevent it? The only reason i can think of is to ensure the validity of school certifications, which is growing increasingly worthless anyway.

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1. jillesvangurp ◴[] No.43643585[source]
> what's the point of the teacher then?

Coaching the student on their learning journey, kicking their ass when they are failing, providing independent testing/certification of their skills, answering questions they have, giving lectures, etc.

But you are right, you don't have to wait for a teacher to tell you stuff if you want to self educate yourself. The flip side is that a lot of people lack the discipline to teach themselves anything. Which is why going to school & universities is a good idea for many.

And I would expect good students that are naturally curious to be using LLM based tools a lot to satisfy their curiosity. And I would hope good teachers would encourage that instead of just trying to fit students into some straight jacket based on whatever the bare minimum standards say they should know, which of course is what a lot of teaching boils down to.