cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/71499854
A committee of professors and students spent 5 months studying how AI changed learning on campus, and the findings read like a warning to every university on the planet.
⭕ Study groups are disappearing.
⭕ Office hours are emptying out.
⭕ Problem sets and take-home exams no longer prove anything, because AI can produce credible solutions to almost any written assignment in the undergraduate curriculum.
⭕ Students who lean on chatbots lose mastery and confidence, and some slip into what the report calls cognitive surrender, reaching for AI at the first hint of struggle.
The committee warns MIT professors against replacing undergraduate research assistants with AI agents just because they’re cheaper, because a university exists to grow people, not output.
Study groups are the best part of university.
I learned more in study groups than in some classes, because we’d all hit our heads until someone had an idea, then they had to explain it in a way 6 or more other people understood. Explaining an idea is much harder than thinking of it. Then we’d challenge it, we’d discuss it, build on it, and sometimes we’d show up at the prof’s office door to ask them about it.
It would be a tragedy to see them disappear to closed off AI based chats.
*college or A university.
The committee warns MIT professors against replacing undergraduate research assistants with AI agents just because they’re cheaper, because a university exists to grow people, not output.
Undergrads are notoriously criminally underpaid. This is the academic equivalent of taking all the pennies out of the “Take a Penny Leave a Penny” tray to save money.
LOL…I guess MIT woke up finally.
My institution made sweeping changes to de-digitize a year ago, and it’s only increasing back to pen and paper, chalkboards. Writing and assignments are now pointless unless we teach how to use LLMs. In case the first idiot asks “wut diferunce doz it mak?” this was really driven by a record number of graduates kicked out of medical and grad schools for have no base knowledge.
