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> Or, instead of surveillance dystopia, we just start having in person tests again, if we want to know, what a person on their own is capable of. Why would I

> Or, instead of surveillance dystopia, we just start having in person tests again, if we want to know, what a person on their own is capable of. Why would I want to test someone's performance at say writing an email without the benefit of things like a spell checker, or grammarly style stuff, or chatgpt. They'll have access to this in the real world. How about we test realistic scenarios. Instead of asking someone to calculate 96*451 by hand, ask them to workout the difference between buying a $700 phone and $5/month sim contract vs a $30/month contract for 3 years with RPI inflation. Give them a pop quiz to choose which of a dozen screaming offers in the supermarket aisle is the best thing with 10 seconds to decide, for added realism throw in a couple of kids causing some distractions. For added credit have them consider opportunity costs of that $700 upfront payments, not just what they'd get with it sitting in a bank account. Instead of have them write a 1500 word essay by hand, give them 2 hours to write 1500 words explaining the benefits of X using normal tools like a modern word processor, google, wikipedia, ChatGPT etc. If they don't use the tools at all, you'd probably need to mark them down.

dahart 3y ago
> How about we test realistic scenarios This is a false dichotomy. I feel like this well-worn talking point might be outliving it’s usefulness even faster with the invention of LLMs. We teach the mechanics of arithmetic and of spelling and grammar because that’s what education is for, it’s for teaching how things work so there’s an understanding of the fundamental mechanics, and it starts with the basics and builds on top of them to more advanced topics, in order to deliver a well-rounded and deep understanding. Note that the logical extension of your argument is to let ChatGPT, or the next AI, or the one after that, to start explaining your examples, and let humans ignore everything the computer can do, which now includes writing 1500 word essays. After all, just like spell checkers and calculators, access to AI is what people have in the real world. We don’t need to choose between teaching multiplication by hand and how interest works, because we already teach both, one in a basic arithmetic class, and the other later in algebra & calculus. Same for spelling vs grammar vs writing. Spelling and grammar happen in elementary school, and essay writing happens in high school and college. Teachers already do allow calculators in algebra and calculus. This has no bearing on whether we should allow calculators in arithmetic class based on the vague notion that having access to calculators at all times is a ‘realistic scenario’. I feel like this kind of thinking is what is leading people to try to cheat in the first place, it’s a lack of understanding of the value in basic skills, and the misguided assumption that learning something only has value if you can demonstrate you would need to use it all day every day for a job right now. The problem is it doesn’t ever get better or easier if you skip the basic mechanics that computers can do; in fact it only gets harder to learn the subjects that do actually matter that you are going to be using, when you have foundational gaps. More than ever, what we are going to need from here on out of the education system is people who know at least a little what AI is on the inside just so we can use it effectively, not to mention build it, maintain it, control it, set legal policy, fix it when it’s wrong, etc. etc.

dahart 3y ago

> How about we test realistic scenarios This is a false dichotomy. I feel like this well-worn talking point might be outliving it’s usefulness even faster with the invention of LLMs. We teach the mechanics of arithmetic and of spelling and grammar because that’s what education is for, it’s for teaching how things work so there’s an understanding of the fundamental mechanics, and it starts with the basics and builds on top of them to more advanced topics, in order to deliver a well-rounded and deep understanding. Note that the logical extension of your argument is to let ChatGPT, or the next AI, or the one after that, to start explaining your examples, and let humans ignore everything the computer can do, which now includes writing 1500 word essays. After all, just like spell checkers and calculators, access to AI is what people have in the real world. We don’t need to choose between teaching multiplication by hand and how interest works, because we already teach both, one in a basic arithmetic class, and the other later in algebra & calculus. Same for spelling vs grammar vs writing. Spelling and grammar happen in elementary school, and essay writing happens in high school and college. Teachers already do allow calculators in algebra and calculus. This has no bearing on whether we should allow calculators in arithmetic class based on the vague notion that having access to calculators at all times is a ‘realistic scenario’. I feel like this kind of thinking is what is leading people to try to cheat in the first place, it’s a lack of understanding of the value in basic skills, and the misguided assumption that learning something only has value if you can demonstrate you would need to use it all day every day for a job right now. The problem is it doesn’t ever get better or easier if you skip the basic mechanics that computers can do; in fact it only gets harder to learn the subjects that do actually matter that you are going to be using, when you have foundational gaps. More than ever, what we are going to need from here on out of the education system is people who know at least a little what AI is on the inside just so we can use it effectively, not to mention build it, maintain it, control it, set legal policy, fix it when it’s wrong, etc. etc.