Artificial intelligence has turned college classrooms upside down, and some of California’s most prominent professors are fighting back with a decidedly old-school weapon: paper.
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some → turn → weapon
The California Post spoke to professors from UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley and Stanford about how AI is affecting their classes.
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AI → speak → classes
Some said they were cutting it out altogether and only properly grading written work done in class without tech.
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they → say → tech
Others said they were using it to their advantage and saw it as a positive force in their lessons.
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they → say → lessons
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Sign → sign → California
“The technology has been shoved down all our throats and we’re all just dealing with the fallout,” Morgan Polikoff, professor of education at USC Rossier told the Post.
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Polikoff → shove → Post
Polikoff, who is on leave from teaching, said he had already planned to switch more of his graded undergraduate assignments to sit-down, paper-and-pencil tests.
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he → say → tests
He said he’d likely adopt a policy similar to that of renowned UC Berkeley math professor Richard Borcherds, who made headlines for no longer grading homework for correctness.
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who → say → correctness
Two years ago, Polikoff caught a freshman writing a paper with AI after he had banned it.
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he → catch → it
He said it was easy to spot, and the student owned up when confronted.
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student → say → ?
Polikoff made him rewrite the paper from scratch.
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him → make → scratch
“I think in general we will need more standardized and AI-proof measures of everything, both in college admissions and once students are enrolled at university,” he said.
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he → think → university
“It’s become increasingly difficult to know what anyone knows and can do, and that signal is important.”
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signal → become → what
“I don’t see any point at all in a student completing an assessment by running it through AI and handing in to me whatever it spit out for them—that is a waste of my time and theirs,” he added.
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he → see → time
USC leaves AI rules up to individual instructors, who can set their own course-specific policies.
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who → leave → policies
Polikoff said his PhD program is debating a policy now, though any rule would still let faculty make their own calls.
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faculty → say → calls
The university also pays roughly $3.1 million a year for a ChatGPT Edu subscription covering 80,000 users.
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university → pay → users
Polikoff called the sum “pennies” compared to what USC pays its football coach.
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USC → call → coach
Across town at UCLA, statistics and data science lecturer Thomas Maierhofer has taken a hybrid approach.
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Maierhofer → take → approach
All work done outside of the classrooms like homework and labs are graded on completion,” he said.
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he → do → completion
Maierhofer sees AI as a potential teaching tool.
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Maierhofer → see → tool
He’s developing ALISSTAIR, a custom chatbot built to support student learning.
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He → develop → learning
He said his exam policy is what keeps students honest.
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what → say → students
“As long as the exams are in-person and on-paper students are only hurting themselves if they use AI to cheat instead of using it to enhance their own learning,” he said.
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he → hurt → learning
Up at UC Berkeley, Borcherds, whose decision to stop grading homework for correctness made waves this fall, said he now bases grades mainly on in-person exams with no electronic devices allowed.
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he → stop → devices
“Online exams are now a waste of time as several students just use AI to answer the questions,” he said.
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he → use → questions
“I cannot tell which students are using AI, but I notice the average score increases a lot in online exams.”
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score → tell → exams
The University of California lets individual campuses and programs impose stricter AI rules, especially for admissions and academic integrity.
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campuses → let → admissions
“I think AI has tremendous potential.
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AI → think → potential
I think many humans are not great teachers.
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humans → think → ?
So I’m skeptical of human capability, more so than I am overly enthusiastic about AI capabilities,” he told the Post.
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he → ’m → Post
“I think there’s great variance in the quality of teachers and I think AI can definitely have a positive impact if we learn to use it well, especially if the counterfactual is having a poor teacher,” he added.
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he → think → teacher
In a study Nyarko led this year, 16 law professors blindly rated answers to common student questions, and they preferred Google’s AI over their own colleagues 75% of the time.
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they → lead → time
The researchers stressed that the study measured answer quality, not whether AI tutors help students learn in the long run.
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students → stress → run
He also warned that there is a wrong way to use the tech.
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He → warn → tech
“There’s a way to use AI that will harm students, an irresponsible use, which is basically, just write this paper for me or solve this question for me,” he said.
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he → ’ → me
Nyarko has always given in-class exams.
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Nyarko → give → exams
He said many of his colleagues used to assign take-home exams lasting as long as eight hours.
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many → say → hours
With one or two exceptions, they now feel they can’t, out of fear that students will simply hand the work to AI.
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students → feel → AI
He said that trying to restrict students’ access is a fantasy at this point, since the vast majority already have it.
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majority → say → it
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
