College professors are going back to paper exams and handwritten essays to fight students using ChatGPT::The growing number of students using the AI program ChatGPT as a shortcut in their coursework has led some college professors to reconsider their lesson plans for the upcoming fall semester.

  • ZzyzxRoad@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Here’s a somewhat tangential counter, which I think some of the other replies are trying to touch on … why, exactly, continue valuing our ability to do something a computer can so easily do for us (to some extent obviously)?

    My theory prof said there would be paper exams next year. Because it’s theory. You need to be able to read an academic paper and know what theoretical basis the authors had for their hypothesis. I’m in liberal arts/humanities. Yes we still exist, and we are the ones that AI can’t replace. If the whole idea is that it pulls from information that’s already available, and a researcher’s job is to develop new theories and ideas and do survey or interview research, then we need humans for that. If I’m trying to become a professor/researcher, using AI to write my theory papers is not doing me or my future students any favors. Ststistical research on the other hand, they already use programs for that and use existing data, so idk. But even then, any AI statistical analysis should be testing a new hypothesis that humans came up with, or a new angle on an existing one.

    So idk how this would affect engineering or tech majors. But for students trying to be psychologists, anthropologists, social workers, professors, then using it for written exams just isn’t going to do them any favors.

    • maegul (he/they)
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I also used to be a humanities person. The exam based assessments were IMO the worst. All the subjects assessed without any exams were by far the best. This was before AI BTW.

      If you’re studying theoretical humanities type stuff, why can’t your subjects be assessed without exams? That is, by longer form research projects or essays?