Math classes never allowed calculators, not because they were some sort of unfair advantage, but because if you somehow became reliant on it, it would hamper your ability to learn how to solve the problem.
The main problem with AI in education is that you won’t learn how to do the thinking usually required to be successful in the class.
Call me old fashioned, but the point of a college education is to learn how to think. Learn how to assess problems and tease fact from fiction. Learn how to form your own opinions; understand why you have those opinions; and learn how to defend them.
The problem is, that’s difficult, resource intensive, and time consuming (you’ll have to pry my Oxford comma from my cold dead hands). But that’s the point of essays and a lot of the other dumb shit they have you do in liberal arts classes. Offload that essay to Claude or ChatGPT, and you don’t have to go through the struggle. The growth is in that struggle.
I don’t know where you went to school, but in my college I was allowed to use calculators on the math tests. I never did because I quickly realized the professors intentionally wrote problems such that doing math in my head would be easy. Those who used a calculator missed the important crutch of, ‘oops, this math is getting hard - That must mean I’m making a mistake’ and go back to fix the problem.
Physics and chemistry, dealing with real world constants that are often not particularly around easy numbers, you pretty much need a calculator in order to get anything close to a correct answer. But even then, the correct thing is to simplify without a calculator first before plugging the numbers in.
Yeah, in my science and engineering classes, calculators were allowed, but they weren’t allowed in math classes.
We figured out pretty quickly that calculators were useless anyway because it’s hard to make a scientific calculator solve for the derivative of a polynomial…
This is pretty much my perspective on the major problem represented by AI: cognitive atrophy.
I’m 40 something, masters degree, desk based professional consultant for 20 years now.
I don’t really recall the content of the courses I studied at university, although they do come back to me with a little revision. What has stuck with me, is everything you just described: how to collate information and understand problems, and how to communicate. I’ve had 30 odd years of practice at doing that.
My point is, had I been using AI during that time, I would not have had that practice.
Math classes never allowed calculators, not because they were some sort of unfair advantage, but because if you somehow became reliant on it, it would hamper your ability to learn how to solve the problem.
I really don’t get this logic. Calculators don’t solve problems they do arithmetic and make it so you don’t need to cry because you can’t remember the fucking unit square and your masochist calc prof wants you to do trig operations without a calculator.
If you are learning to solve expressions, then sure it makes sense to limit calculator use. I still hate it because I did poorly in math until we stopped using numbers all together and then I ✨ thrived ✨.
make it so you don’t need to cry because you can’t remember the fucking unit square and your masochist calc prof wants you to do trig operations without a calculator.
The problem here is in the professor, not in limiting calculator usage as such.
Yes. That’s what I was trying to communicate. They aren’t using their brain to gain the critical thinking skills to figure shit out for themselves. If we think this is bad, oh just wait til the gen in kindergarten grow to college age without having to use a single braincell through their entire education. It’s already happening and it’s scary. Watching 11 year olds unwilling to figure anything out for themselves and instead either asking someone how to do something or just googling it… We’re so screwed.
That’s not the problem.
Math classes never allowed calculators, not because they were some sort of unfair advantage, but because if you somehow became reliant on it, it would hamper your ability to learn how to solve the problem.
The main problem with AI in education is that you won’t learn how to do the thinking usually required to be successful in the class.
Call me old fashioned, but the point of a college education is to learn how to think. Learn how to assess problems and tease fact from fiction. Learn how to form your own opinions; understand why you have those opinions; and learn how to defend them.
The problem is, that’s difficult, resource intensive, and time consuming (you’ll have to pry my Oxford comma from my cold dead hands). But that’s the point of essays and a lot of the other dumb shit they have you do in liberal arts classes. Offload that essay to Claude or ChatGPT, and you don’t have to go through the struggle. The growth is in that struggle.
Fuck I’m old…
I don’t know where you went to school, but in my college I was allowed to use calculators on the math tests. I never did because I quickly realized the professors intentionally wrote problems such that doing math in my head would be easy. Those who used a calculator missed the important crutch of, ‘oops, this math is getting hard - That must mean I’m making a mistake’ and go back to fix the problem.
Physics and chemistry, dealing with real world constants that are often not particularly around easy numbers, you pretty much need a calculator in order to get anything close to a correct answer. But even then, the correct thing is to simplify without a calculator first before plugging the numbers in.
Yeah, in my science and engineering classes, calculators were allowed, but they weren’t allowed in math classes.
We figured out pretty quickly that calculators were useless anyway because it’s hard to make a scientific calculator solve for the derivative of a polynomial…
This is pretty much my perspective on the major problem represented by AI: cognitive atrophy.
I’m 40 something, masters degree, desk based professional consultant for 20 years now.
I don’t really recall the content of the courses I studied at university, although they do come back to me with a little revision. What has stuck with me, is everything you just described: how to collate information and understand problems, and how to communicate. I’ve had 30 odd years of practice at doing that.
My point is, had I been using AI during that time, I would not have had that practice.
I really don’t get this logic. Calculators don’t solve problems they do arithmetic and make it so you don’t need to cry because you can’t remember the fucking unit square and your masochist calc prof wants you to do trig operations without a calculator.
If you are learning to solve expressions, then sure it makes sense to limit calculator use. I still hate it because I did poorly in math until we stopped using numbers all together and then I ✨ thrived ✨.
The problem here is in the professor, not in limiting calculator usage as such.
It was standard practice, I’m just expressing how hard it was for me as someone with disabilities.
Yes. That’s what I was trying to communicate. They aren’t using their brain to gain the critical thinking skills to figure shit out for themselves. If we think this is bad, oh just wait til the gen in kindergarten grow to college age without having to use a single braincell through their entire education. It’s already happening and it’s scary. Watching 11 year olds unwilling to figure anything out for themselves and instead either asking someone how to do something or just googling it… We’re so screwed.