When I was in second grade I learned to write cursive. I was entranced by the shapes of the letters, by the logic of their connections, and by the process by which they flowed continuously from my pen. When I was in ninth grade I was required to take a typing class. I was admonished that while handwriting was fine for personal notes, in the business and professional worlds typewriting was the norm. Hereafter written assignments were to be typed.
I know teaching high school is where students are often wizards of technology way above where the teachers are. I fancy myself as an old school technology person and in that sense I am reminded of this time and again by students. I dare say the best use of AI would be a way to weave it into education but it's a slippery slope. Sam Wineburg of Stanford wrote a book in essence asking Why Study History if we have Google? Perhaps our question is now how to teach History to those born with Google and AI. My dad always said kids are a built in IT crew and each subsequent generation better at it than their parents.
I’m not sure that tracks. For instance, if someone hires a speechwriter, it doesn’t make them a better speechwriter. If someone hires a maid, it doesn’t make them better at cleaning. I think that may be a more accurate metaphor to what AI does—it does the work for a person so they don’t have to. If they did the work, they would become a better writer in the process.
I have many favorite books in history and literature. All of them were by authors who wrote them out in longhand and then were typed. I also read that Columbo’s famous “Just one more thing…” was from the writers being too lazy to retype the script they already wrote.
There are limitations to the medium that seem to help the writing process. Like Chesterton’s fence, I don’t understand what it is, so I cannot yet remove it.
Making kids write will make them read and comprehend more, so I would not remove the essay. I’ve added an oral comp part to my classes and I think that helps 1) eliminate younger kids’ vocal fries/upticks and “likes” and 2) Makes them learn the main themes and points of the class.
You can’t “AI” something sitting in front of the instructor, and it shows why sometimes you can’t “google” your way out of things. But, I’m a low rent /barely a teacher, you are a renowned professor, so take the free advice valued at that…
Certainly a logistical issue. I was at a smaller school (about 100 total in the survey class). I worked for one professor who split it with me (I was the Grad Assistant). Another who had them give a "lecture" on a topic for 15 minutes with potential questions. The latter I thought was pretty weak: turned into lame powerpoint presentations. Being that PowerPoint has been too much of my life (in the corporate world), I had a distaste for it.
I think your PhD candidates (or even MA) ones could serve to grade. I always volunteered to help with grading, but I ventured back into academia to ultimately teach. I did find many of my fellow students seemed left out from actual working on their teaching skills. Frankly, many seemed to not want to as well. Strange how many history PhD candidates seem to not want to actually teach history...Good luck to you, sir!
Interesting how you framed the question based on the value of past advances. But I think that AI raises new concerns that those other technologies didn’t. It’s true that when we got calculators, we largely lost the ability to calculate on our own, but with the benefit that the calculator is likely to be more accurate than our pencils.
I’m not convinced the same is true of AI. If it’s based on what’s floating around the Internet, it could spread ubiquitous lies rather than identifying the truth - for example, take the very common fake quotes attributed to historical figures, some of which are the first to come up in a Google search even though they’re inaccurate.
I also think that learning to formulate ideas and communicate them is fundamentally different and more important than learning to write in cursive or use a slide rule. We see the results of people losing such skills all around us and I frankly find many of the results terrifying. In a democracy, those are precisely the skills we need to have as citizens, not least so people can distinguish and articulate the difference between those candidates who would really serve them vs. the demagogues who seek to exploit them.
I don't think AI will be worse than the internet. But it won't be better, either. Today we have to assess what we see on the net, and so in that respect AI is a wash.
I have never taught in academia, so take what I say here with that aspect in mind.
I, too, learned cursive in second grade. At my mother’s insistence, I took typing in the summer prior to my eighth grade year (but admittedly was distracted by a ninth grade girl who sat in front of me, so much so that I did not graduate with distinction). We did not disdain the written hand throughout high school, college, or law school (I pre-date you by 5 years). I was introduced to the slide rule in the eleventh grade, but Texas Instruments did not come out with their calculator until I was in college. My first mobile phone was a Motorola brick and, to my mind, the best iteration was the Motorola flip phone. Mine eventually had enough flips that the wires crystallized and broke, causing me to move into the Apple captive realm, although I am no fan of Siri. More often than not she has never learned my West Texas use of the King’s english, and I have grown tired of trying to educate her into the proper pronunciation of words that my family, my friends, the persons I come into contact with each day, and those that I may come into contact with forthcoming understand.
But, I beseech you not to forego asking all of your classes to write essays. We communicate in words. We think in words. To my mind, college is the place in a person’s development where they sharpen the edge on the words that their minds inject into their tongues and fingers on a keyboard. And that includes future CEOs, generals and admirals, politicians and presidential candidates (current candidates, to my ear and eye, being sorely deficient), scientists (Watson and Crick were awarded a Nobel Prize on their single page paper on the structure of DNA), engineers, doctors, lawyers, school teachers, butchers, bankers and candle stick makers.
With my initial disclaimer in mind, I offer the following class exercise to you:
“Artificial Intelligence is an evolving tool that you will need to add to your quiver of tools to excel in the future, so I want you to use it. I just want you to disclose what you used in writing an essay on the following subject: “Was Sam Houston during the Runaway Scrape leading his army east to the Sabine to provoke Santa Anna to cross into land claimed by the United States to justify an attack by the United States Army against the Mexican Army, or was he just waiting for the time when troop military discipline and topographic advantage for a battlefield congealed in 18 minutes at the Battle of San Jacinto to produce a victory?” [Insert in its place whatever proposition is relevant to the course you are currently teaching.] I am still trying to makeup my mind on how AI applies to collegiate learning, so I welcome your thoughts from this exercise in any end notes you choose to add.
“After you create an essay in response to the question, I then want you to criticize why you think the computer got it right or wrong, and how you would have improved upon it in telling the story. Feel free to add details in your writing from what you have read, telling me where those details came from. I want to see what AI output you began with and how you, as a human being with real and not ‘artificial’ intelligence, improved upon the finished product.
“I will give you an initial grade on what you write. You can accept it or ask for a meeting with me during my office hours to advocate on why I was wrong. After our conference, I will give you a final grade.”
That is just a suggestion. You have my license to use it in whatever form or media you choose.
I have seen written that “The greatest enemy of truth is the desire to win arguments.” But is it? I believe that the argument is the best way to test one’s mental constructs to determine if they merit one’s continued belief in a proposition. Whether it is a worthwhile expenditure of mental energy depends upon whom you choose to argue with, and whether you and they are of such an ilk to be able to concede after all is said and done, “You know, I am persuaded.” Sometimes you are the bat and sometimes you are the ball, but let us do what Shakespeare said “let us do as the lawyers do, strive mightily at the bar, but eat and drink as fiends.”
That said, I remember earlier in the year you wrote that you have told one of your classes to put away their pens and stop taking notes, teaching the course in a Socratic method of putting forth a proposition and asking for a response. I wonder how you found the experience and was it, in your opinion, productive. I ask this question not as a gauge to your teaching style, but as a barometer on the current typical college student for my 50-year-old-removed-from-the-classroom mind.
I agree that writing needs to be taught. I teach it in small classes. But my big class has 500 students, and even now I can't teach much writing there. It's a matter of numbers.
I know teaching high school is where students are often wizards of technology way above where the teachers are. I fancy myself as an old school technology person and in that sense I am reminded of this time and again by students. I dare say the best use of AI would be a way to weave it into education but it's a slippery slope. Sam Wineburg of Stanford wrote a book in essence asking Why Study History if we have Google? Perhaps our question is now how to teach History to those born with Google and AI. My dad always said kids are a built in IT crew and each subsequent generation better at it than their parents.
I agree with your dad and see it time and again.
How does AI make them better writers, you think?
Same way a hammer makes a better carpenter. Or a good speechwriter makes a better speaker. Tools help.
I’m not sure that tracks. For instance, if someone hires a speechwriter, it doesn’t make them a better speechwriter. If someone hires a maid, it doesn’t make them better at cleaning. I think that may be a more accurate metaphor to what AI does—it does the work for a person so they don’t have to. If they did the work, they would become a better writer in the process.
My son is a college professor at Central State in Ohio and uses a program to determine if essays are AI generated rather than original
I've used such things. My hope is to figure out how to use AI effectively, not simply fight it.
I have many favorite books in history and literature. All of them were by authors who wrote them out in longhand and then were typed. I also read that Columbo’s famous “Just one more thing…” was from the writers being too lazy to retype the script they already wrote.
There are limitations to the medium that seem to help the writing process. Like Chesterton’s fence, I don’t understand what it is, so I cannot yet remove it.
Making kids write will make them read and comprehend more, so I would not remove the essay. I’ve added an oral comp part to my classes and I think that helps 1) eliminate younger kids’ vocal fries/upticks and “likes” and 2) Makes them learn the main themes and points of the class.
You can’t “AI” something sitting in front of the instructor, and it shows why sometimes you can’t “google” your way out of things. But, I’m a low rent /barely a teacher, you are a renowned professor, so take the free advice valued at that…
I'm trying to figure out how to implement oral exams. My problem is logistical: I've got 500 students.
Certainly a logistical issue. I was at a smaller school (about 100 total in the survey class). I worked for one professor who split it with me (I was the Grad Assistant). Another who had them give a "lecture" on a topic for 15 minutes with potential questions. The latter I thought was pretty weak: turned into lame powerpoint presentations. Being that PowerPoint has been too much of my life (in the corporate world), I had a distaste for it.
I think your PhD candidates (or even MA) ones could serve to grade. I always volunteered to help with grading, but I ventured back into academia to ultimately teach. I did find many of my fellow students seemed left out from actual working on their teaching skills. Frankly, many seemed to not want to as well. Strange how many history PhD candidates seem to not want to actually teach history...Good luck to you, sir!
Interesting how you framed the question based on the value of past advances. But I think that AI raises new concerns that those other technologies didn’t. It’s true that when we got calculators, we largely lost the ability to calculate on our own, but with the benefit that the calculator is likely to be more accurate than our pencils.
I’m not convinced the same is true of AI. If it’s based on what’s floating around the Internet, it could spread ubiquitous lies rather than identifying the truth - for example, take the very common fake quotes attributed to historical figures, some of which are the first to come up in a Google search even though they’re inaccurate.
I also think that learning to formulate ideas and communicate them is fundamentally different and more important than learning to write in cursive or use a slide rule. We see the results of people losing such skills all around us and I frankly find many of the results terrifying. In a democracy, those are precisely the skills we need to have as citizens, not least so people can distinguish and articulate the difference between those candidates who would really serve them vs. the demagogues who seek to exploit them.
I don't think AI will be worse than the internet. But it won't be better, either. Today we have to assess what we see on the net, and so in that respect AI is a wash.
You have invited, so I respond.
I have never taught in academia, so take what I say here with that aspect in mind.
I, too, learned cursive in second grade. At my mother’s insistence, I took typing in the summer prior to my eighth grade year (but admittedly was distracted by a ninth grade girl who sat in front of me, so much so that I did not graduate with distinction). We did not disdain the written hand throughout high school, college, or law school (I pre-date you by 5 years). I was introduced to the slide rule in the eleventh grade, but Texas Instruments did not come out with their calculator until I was in college. My first mobile phone was a Motorola brick and, to my mind, the best iteration was the Motorola flip phone. Mine eventually had enough flips that the wires crystallized and broke, causing me to move into the Apple captive realm, although I am no fan of Siri. More often than not she has never learned my West Texas use of the King’s english, and I have grown tired of trying to educate her into the proper pronunciation of words that my family, my friends, the persons I come into contact with each day, and those that I may come into contact with forthcoming understand.
But, I beseech you not to forego asking all of your classes to write essays. We communicate in words. We think in words. To my mind, college is the place in a person’s development where they sharpen the edge on the words that their minds inject into their tongues and fingers on a keyboard. And that includes future CEOs, generals and admirals, politicians and presidential candidates (current candidates, to my ear and eye, being sorely deficient), scientists (Watson and Crick were awarded a Nobel Prize on their single page paper on the structure of DNA), engineers, doctors, lawyers, school teachers, butchers, bankers and candle stick makers.
With my initial disclaimer in mind, I offer the following class exercise to you:
“Artificial Intelligence is an evolving tool that you will need to add to your quiver of tools to excel in the future, so I want you to use it. I just want you to disclose what you used in writing an essay on the following subject: “Was Sam Houston during the Runaway Scrape leading his army east to the Sabine to provoke Santa Anna to cross into land claimed by the United States to justify an attack by the United States Army against the Mexican Army, or was he just waiting for the time when troop military discipline and topographic advantage for a battlefield congealed in 18 minutes at the Battle of San Jacinto to produce a victory?” [Insert in its place whatever proposition is relevant to the course you are currently teaching.] I am still trying to makeup my mind on how AI applies to collegiate learning, so I welcome your thoughts from this exercise in any end notes you choose to add.
“After you create an essay in response to the question, I then want you to criticize why you think the computer got it right or wrong, and how you would have improved upon it in telling the story. Feel free to add details in your writing from what you have read, telling me where those details came from. I want to see what AI output you began with and how you, as a human being with real and not ‘artificial’ intelligence, improved upon the finished product.
“I will give you an initial grade on what you write. You can accept it or ask for a meeting with me during my office hours to advocate on why I was wrong. After our conference, I will give you a final grade.”
That is just a suggestion. You have my license to use it in whatever form or media you choose.
I have seen written that “The greatest enemy of truth is the desire to win arguments.” But is it? I believe that the argument is the best way to test one’s mental constructs to determine if they merit one’s continued belief in a proposition. Whether it is a worthwhile expenditure of mental energy depends upon whom you choose to argue with, and whether you and they are of such an ilk to be able to concede after all is said and done, “You know, I am persuaded.” Sometimes you are the bat and sometimes you are the ball, but let us do what Shakespeare said “let us do as the lawyers do, strive mightily at the bar, but eat and drink as fiends.”
That said, I remember earlier in the year you wrote that you have told one of your classes to put away their pens and stop taking notes, teaching the course in a Socratic method of putting forth a proposition and asking for a response. I wonder how you found the experience and was it, in your opinion, productive. I ask this question not as a gauge to your teaching style, but as a barometer on the current typical college student for my 50-year-old-removed-from-the-classroom mind.
I agree that writing needs to be taught. I teach it in small classes. But my big class has 500 students, and even now I can't teach much writing there. It's a matter of numbers.