ChatGPT Has No Place in the Classroom | Hacker News Reader

ChatGPT Has No Place in the Classroom

buttondown.com

15 pointsTomte15 comments

The skills necessary to "master using AI" are the same skills necessary to effectively communicate with a human being that does not know what you are talking about. This requires explaining to them the context of one's discussion, and once the context is understood then a complex conversation can follow. This is with people and this is the same with AI. If schools and education in general want to prepare students for careers that will probably require the use of AI enhanced systems that do not even exist yet - they need to teach students effective communications. And surprisingly, effective communications is extremely useful for human to human communications too. It could just be the most important thing a student is taught, because looking around as an adult for far too many decades: effective communication skills are at a poverty state across the board in human civilization.

Why are Educational Institutions so resistant to anything that veers from the traditional lecturing from the textbook. You could replace references to ChatGPT with “Internet Search Engines have no place in the classroom” or “computers have no place in the classroom” and the arguments would still be all too familiar.

If you are supposed to be doing math homework and just pasting answers you found online through a search engine (and not doing the actual work), then the student should get into trouble.

Classrooms are there for students to learn. ChatGPT just spits out an answer and doesn't really help with learning (and makes the student worse off). Why should it be allowed in the classroom?

> ChatGPT just spits out an answer and doesn't really help with learning

This 100% could NOT be further from the truth. My 11-year old daughter uses ChatGPT daily and it is best teacher and the best tutor she's ever had. You are assuming that kids will (and their parent will allow) use ChatGPT to simply put in their HW and get answers. If used properly it is an invaluable tool for children and every child who doesn't use it will be at a huge disadvantage...

I think for every student thoughtfully using ChatGPT, there are a dozen who mindlessly dump homework in and copy the output verbatim.

I'm taking classes at a community college for fun, and it's frankly disturbing how reliant the 18-20 y/o crowd is on ChatGPT to do basic tasks. There's also so much unfounded trust in the output of LLMs. At least once per week, I've heard a student arguing with a tutor/professor because their ChatGPT generated homework was marked incorrect - they argue the answer key must be wrong.

I do think LLMs have a place in education, but right now I see them exacerbating existing problems in high school / college aged generations. There's a low tolerance for frustration and grappling with a new problem, or applying past learning to a new situation.

> I think for every student thoughtfully using ChatGPT, there are a dozen who mindlessly dump homework in and copy the output verbatim.

is it fair to say that this same argument applies universally for everything?

> I'm taking classes at a community college for fun, and it's frankly disturbing how reliant the 18-20 y/o crowd is on ChatGPT to do basic tasks

I understand where you are going with this but this tech is here and it is not going anywhere and it will be interwoven into every aspect of our lives - these are just facts. At work a year ago it was like few of us were playing around with it, now there is no one on the team that isn't using claude/cursor/copilot/chatgpt... and if we had someone that didn't fairly certain they would not last more than a few months. I think instead of fighting it you should embrace it. if you have unfounded trust (rightfully so) check and check and verify and check and verify. even with all that it is amazing piece of tech without which you will be at a disadvantage both in school as well as work as well as...

> I do think LLMs have a place in education, but right now I see them exacerbating existing problems in high school / college aged generations. There's a low tolerance for frustration and grappling with a new problem, or applying past learning to a new situation.

ohhhh 1000000% but we have to keep in mind that the tech is in its infancy and there will be growing pains...

what is the system/user prompt you've set for her to get it to work that way? "never give me the answer directly"?

I made a simple rule - you will "talk to her" (it's a she of course :) ) just as if she is your actual teacher. hence of course you can't ask for an answer to your homework but you can ask anything that you do not understand in order to first and foremost understand the concept(s) and then solve the problem(s).

she will frequently go "I do not understand this still, can you try to explain this in another way" over and over for some concept(s) she is struggling with (last one was related to permutations)

is she typing with it or using voice? I've found voice mode isn't able to generate pictures

typing, she got very frustrated with the voice

interesting, thanks!

These are kids. Teacher thinks they cheated then mark them accordingly.

Reading that article makes the juniors sound criminal. They are kids they played the game and got caught. So they learn a lesson, move on. But it should not reflect on the rest of their academic life.

It sounds like you may be thinking of a recent news story involving ChatGPT and schools:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/11/school-did-nothi...

But this article isn't about that story. It's about a recent OpenAI white paper which recommended that teachers use ChatGPT - there's no student misconduct involved here.

Hysteric parents and institutions are part of the game too.

Agreed, students follow the path of least resistance news at 11. Responsibility belongs with students, parents, and educators, and educators need to set consistent expectations through all grade levels. What did they expect to happen?

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