Chat GPT -Homework now pointless?

Seeing this thread is reactivated DS told me the other day several students in his class got a 0 in some written work which is worth about 5% of their baccalaureate with no comment except a link to the schools plagiarism policy. Ouch!

DD took her GCSEs in 2016, and the coursework heavy ones were just ones with a practical element - art, DT, product design and drama. There was a lab practical element in the sciences, and a small amount of coursework for citizenship and history, but they were mostly exam based.

When DD did her degree she had a lot of tests and exams and several presentations. They had to present their dissertations as part of their finals.

My child is in Year 8 and they haven't had any homework marked. They do all of the work set. It's not motivational. They often say "know-one else does it".

It must be very difficult to mark so much homework but it would be nice to have the odd bit of feedback.

Like others had said AI doing the answers is only going to cause them issues. In the same way I say to my DD I'm not going to be sat in the exam with you when you do the GCSE. I support her but I can't answer questions for her that isn't going to help her progress and learn.

I must admit I didn't know this existed and I'm not surprised kids are using it. I guess some used to plagiarise essays online.

Not sure about secondary school, but lots of universities use a special software to check similarity and detect AI writing.
Once you're familiar with the ChatGPT (or similar), actually it is quite easy to spot a completely AI-written work.

I won't let ds2 use it. Most teachers can spot it a mile off. At ds1 Uni 2 people have been to 'disciplinary meetings' with tutors for AI, and may fail that module. What's the point?

I imagine regulations around AI will come in, just as they will for phones and the ‘iPad generation’. Technology often develops faster than law and there’s a frustrating period of issues before new regulations are put in place or regulations that exist are deemed to fit.

I think some AI could be spotted, but it’s still never going to be highly easy. If the short term solution is less home based essays those good at those (as I was) will definitely be unfairly penalised. I
don’t think that will be the long term solution though.

Alternatively AI may become less accurate if it starts trawling through essays that have been written by AI and using them, errors could become magnified.

Essay on reincarnation? Using ChatGPT is the perfect way to deal with this.

I'm wondering what Alevel results will look like this year as there is so much of it now. So many kids haven't done any thinking for a whole year now.

I use it every day at work but in a more analytical capacity.

I'd say write it and then ask ChatGPT what's missing from your essay.

Perhaps - but it is a skill to read, research, form an opinion and back that up with facts/peer evidence. Even if your opinion isn't ground-breaking.

It teaches critical thinking, debate, research skills etc as well as opening your world to literature, history, politics, geography etc

Child A might go "Ugh... I don't care about what Shakespeare meant when he said X - what a waste of time... " and be destined to be a bridge engineer... but a Child B might go "Wow, I love that this could mean two things - I love how fascinating language is" - and become the next Poet Laureate.

They will have both learnt important skills

It's why it's a general education - so you're exposed to all sorts.

@mondaytosunday oh I was thinking of GCSEs. When I did mine back in the stone age GCSE was more coursework and A levels were all exam.
Has it basically swapped over?

@Needmorelego thats not true, my DD did her A level History last year and there was coursework as part of her final grade, as does English...
AI is not infallible - it is not fact checked so can be incorrect.

@00100001 I think the art of churning out over wordy essays that recycle other people’s ideas is pretty pointless. All to meet a list of criteria written by someone who probably never questioned the point of it all. There are other ways to learn the content. I hope AI will force humans to up their game.

My ds with ASD really struggled (sometimes still does) to find the wording for what he has to say. He could often speak it, but could not write it. He used ChatGPT a lot - but always either rewrote its output or used it as a jumping-off point for further research. I maintain that he learned from this, because he discovered phrasing that helped with his written fluency in a way that appealed to his ASD brain. He is a computer geek, after all. He got 5s and 6s in most of his essay-based subjects at GCSE. The 6 in English Lang astounded everyone. He had been hoping to scrape a 5. Even the 4 in Eng Lit surprised him, as he had been expecting a 3.

So I think that using ChatGPT mindfully may not be a learning disaster. But then how many teens would actually do that?

I suspect that ds disengaged from Eng Lit, and was less mindful in his use of AI in that subject. (He once answered a mock question about the techniques Hemingway used to make his writing interesting by basically saying that the passage was boring because Hemingway had not used any techniques to make it interesting. He got one point for attempting to back up his argument, but failed the question.)

Ds is now beginning an EPQ on the use of AI. He has not yet made up his mind whether it will be on the ethics of using AI in study or on methods of detecting the use of AI in study.

Yes, but if there's no knowledge the. It's a problem.

There a difference between using a powertool to help you drill more holes more quickly - but if you don't even know what the drill does or where it should be drilling then it's no use giving a drill to someone.

@Ggttl I teach 25 a-level students and I know exactly what each one of them is capable of in terms of written work. When you only teach a small number of students it’s perfectly possible to tell.
If I was teaching 100 students it would be harder - simply wouldn’t have the time to check for AI.

I think it's clear that the education system will have to adapt. In other countries more emphasis is already put on oral exams. If you generate all your essays using AI then you won't have much to say in your exams.
What worries me is that too much use of AI will completely rob generations of the ability to analyze source material and come to their own conclusions. Unfortunately schools always study the same texts in subjects like English so there is very little incentive to actually think of your own response to the literature when you can take it directly from chatGPT (or the various published support literature). Maybe they should study some more obscure texts that chatGPT won't find so easy to write about!

@00100001 I think it says a lot about the tasks we set in school. Humans have invented a machine that can do the job for them. No one complains when a student
programs a laser cutter to cut something out for them. They don’t hand them a coping saw and say cut it out by hand. We need to move with the times. I am a teacher and I think schools and universities will have to think about the value of some aspects of the curriculum and make some changes.

It's obvious when a student has used chat gpt. Exam boards also want answers in particular styles which chat gpt has not yet mastered. Anyone using chat gpt I mark honestly and it's always E or U. They soon stop doing it!

Exactly this. I can tell with my own eyes. But I also have Turnitin as backup.

@mids2019 a list of bullet points yes. But that's a totally pointless make work task anyway.

An essay answering that question with clear and accurate reference to the text, which hits all the assessment criteria in the right way ... it really struggles with that. As do teens. But the ones who work on that learn the skill.

Well, I'm sure they'll enjoy the challenge of writing their exam scripts having not learned much of the course or practising being able to write an essay question. And I'm sure they'll think they're ever so clever when they're getting 4s at GCSE after being marked 7 all through their course.