'AI Role in College Brings Education Closer To a Crisis Point' (bloomberg.com)
- Reference: 0177813909
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/05/27/1728228/ai-role-in-college-brings-education-closer-to-a-crisis-point
- Source link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-05-27/ai-role-in-college-brings-education-closer-to-a-crisis-point
The board said that professors have begun using AI tools themselves to evaluate student assignments, creating what it called a scenario of "computers grading papers written by computers, students and professors idly observing, and parents paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for the privilege."
The editorial argued that widespread AI use in coursework undermines the broader educational mission of developing critical thinking skills and character formation, particularly in humanities subjects. Bloomberg's board recommended that colleges establish clearer policies on acceptable AI use, increase in-class assessments including oral exams, and implement stronger honor codes with defined consequences for violations.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-05-27/ai-role-in-college-brings-education-closer-to-a-crisis-point
Not every school is Ivy League (Score:1)
I'm sure there are still a few honest schools around.
Back to Handwritten Work (Score:2)
And we can add Cursive back to the curriculum while we're at it.
Re: Back to Handwritten Work (Score:1)
Iâ(TM)d rather spend my time learning another language than learning how to write one twice. Cursive is fucking stupid
Re: Back to Handwritten Work (Score:2)
You'll be too intellectually lazy to learn either one of those things so it seems a moot point.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? What do you think about bathing?
Re: (Score:2)
My kid's private school teaches it starting in second grade.
If they didn't teach it, I would find a new school.
Wouldn't mind if people learn from it (Score:5, Insightful)
But they aren't. They use AI instead of learning. People can't state a problem, describe the issue, and recommend a solution. Also can't explain two sides of an issue and compare them. Now, a lot of people couldn't do this before AI came along, but you learn from trying. Now people can just input the question and hand in the answer, with no thought process involved.
Re: (Score:2)
> But they aren't. They use AI instead of learning.
Speak for yourself. I'm quickly learning that [Baby AI] anything delivering the news is far superior to the real thing.
Don't disagree with that smirk on your face.
Lots of people do (Score:2)
When I was a kid I sat down to learn basic on my commodore 64 and hit a wall because I couldn't understand data statements.
I only had one book and I didn't understand the description of the data statements in that book and my dumb kid brain was incapable of wrapping its head around it. I couldn't even tell you why. As an adult it was the simplest thing in the world but as a kid it was completely Greek.
If I had had access to the internet alone let alone a chatbot I could have had data statements expl
Don't grade homework. Test critical thinking. (Score:4, Insightful)
Homework assignments, and frankly any work done outside of a controlled environment, should serve only to prepare people for the work that will be done on an exam in a controlled environment. If students want to use AI to complete those assignments they are free to do so. But it likely won't do a good job of preparing them to do the work on an exam. Multiple choice exams and short form writing assignments under controlled conditions (i.e. no electronics, or laptops locked out of anything other than exam writing software) are well suited to assess factual knowledge and the ability to apply those facts to novel circumstances. The problem here isn't that people don't know how to create an assessment that can't be completed by an AI. The problem is that they are unwilling to do so. They are locked into a mindset where take home assignments and projects count for large parts of the grade or where they aren't willing to lock people into a controlled environment for testing. Partly because they can't envision a better way and partly because they're too lazy to do so. The underlying problem is that there's a fundamental disconnect between why people really attend college or post graduate programs and why the people teaching them think they do. People are not there to learn. They are there to get a certificate that says they've learned. Preferably while doing the least amount of actual learning possible. The real value of a degree is not what you learn to get the degree. It's the degree itself. If universities and professors think that it's more important that the people they are purporting to educate are actually educated there are fairly simple ways to accomplish that. But they have to recognize that their students (and a large share of professors) are not going to quietly adapt to that new paradigm without objection. It will be difficult and messy and may require them to ask students to 'unlearn' everything they did to be 'successful' in academics up to that point.
Re: (Score:1)
Indeed. Assign reading homework, and maybe some practice questions so the student knows whether or not they understood the material, then do the work in class so that you know if the student can do it or not and you can find out where they're failing to get the concepts. You could also prerecord lectures, and replace lecture classes with lecture-watching assignments and a forum where questions can be addressed — and the best answers to prior questions can be pinned for the next class. There's no reaso
Re: (Score:2)
> Assign reading homework
But why do the reading if you can just generate answers to all assignments using AI?
> prerecord lectures, and replace lecture classes with lecture-watching assignments
AI is really good at this. Hey Copilot, summarize this content and then answer these questions:
> There's no reason to force students to sit in a room for hours so they can listen to you talk
This is a terrible instructional strategy and was terrible before AI.
Re: (Score:2)
No missed the point. The idea was that your homework is just to read and watch the video. Nothing else. After reading and watching at home, you go to school and inside the classroom you write the reports and answers questions.
So you can cheat by asking AI to summarize, but then you will just fail at school when you are not able to do the assignments.
Re: Don't grade homework. Test critical thinking. (Score:2)
You win the reading comprehension prize!
It is... Being able to read!
Seriously scary how many slashdotters can't read OR think.
Re: (Score:3)
Right and homework is still plenty useful.
Some of the best classes I had the instructors assigned work, it did not count toward your grade. You could turn it in or not. If you did they'd score it and give you feedback.
Home work should not be part of the assessment function of teaching. It should be 'here is a curated set of exercise that I the instructor think will help cement the concepts I was trying to impart to you the student, and in reviewing your solutions provide me the diagnostic information to
Re: (Score:2)
If we don't grade homework how do we decide who is and isn't worthy of food, shelter and medicine?
What? Are you just going to give food, shelter and medicine to everybody?
Re: (Score:2)
We could grade the tests?
Once again homework is basically useless (Score:1)
You can Google to studies but every indication is that homework is not a valuable tool for education. It is an excellent tool for sorting people into groups that can and cannot have access to food, shelter and medicine but if you actually want to teach people class time is what works.
We use homework to decide who gets to have the good jobs and the good lives and who doesn't. That's because we don't have enough highly profitable work to go around anymore. There is plenty of useful things for society peo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking as a former professor, homework has value. There isn't, and can't be, enough class time for every student to work on all the things they need to. Reading, practicing problems, writing code, etc. are valuable teachers and take widely different amounts of time for different students. Some things need to be practiced. Class time is important, but so is 'thinking' time.
Re: (Score:3)
I know two kids. Both of them had no homework and both of them spend about 2 hours per day at school. Both were A grade students. They did not spend their time in normal classroom. Instead they spend most of their time doing assignments at school. Something like homework, but at school. I have heard similar stories about home educated kids, spending just few hours per day for education and still being A-grade.
So I agree with you that practice is important. But if the practice is important, why is it not don
Of all the classes I took (Score:3, Interesting)
The ones that served me the most of the years were an odd logic course on writing out formal proofs.
Sociology and different communities that required original research as part of the class along with showing work.
And finally just regular speech classes, on being able to present and go over a topic, along with project management.
Every job I've had after college consistently requires those skills in my day to day.
Other classes, like even coding, computer systems and programing helped. But the best professors often had little home work, and forced students to engage live in class, or along with the TAs. Showing your work in person, and showing you have the skills, live is worth it.
Homework Apocalypse (Score:2)
We have an end to graded homework, that contributes to the final grade. I don't think we can fix this, but we don't have to. Homework was not always how college courses operated.
We could have graded homework to show the students how they were doing, to prepare them for the in-class exams, written by hand (or with some inexpensive typing tool provided for class use, no connectivity), but the homework would not contribute to the final grade. So using LLMs would gain the student nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
True, we need to think outside the box. Go back to in-person oral exams. If you can't explain what you know out loud, then you don't know it. I know, nobody has time to listen to all that, so... have an AI grade the transcript.
Simple Solution: Just Require In-Person Exams (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a very easy solution to this AI problem: grades can just be based on in-person exams that are either administered on paper or a closed software environment that prohibits AI usage.
If the class demands a formal paper, it shouldn't ever just be a cold "turn it in" situation. Something like a thesis should be developed with in-person discussions about the state of the research and the student's progress. Those discussions should be touchpoints for evaluating whether the student is understanding the material and really thinking through. That means that such papers only really work in a small seminar environment.
What is obsolete is the sort of class where students are asked to write a 10-page discussion of a given topic and then the professor just grades that paper cold. I doubt we are ever going to be able to adequately police whether that 10-page analysis of Kantian ethics was written with AI assistance. Likewise, STEM classes with problem sets should only use those problem sets for learning and not for evaluation. If the student wants to use AI on the problem sets they can, but they won't be able to use AI to help them on the exam.
Re: (Score:3)
These days, there are a lot of augmented reality glasses that aren't always easy to distinguish from "dumb" glasses. These will pose a problem even for in-person tests.
Re: (Score:3)
Not necessarily that different from the old days of hiding notes in your clothing, writing on your arm, or cribbing off the person next to you. Perhaps they will get better, but I don't know of any current AR glasses that are completely indistinguishable from regular classes to anybody who knows what to look for. You can also require checking phones (similar to many concerts and entertainment events) and locking down any computers so they can't communicate with external devices like AR glasses.
Re: (Score:2)
> These days, there are a lot of augmented reality glasses that aren't always easy to distinguish from "dumb" glasses. These will pose a problem even for in-person tests.
Nah we just aggressively tease and ostracize everyone wearing glasses. "Shut up four eyes", "Get lost poindexter", "love the glasses, anything covers some of face is win"... and so on.
It will be while before affordable AR contact lenses products exist. That should buy us a decade at least.
But girls aren't as good at exams (Score:2)
So they became unfashionable. There is a significant industry in academia proving that all examinations are biased. So best of luck arguing for that against those who believe that 'all should have prizes'.
Adapt (Score:4, Insightful)
1. In-class essays.
2. Verbal comprehension evaluation.
Professors might actually have to get involved in teaching.
It's not using AI that's the problem. Problem is using AI to produce a result without understanding the result. Everyone is already or will be using AI in their jobs in 5 years. Not getting students ready for that world is a mistake.
AI isn't as big as the internet was, but it's close. Teaching will have to adapt.
Re: (Score:2)
> Everyone is already or will be using AI in their jobs in 5 years. Not getting students ready for that world is a mistake.
These are two different skills that need to be taught, but not in the same context. When we teach history, languages, physics, etc. we want students to be competent on their own. We can find countless classical examples:
* we teach students to solve equations even though math software can do that faster. We also teach mathematical software, separately.
* we teach mechanical and civil engineering students to know how to make the calculations on paper (at least in simple cases) even though they certainly be us
Graduate them. Let them fail IRL. (Score:2)
If they want to short circuit their education, let them. But institute a proctored, mandatory exam like the Bar for STEM fields. And be ruthless about it. Can't pass the test? Tough titty. Try again.
Stop protecting people from themselves.
everyone's doing it (Score:2)
Where are the teachers who spoke up on the other similar discussions?
They are saying BOTH students AND teachers are using it. And no one is happy. Article last week said student is suing school because the Professor is wimping out with AI to do his work.
This is the formal definition of cluster fuck. No one knows what tf is going on or how to proceed.
Take the idea that everyone without exception is gaming the system to get the piece of paper to get the job. Pretty much no one professes the ideals of pure lea
in the near future these degrees will be useless (Score:2)
If a student in some field can now fool a university professor with generated knowledge, then someone will write a ChatGPT wrapper for that field and sell it to their future employer as a service, rendering the degree useless.
"You're only cheating yourself" (Score:3)
You paid for the class. The rest is up to you. If you don't do the work, you don't learn the subject.
If you just want to buy a degree, fine -but there are cheap online schools for that.
If you just want to learn how to use a LLM to generate papers for you, fine -it's a valid skill, but you are wasting your money on college.
Why are you attending college?
'Why are you attending college?' (Score:2)
'Because Mummy and Daddy tell me I've got to and I'm enjoying the extra curricular activities, thank you very much. And it's better than working in an office.'
Don't you remember how easily influenced you were at 18?
Re:lol (Score:4, Insightful)
There are issues with that and this though. Mathematics is important and human understanding is critical to many fields. So too is critical thinking, and if you simply outsource your learning to a machine, dont be surprised when your employer outsources your paycheck to an AI company as well, given that you are basically using it to do your work. The human brain learns by doing very well. You have to exercise it. If you stop doing, you will quickly find yourself in a situation where the LLM (I refuse to call them AI since they aren't that) outputs stuff you have a lesser and lesser ability to comprehend. That is a real concern if it happens to the workforce at scale.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure what you are trying to say, but there are studies that show that the use of the calculator improves student learning:
"This study recommended that the use of scientific calculator has significant effect in teaching parabola functions to improve learner performance. "
[1]https://files.eric.ed.gov/full... [ed.gov]
"calculator has been continually proven by research to be a great support tool for mathematics learning"
[2]https://journals.ums.ac.id/jra... [ums.ac.id]
This does not prove that same is true for the AI, and I don't c
[1] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1453735.pdf
[2] https://journals.ums.ac.id/jramathedu/article/download/10061/5937
Re: (Score:2)
Saloomy hit the nail on the head. If you don't develop the ability to create a solution to a problem, you will not know if the LLM is giving you a factual answer.