To teach in the time of ChatGPT is to know pain

LLM use is the most demoralizing problem I’ve faced as a college instructor.

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[denemo]

Amen!

As for how to get back to basics. Covid hit in the middle of my studies in computer science and maths. Since we got sent home what we had to do for assignments and exams were to write it out all by hand, like if we were doing in classroom exam, then scan the pages with our phones, create a pdf and upload it to the course webpage.

Later the same day or the following day we would have a one-on-one zoom-meeting with the lecturer or TA where they would quiz you on your answers and try to gauge how well did you actually understand what you wrote.

It might not be perfect but that introduces some friction at least.

And during all the math-courses I took we weren't allowed to use calculators except for one course which I think was Statistics.

 

[denemo]

Unenforceable, especially at scale. (Do you want to be responsible for collecting and returning 1k+ cell phones per exam?). The phone doesn't have to be visible at all for the system to work, just near enough. And never mind the diabetics who use their phone to check blood glucose readings and control their insulin pump...

At my place of academentia, we're not allowed to have students leave their bags at the front of room anymore - they're allowed to keep them under their seat. (If you're wondering why, imagine a single phone going off during an exam in a backpack in a pile of 1k+ backpacks...)

And before you suggest it no, blocking cell phone signals for all exam rooms is not practical (nor legal where I am).

Wait what?! I studied between 2018 and 2021 and we had to leave our smartphones (all electronics really) in our coat/jacket/backpack and those were left either along the back wall of the exam room or on cloath hangers along the back wall.

This system worked with up to 150 people (bigger rooms than that didn't exist) taking an exam at the same time. No problem.

Do colleges even have rooms that house 1K+ people taking an exam at the same time? Honestly it sounds absurd.