Thread

1. a57721 · 1790407197 · focus · HN ↗

   I am teaching some math courses, and I see how LLMs disrupted all standard approaches, and I don't know what to do.

   I rely on written exams that are open book, but forbid any use of computers and smartphones in class.

   The university insists that homework can't be optional, but it lost its meaning. I've tried to explain to my students that it's in their interest to think about home assignments on their own, but the majority will obviously use gen AI, and it's such a waste of time to check and grade LLM output.

   I just had an experience where all students were given "sample problems" to try at home and prepare for the written test. Many of them just dumped the document into an LLM, asked it to produce some "exam guide", and showed up with that thing printed out, asking me during the test to explain what LLM output meant.

   It seems like the university also has many people pushing for AI use for everything, but I teach basic stuff where the goal is to make students think on their own and digest some fundamental ideas, LLMs can produce perfect solutions, but relying on them is pointless.

   1. professorthread · 1790442435 · focus · HN ↗

      I teach math-heavy economics courses. I found that grading homeworks for completeness and pairing the homework due date with an in-class quiz on the problem set material (taken in class the day the problem set is due, after the set is turned in) has reduced the incentive for students to use LLMs to complete the homework. Exam questions closely mirror what's on the homework, and exam grades correlate with students who make legitimate attempts on their homework. I can sus out legit attempts typically by handwriting. No erasing and fast writing means it was copied.

      For grade weights, I weight the homework the lowest of any grading category, with in-class quizzes next, and exams scores the highest.

      1. rao-v · 1790495204 · focus · HN ↗

         Humm doesn’t this perhaps suggest you should do away with the homework, offer optional practice exercises and double down on in-class testing?

         1. lazyasciiart · 1790497055 · focus · HN ↗

            Perhaps they are also dealing with administration that says things like “The university insists that homework can't be optional”, as in the grandparent comment.

            1. chii · 1790503543 · focus · HN ↗

               The university administration needs flexibility rather than draconian rules that dont work.

               In any case, even if the uni insist on homework, the teacher can simply mark everyone who hands in their homework 100%. It is impossible for the administration to police it, or if they do, they'd need to hire someone to mark the homework (which conveniently solves the teacher's issue).

               1. a57721 · 1790524118 · focus · HN ↗

                  This is basically my solution.

                  Students who copy all solutions from LLMs maybe learn something, but it's like 5% compared to what someone can learn by doing the assignment without external help, or even by asking their peers. It's a bit disheartening, because I invest quite some time and thought in designing the assignments.

                  It was very different before LLMs.

            2. WillAdams · 1790510450 · focus · HN ↗

               Seems to me that requiring the homework and having it paired with the quiz works well in terms of cause-effect for the students.
         2. grey-area · 1790514878 · focus · HN ↗

            Homework is actually useful practice if you’re not stupid enough to use an LLM to complete it.

            1. i80and · 1790515240 · focus · HN ↗

               I might argue that homework is, for mathematics, where the useful learning happens.

               1. djtango · 1790517155 · focus · HN ↗

                  Yes it's all fun and games reading uni level maths nodding along to all the proofs until you're suddenly asked to do the exercises and suddenly nothing made sense and you are completely confounded by such an innocent looking question.
            2. a57721 · 1790524840 · focus · HN ↗

               Exactly, it's the most important part of the math education, there is no point in memorizing definitions and theorems without putting everything into practice.

               But it seems like the temptation to get perfect solutions from an LLM is too big for many students nowadays, they lack the maturity to understand that using LLMs for basic assignments is counterproductive.

         3. driverdan · 1790515535 · focus · HN ↗

            It sounds like doing the homework is a form of practice exercises for the quizzes.
         4. professorthread · 1790517668 · focus · HN ↗

            Homework is a tool for students. It is where they practice. I see my job as a prof to curate the problems I think will help students best prepare for the exams, and use that space to help them gain the intuition about the problems I don't have sufficient time to cover in class, like through an application. As my profs before me used to say, true learning comes in doing problems.

            I find bright people who are self-motivated tend to do problems on their own, but this is not the modal student. This is like the top 10-15% of any class. The modal student is motivated by getting a degree so they can enter the working world, and sees coursework as an obstacle to that. They'll take any and every shortcut to get the highest grades with the least amount of effort. However, particularly with first and second year undergrads (but I've also seen the same behavior in grad students), they do not understand the purpose of pedagogy. That doing problems is where you learn the material.

            So if you make homework optional, the 10-15% hold steady and do it but the bulk of the class will stop doing problems and tank their grades on the exams. They will not internalize the lesson after that first bad exam, because it is morally and practially cheaper for them to believe they had a bad day or that their professor (me) is just a terrible meanie who constructed an exam with problems they've "never seen before" and "had no connection to the lecture" (actual evaluation comments I've had when I've tried to the homework-optional method).

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