Still, those students who WANT to learn will not be held back by AI.
Our society probably won’t survive if only the students who want to learn do so. 😔
Comment on A generation taught not to think: AI in the classroom
undrwater@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I spent some years in classrooms as a service provider when Wikipedia was all the rage. Most districts had a “no Wikipedia” policy, and required primary sources.
My kids just graduated high school, and they were told NOT to use LLM’s (though some of their teachers would wink). Their current college professors use LLM detection software.
AI and Wikipedia are not the same, though. Students are better off with Wikipedia as they MIGHT read the references.
Still, those students who WANT to learn will not be held back by AI.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 21 hours ago
Disillusionist@piefed.world 19 hours ago
I share this concern.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
College professors are making tests and homeworks harsher to make up for cheating students so students who WANT to learn may actually be held back by the literal sense.
undrwater@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Can you provide an example?
scarabic@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
The best AI tools will also cite references, like Wikipedia, so you can click all the way through.
undrwater@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I believe the early Microsoft one did that well, but the popular ones (grok, chathpt, Gemini) will only when asked (in my experience).
Disillusionist@piefed.world 22 hours ago
Great to get the perspective of someone who was in education.
Still, those students who WANT to learn will not be held back by AI.
I think that’s a valid point, but I’m afraid that the desire to learn might have a harder time winning that battle if what you’re fighting against is actually the norm, and if the way you’re being taught in the classroom looks more like what everyone else is doing. I feel like making it harder to choose to learn the “old hard way” still sounds likely to result in fewer students deciding to make that choice.
undrwater@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
My optimism tells me this issue will be short lived. Unless someone can find a very creative way to monetize AI so that it is sustainable, it will likely crash (with local instances continuing to get development).
otter@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I always saw the rules against Wikipedia to be around citations (and accuracy in the early years), rather than it harming learning. It’s not that different from other tertiary sources like textbooks or encyclopedias. It’s good for learning a topic and the interacting pieces, but you need to then search for primary/secondary sources relevant to the topic you are writing about.
Generative AI however
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
You don’t even need to search, just scroll down to the “references” section and read/cite them instead.
undrwater@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
It’s great! I felt the “no Wikipedia” was short sighted (UNLESS one of the teaching goals was doing research in an actual library!).
Disillusionist@piefed.world 21 hours ago
I see these as problems too. If you (as a teacher) put an answer machine in the hands of a student, it essentially tells that student that they’re supposed to use it. You can go out of your way to emphasize that they are expected to use it the “right way” (since there aren’t consistent standards on how it should be used, that’s a strange thing to try to sell students on), but we’ve already seen that students (and adults) often choose to choose the quickest route to the goal, which tends to result in them letting the AI do the heavy lifting.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
Encyclopedias in general are not good sources. They’re too surface level. Wikipedia is a bad source because it’s an encyclopedia not because it’s crowd sourced.
undrwater@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Wikipedia is better than an encyclopedia, IMO, because the references are super easy to follow.