Technology

Problem is, by the time they've failed the test, the opportunity for them to learn the content is largely passed.

The purpose of school is to educate and teach thinking skills. Tests are just a way to assess how effectively you and your students are achieving that goal. If something (in this case easy access to AI tools in the classroom) is disrupting that teaching/learning process, sure it's useful to detect that through testing, but I'd doesn't do anything really to solve the problem. Some fraction of kids are disciplined enough to recognize that skating by on classwork will lead to poor test results and possibly retaking classes, but generally those aren't the kids you need to worry about anyway.

Who would you rather have as a surgeon? The one who did all their coursework by hand and graduated with Bs or the straight-A superstar who got a full ride to John Hopkins by using ChatGPT and just hiding their tracks better than the rest of the class? I'm not saying those are the only two options, but there's definitely a reason we shouldn't be so cavalier with cheating

If everyone does poorly, they will still have to pass some or all.

Ngl. I bought a signal jammer for my wife to use in her classroom (after all, it said “for educational purposes only”) and the kids could never figure out why the signal sucked so bad in her classroom during class times. She never got caught using it and never had to worry about them being on their phones.

If there was an emergency, people would just call the front office and they could always reach her on the land line in the classroom.

I can't imagine dealing with a room full of kids, especially ones with phone addictions.

I regularly advocate for banning phones from schools but people here in Lemmy (same on Reddit years ago) completely lose their shit with that idea, start talking how that'll leave them defenseless in an emergency, how it is torture, how they absolutely can't live without them

Not thirty years ago nobody had cellphones in school, they barely existed, and everything was fine, everyone was fine without and with cellphones I see so much shit going on. Yes, it's the Future, kids need cellphones, but they also need to learn to be without cellphone, and they need to learn responsible use.

Is there not a way to plan the assignment so that it's not doable in 1m with ChatGPT?

If your school is not supporting teachers with a cell phone policy you should try to find another place to teach and tell them exactly why when you leave.

Edit: this is also something your union should be pushing for. I'm surprised parents haven't demanded it.

One proposed Florida law I actually agree with is: phones off during school - all of school, including between classes and recess. Possible exception for lunchtime. Definite exception for when the teacher is specifically using the phones as a fully engaged teaching tool, which should be no more than 20% of overall classroom time, but definitely could be used as a way to "grab attention."

I get wanting to be able to track little Ginny and make sure she got to school O.K. and know when to go meet the bus to pick her up.

There should definitely be "Cybersafety" education in our schools, and the phone as a teaching tool definitely makes sense there.

Having AI write the first draft of your assignment can be a good lesson too, but the remaining 28 minutes should be spent understanding and refining what the AI has given you.

I was uninterested in school because nothing was ever done to make me interested, even at home.

Later in life I was diagnosed with ADHD and now I’m a software developer. Sadly school isn’t for everybody and I just thought I was stupid and lazy, it turns out I was fine I just needed the right help.

Edit: Votes don’t matter but I’d love to know the reasoning for the 5 downvotes on this. Like why don’t you put across your opposition.

Can't you just make them turn off the computers/phones and do it by hand?