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Embrace Gen AI but know when to not use it
(Navin is leading GenAI for Educators – A course for Parents and Educators on how to use GenAI safely, effectively and powerfully. Do check it out! This blog is reposted from Navin’s Substack – AI IQ)Some Homework Must Be Done By Students Not Gen AI
Students should use Gen AI as much as possible, except for doing homework. Well-designed homework exists to give students practice in areas where they need practice. This practice actually modifies your brain (see Automaticity) and builds the foundation based on which you can easily learn the next level of the topic. Technology allows students to submit homework assignments without the practice and this is bad. Three different points are being made above:
- Doing homework increases your performance on the final test: it helps you learn more
- But “doing” homework in 2017 didn’t help as much as in 2008. Why? Technology allows students to “do” homework without actually doing it
- Use of Gen AI for helping with homework can be a double-edged sword: used right it would be great. Used wrong it will make you dumber.
Here’s a more detailed research paper showing that students using Gen AI as a crutch while learning are worse off than those who don’t use AI at all. This is true even of professionals at their workplace: example 1: recruiters, example 2: consultants at BCG. However, don’t forget that those who use it well do better quality work and get it done faster.
But Don’t Ban Gen AI
Alice Evans has a nice article on how teachers, schools, and colleges need to embrace Gen AI. Banning the use of Gen AI is a terrible idea not only in the context of teaching but also in the workplace. Everyone will be using Gen AI for work and study in the future and the ones who are not good at using it will be left behind.
So, Alice recommends that teachers should design assessments that go beyond the current capabilities of AI: i.e. allow students to use AI but create questions that the AIs can’t answer well and hence students will be forced to go above and beyond: copy-pasting the the Gen AI generated answers will not get them the marks. As she says:
- Assume AI use: I take it for granted that some students will use AI in assessments, which is practically impossible to prevent, check, or punish consistently.
- Preventing plagiarism through innovative assessments: My questions require deep understanding of course material, careful analysis, and creative thinking.
- AI-proof questions: I’ve tested all my assessment questions against Claude, and it cannot produce answers worthy of a first-class grade.
- 3 hour or 48 hour online assessments recreate the conditions of the modern workplace, giving students to concrete task within a set deadline.
This is the same approach we take at ReliScore (our company for assessing job candidates). Read the whole article: there’s much more in there, for example, the dangers of continuing with business as usual, and suggestions for the kinds of questions to ask.
And here’s a list of detailed prompts you can use as a student to help with your learning or as a teacher to create appropriate exercises.
I hope to see you at our GenAI for Educators Course
