I'm so happy you were my professor and I was a college student before all of this. I would have absolutely hated to write this way, and I suspect if you enforce this you'll discourage the students who really want to think for themselves/flex their creative muscles from doing just that. It will be all em dashes and idiotic vocab. Can you imagine Nietzsche's humor wrung through an LLM? Kill me!
I get the appeal of this, and if I hadn’t recently gone to law school I’d probably be more on board with it. But I did recently go to law school, so I feel like I should say: The experience of being graded on a curve for every class *sucks*.
Feeling like you can’t help your classmates too much sucks. Feeling like you’ve mastered the material but still should probably spend your Friday and Saturday nights pouring over it more because everybody else might’ve mastered the material too sucks. When you ask your professor what you could have done to get an A rather than an A- and they say “there really wasn't much you could have done better” (that’s a copy-and-pasted quote!), that sucks.
I’d much rather shift to in-person, internet-blocked exams than to curved exams.
Thanks for the thoughtful essay! My thought is that specific, experiential detail is key. AI can't know exactly what went on in the classroom, a very granular argument, or specific details in a novel. Maybe it will catch up over time but AI cannot "be there" the way an attentive human can.
In addition to raising standards for arguments and essays, we should focus on training students to effectively leverage and validate LLM outputs. Simple pre-assignments, such as pen and paper mind maps that outline key points and argument structure, can be fed into models to generate coherent language around a student’s thinking. AI has the potential to support and improve human writing (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn5290) but we need to be more creative in redefining what constitutes good writing and how it’s developed.
Interesting idea! I worry about the two concerns you raise in the end, but it makes sense to try something out and pivot if needed.
I was looking forward to the argument for “students should write with AI” but only got “It’s a fool’s errand to try to stop them.”
was mostly focusing on the curve part
Fair enough. I did say something to the effect that writing with AI will be the kind of skill that is needed in the workforce.
I’m curious about your requiring it. What if a student wants do it the old fashioned way or is really into Dune and refuses to use AI?
Yeah. I'm torn about this. I do want them to experiment and learn this skill of writing with AI.
Fine to have just one class where they don’t have the option
I think student writing skills are generally on a steep decline. I also think there’s much to be said about your “writing is thinking” concern.
Do you agree about undergrad writing skills? Do you think that their editing, fact checking skills are better?
Sorry, very curious about all this
Yes seems like there’s a decline. But whatever skills we want them to have we can improve them if we put the right incentives
I'm so happy you were my professor and I was a college student before all of this. I would have absolutely hated to write this way, and I suspect if you enforce this you'll discourage the students who really want to think for themselves/flex their creative muscles from doing just that. It will be all em dashes and idiotic vocab. Can you imagine Nietzsche's humor wrung through an LLM? Kill me!
I get the appeal of this, and if I hadn’t recently gone to law school I’d probably be more on board with it. But I did recently go to law school, so I feel like I should say: The experience of being graded on a curve for every class *sucks*.
Feeling like you can’t help your classmates too much sucks. Feeling like you’ve mastered the material but still should probably spend your Friday and Saturday nights pouring over it more because everybody else might’ve mastered the material too sucks. When you ask your professor what you could have done to get an A rather than an A- and they say “there really wasn't much you could have done better” (that’s a copy-and-pasted quote!), that sucks.
I’d much rather shift to in-person, internet-blocked exams than to curved exams.
From what I hear, lots of people in education dislike curves for reasons you mentioned and others
Thanks for the thoughtful essay! My thought is that specific, experiential detail is key. AI can't know exactly what went on in the classroom, a very granular argument, or specific details in a novel. Maybe it will catch up over time but AI cannot "be there" the way an attentive human can.
My main reaction is great to experiment!
The first worry is a nonissue I think. Not enough scale for training.
Moreover, while the interactive skills are valuable and worth teaching, I worry students will be able to outsource them too.
Do you intend the bottom of your curve to be an F, such that the worst paper, whatever it is, will get an F? That's harsh!
Absolutely. Then I give them some chances to improve their grade.
In addition to raising standards for arguments and essays, we should focus on training students to effectively leverage and validate LLM outputs. Simple pre-assignments, such as pen and paper mind maps that outline key points and argument structure, can be fed into models to generate coherent language around a student’s thinking. AI has the potential to support and improve human writing (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn5290) but we need to be more creative in redefining what constitutes good writing and how it’s developed.