Tageducation
Finally Something the Politicians Agree On: Phone-free Schools
Governors in both red and blue states are getting screens out of classrooms
Ban the Phones and Bring Back the Books
It's time for the book, a time-tested vehicle of delight and instruction, to make a comeback in the classroomThis summer, several states have proposed banning smartphones in public schools or introducing programs that will limit kids’ phone use during school hours. So far New York, Indiana, Ohio, California, and Oklahoma have proposed bans or restrictions, showing rare bipartisan concern over the issue. The impetus for this movement came in May when Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders sent a letter to every fellow governor in the United States with a complimentary copy of The Anxious Generation, a new book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt shows how starting in the early 2010s kids’ mental health steeply declined. The main culprit? The smartphone, which soon became an ensnaring substitute for “real life.” Gen Z, those born after 1995, were the first Read More ›
Jerry Seinfeld Had a Bone to Pick with AI in His Duke Speech
Seinfeld: the implicit message of AI is that "you can't do it"The iconic comedian and author Jerry Seinfeld gave the commencement speech to the class of 2024 at Duke University; as a supporter of the state of Israel, dozens of students walked out of the ceremony, chanting “free Palestine” while the larger crowds in the stadium counteracted by chanting “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” Seinfeld went on to give a wise, insightful, and of course, hilarious speech about hard work, family, and using one’s privilege to benefit the world. He also had some comedic remarks on artificial intelligence, and what the hype over large language models unfortunately says about modern American culture. “AI is the most embarrassing thing we’ve invented during man’s timeline on earth,” said Seinfeld. “This seems to be the justification Read More ›
Thinking of the “Bigger Picture”
New study on how transcendent thinking enhances and improves the brain in adolescents
Moving Life Online is Making Us Depressed
The phone-based childhood robs kids developmentally, says Jonathan Haidt
Online Training: Real Education or Going Through the Motions?
Not all online trainings are bad. But many are procedural and pointless.
Artificially Smart: Artificial Intelligence and Higher Education
Understanding needs to remain the metric by which students are evaluated
The Kids Aren’t Taking Notes
Colleges have become too dependent on digital methods of learning and communication.
ChatGPT is Losing Momentum
Is the "hype curve" starting to flatten out?ChatGPT’s traffic has declined for the third month in a row, according to Reuters. The Large Language Model (LLM) AI tool took the world by storm in November of 2022 when it was released by OpenAI, posing questions of academic integrity, and urging a host of tech giants to incorporate LLMs into their own platforms and search engines. Anna Tong writes, Worldwide desktop and mobile website visits to the ChatGPT website decreased by 3.2% to 1.43 billion in August, following approximately 10% drops from each of the previous two months. The amount of time visitors spent on the website has also been declining monthly since March, from an average of 8.7 minutes on site to 7 minutes on site in Read More ›
Teachers Gear Up for a New Year – and ChatGPT
Due to ChatGPT's popularity, many schools are seeking ways to integrate the technology into their learning environments.GPT-3, released by OpenAI in November, swiftly undermined the integrity of many a student’s academic work. Professors across disciplines have had to contend with how to discern machine vs. human-generated work. Now, with a new school year underway, that challenge remains. Due to ChatGPT’s popularity, many schools are seeking ways to integrate the technology into their learning environments. But the question of how to do this remains murky. Bloomberg reports, But professors and administrators seeking to integrate generative AI into their curriculums are left with a big question: How? They need to find the right middle ground, said Steve Weber, vice provost of undergraduate curriculum and education at Drexel University. Educators can’t completely prohibit use of the tool and neglect to teach it, but Read More ›
Scientists Have Been Recommending Changes to Science Education for Decades
The modern education system seems designed to squelch curiosityGary Smith describes the problems with today’s science in his new book Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science. He recounts endless examples of disinformation, data torture, and data mining, much of which we already knew. Taken together, however, and as I described in this review, they are mind-blowing. He argues that many of these problems come from things scientists do such as p-hacking during statistical analysis, too little emphasis on “impact” in statistical analyses, outright data falsification, and the creation of the Internet, which can be a huge disinformation machine in addition to a valuable resource. In the last chapter, he also offers some solutions such as ending the artificial thresholds for p-values such as 0.05, requiring Read More ›
More Than Cogs in an AI Machine
Perhaps it isn't only AI which poses a challenge, but the mainstream model of educationEducation seems especially vulnerable to ChatGPT. Universities now have to grapple with AI plagiarism, and even teachers and administrators are being tempted to use the Large Language Model to generate syllabi and even condolence emails in the wake of tragedies. Leah Libresco Sargeant, author of Building the Benedict Option and Arriving at Amen, wrote a piece on this issue at First Things last week. She goes past simply the struggle schools have in detecting ChatGPT’s presence, but also why it’s so easy to use AI generated language in school settings. Many educational institutions, like AI, promote the appearance of productivity but lack real value. She writes, If schools are primarily dedicated to producing workers, rather than holistic human beings steeped Read More ›
Learning to Communicate
Why writing skills are so important, especially in today's artificial worldEducators have been shaken by fears that students will use ChatGTP and other large language models (LLMs) to answer questions and write essays. LLMs are indeed astonishing good at finding facts and generating coherent essays — although the alleged facts are sometimes false and the essays are sometimes tedious BS supported by fake references. I am more optimistic than most. I am hopeful that LLMs will be a catalyst for a widespread discussion of our educational goals. What might students learn in schools that will be useful long after they graduate? There are many worthy goals, but critical thinking and communication skills should be high on any list. I’ve written elsewhere about how critical thinking abilities are important for students Read More ›
Text Generators, Education, and Critical Thinking: an Update
The fundamental problem remains that, not knowing what words mean, AI has no critical thinking abilitiesThis past October, I wrote that educational testing was being shaken by the astonishing ability of GPT-3 and other large language models (LLMs) to answer test questions and write articulate essays. I argued that, while LLMs might mimic human conversation, they do not know what words mean. They consequently excel at rote memorization and BS conversation but struggle mightily with assignments that are intended to help students develop their critical thinking abilities, such as Lacking any understanding of semantics, LLMs can do none of this. To illustrate, I asked GPT-3 two questions from a midterm examination I had recently given in an introductory statistics class. Both questions tested students critical thinking skills and GPT-3 bombed both questions. I was hopeful Read More ›
Will ChatGPT End Up Improving Higher Education?
Oral exams are an endangered species in higher education today, but they are a powerful tool for evaluating knowledge in a world of AIThis article was written by Peter Jacobsen and was reposted from MercatorNet under a Creative Commons License. A new artificial intelligence (AI) system called ChatGPT has been released to the public, and many have been shocked to see the extent of its abilities. ChatGPT can accomplish many tasks. For example, it can write poems about any topic, give book recommendations, summarize specific chapters of books, and create workout routines. If you’re asking whether the AI just Google-searches for responses, the answer is no. If you try to find the source of ChatGPT’s responses, you’ll find they are fresh writing. This brings us to the most impactful thing ChatGPT can do when it comes to my fellow academics and me. ChatGPT can write Read More ›
Humans Have Limits. Transhumanists Want to Overcome Them
The prophetic words of C.S. Lewis still strike home todayThis article originally appeared as a blog post at Salvo on May 13th, 2022. C.S. Lewis wrote an apt and prophetic line in his book The Abolition of Man that feels even more prescient today: “There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.” I think it’s safe to say that today, the world’s elites in government, tech, media, and education embody precisely the opposite of Lewis’s understanding Read More ›
What Can’t A.I. Do? Quite a Lot, Actually
NYT columnist David Brooks makes a list of uniquely human skills that students should develop in collegeIn an increasingly artificial world, how are we to remain human? New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an opinion article this week seeking to answer that question. Brooks notes some of the benefits of “machine learning,” but also lists some of the characteristics artificial intelligence will forever fail to embody. “A.I. will probably give us fantastic tools that will help us outsource a lot of our current mental work,” he writes. “At the same time, A.I. will force us humans to double down on those talents and skills that only humans possess.” Uniquely Human Traits What are some of these “talents and skills” that people should intentionally develop in the age of A.I.? Brooks says an incoming college student Read More ›
What Students Lose by Embracing Easy Tech Like ChatGPT
AI systems not only pose a problem for teachers, but will compromise intellectual excellence and moral virtueWe’ve heard a lot about ChatGPT and its wonders and gaping pitfalls. Among the dangers it poses is academic cheating and corner-cutting. It’s no secret that the new bot makes Comp 1 a whole lot easier for a typical incoming freshman. Some universities and schools are banning the AI system outright. Teachers wonder how they will be able to discern plagiarism. Other voices chide the alarmists and call for students and teachers to use ChatGPT as a classroom aid. But one area that has gone a bit underdiscussed in the conversation is ethics. Dr. Anthony Bradley of The King’s College tweeted this a few days ago, Students are writing papers using AI. Colleges are scrambling to combat it. We Read More ›
Students Depend on ChatGPT for Final Exams
The new bot will only get better from here, but it won’t help students become better thinkersChatGPT, OpenAI’s new artificial intelligence chatbot, has made headlines for over a month now, and for good reason. It’s an advanced bot designed to problem solve. It can “converse” with people on a range of topics. A problem for us to solve now is how to deal with ChatGPT’s invasion into the sphere of education. Students report using ChatGPT on final exams and papers according to a recent write-up from The College Fix. One College of Staten Island student used the bot on both final exams and “got As on both.” He commented that “half the kids in my class used it.” The student also noted that he used the chatbot to complete a multiple-choice exam, on which he got Read More ›