Via Insty, this from a college professor:
“I can’t assign papers any more because I’ll just get AI back, and there’s nothing I can do to make it stop.”
Seriously?
Far be it for me to tell credentialed teachers how to do their job [stop that irreverent laughter] but allow me to propose a novel idea: instead of assigning papers to be prepared as homework,
- Create essay-based two-hour examinations in a closed classroom, under the supervision of invigilators who can ensure that the students don’t have access to phones or laptops.
- All backpacks and such must be left at the side of the room, and the students are allowed only a ballpoint pen at their desk.
- Keep the essay topics secret until the exam begins.
- All essays must be handwritten.
- Make these paper-writing exercises a bi-weekly (fortnightly) activity, and make them count for a substantial proportion of the final grade.
- Each essay grade should comprise 70% for content and the remainder for literacy.
Here’s the fun part of all this, though.
Even assuming that the papers were legible (a huge assumption), I’ll bet that a substantial number of today’s so-called professors wouldn’t be able to grade the papers properly anyway — in no small part because they wouldn’t be able to use A.I. to grade the handwritten paper content.
Burn the whole rotten edifice down, and start from scratch.
I concur, being a long time science teacher and having transferred to a H.S. with extremely low literacy… students can’t even sign their own name legibly let alone draft an essay and don’t get me started on their inability to read… they are a hot mess coming to us from elementary school and ‘middle’ school. I have to start by hammering them with writing their first and last name on their papers…. good luck reading them.
sounds like a smart plan.
Heh. I just suggested much the same elsewhere. Though I didn’t consider the issue of teacher incapability.
At least in the hard sciences teachers can task pupils with performing experiments. AI cannot do that.
Funny thing this bit from a supposed professor of ‘higher learning”.
I seem to recall that from age 15 to 18, this practice of sudden essay production was a weekly feature event in English Lit at my branch of “The British School” in a small country south of the U.S. border. I also recall clearly that every student was expected to hand in a full 4 page cursive written, within the lines essay to be graded on content, punctuation, neatness and proper use of language which of course covers spelling as well as the correct word for context. Not to mention pop quiz time in all the rest of the curriculum including math, physics and chemistry (I do wonder if modern U.S. schools teach any of it these days, seeing as indoctrination is visibly more important than actually being able to think and write).
trash in, trash out
Now, this is about the USofA, let’s leave the late Yugoslavia out of it.
Simpler solution from a Polish math prof of mine in 1972, to whom I still owe much.
Oral exam, one on one, in his office.
According to him it was not much more time consuming than drafting an exam, supervising it and grading it and vastly more effective in judging progress than a written exam or essay. Even back in the day the cheats found ways to cheat on those. Plus math doesn’t do essays much.
Your proposal reminds me of the Bar Exam.
When I taught chemical engineering I tried to get some discussion going in the lectures. On the upside, it engaged the students; on the downside it led to irrelevant side discussions. One of those side discussions dove into some arcane point of grammar and I promised an extra credit grammar question on the next exam. Yes, there were a few groans.
The grammar question asked them to diagram a sentence with a direct object and two propositional phrases, the sort of thing I learned in elementary school. Since elementary school had been over fifty years ago for me (I started teaching after a long time in industry.), I thought it prudent to make sure I still could get it right and I trotted over to the English department offices for help. The first prof I found, a kid about thirty, couldn’t help me; he didn’t know how to diagram a sentence.
None of my students even attempted the extra credit question.
I think most people not brought up within the USA or not immersed in American education would be confused by the term ‘diagram a sentence’.
Call each one in front of class. Start out with 10 push ups. Strict attention follows. Yes sir no sir enforced. 3 minutes to address topic. Finish with 10 more push ups. If physical movement is ok for IPSC & IDPA its good for youngins.