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The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition

⁨147⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Davriellelouna@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-death-of-the-student-essayand

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  • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It’s sad because for most people school is about the only time anybody cares enough about your thoughts to actually read an essay and respond to it intelligently.

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  • carlossurf@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    We had copy and paste lol, nothing close to chatgpt but it was similar

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  • baduhai@sopuli.xyz ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Lots I disagree with in this article, but i agree with the message.

    On another note, I found this section very funny:

    Disgraced cryptocurrency swindler Sam Bankman-Fried, for example, once told an interviewer the following, thereby helpfully outing himself as an idiot.

    “I would never read a book…I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”

    Extend his prison sentence.

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    • embed_me@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Initially I thought it was something like Aurelius’ diary entry on not spending too much in books and living in the moment. Nope, he’s just lazy. I have a friend like that, who reads AI summaries instead of the actual articles. Infuriating to say the least.

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    • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yes but let him take time off for reading and shiwing ge comprehends good books.

      In a way you or i could knock out in like a really nice month full of cocoa and paper smells.

      He will die in a cage.

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  • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Once again I’ll say, I’m perfectly fine with the death of the essay as viable school homework.

    In my experience, teachers graded only on grammar and formatting. Teaching - and more to the point, grading - effective writing skills is harder than nitpicking punctuation, spelling and font choices, so guess what happens more often?

    You want school to mean anything, you’re going to have to switch to verbal or demonstrable skills instead of paperwork. Which society probably needs to do anyway.

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    • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Or you let radicals be teachers, and you let teachers put some fuckingbpasdion into their work.

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  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I loved writing essays and see the value for a student in knowing how to state a case and back it up with evidence, what counts as evidence, and the importance of clearly communicating the ideas.

    That said, I also use AI to write copy daily and the most important thing for anyone’s cognition is critical thinking and reading comprehension, both of which AI is going to teach us whether we want it or not. Critical analysis is the only way we can navigate the future.

    Maybe this is another Great Filter for technologically advancing critters?

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    • squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I hated writing pointless essays about topics I don’t care about, and yet I still like to research and debate.

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  • Artisian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I’m still looking for a good reason to believe critical thinking and intelligence are taking a dive. It’s so very easy to claim the kids aren’t all right. But I wish someone would check. An interview with the gpt cheaters? A survey checking that those brilliant essays aren’t from people using better prompts? Let’s hear from the kids! Everyone knows nobody asked us when we were being turned into ungrammatical zombies by spell check/grammar check/texting/video content/ipads/the calculator.

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    • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Critical thinking is on the downturn, but, interestingly, it’s by date, not birthdate.

      The living death of our humanity is a monumental testament yo neuroplasticity and our ability to keep changing deep into old age.

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    • Puppylovingpacifist@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Relevant article web.archive.org/…/a8016c64-63b7-458b-a371-e0e1c54…

      Admittedly the downward trend began sometime in the 2012s

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    • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      IMO, kids use ChatGPT because they are aware enough to understand that the degree is what really matters in our society, so putting in the effort to understand the material when they could put in way less effort and still pass is a waste of effort.

      We all understand what the goal of school should be, but that learning doesn’t really align with the arbitrary measurements we use to track learning.

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      • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I think as long as you hit some very basic milestones, and don’t become a fascist, you’re recoverable. Can be a person.

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  • deegeese@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I never minded studying, but always hated writing essays, even though pretty good at it.

    How do we train people to think, and validate that they learned, when they can outsource it to a computer?

    The author alludes to oral exams, though they have a whole host of other issues.

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  • Sparkega@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Another look at students, AI, and Essays on the Search Engine podcast. “What should we do about teens using AI to do their homework?”

    Podcast webpage

    Podcast file

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