Re:Am I the Unethical One?
by JohnBooty on Friday May 26, 2023 @02:52PM
(#36088202)
Maybe the solution should be to move towards a
style of exam/grading that actually measures the
competence of the student in a situation closer to
what a professional developer will be in, rather than
an old fashioned artificial exam setting?
Most "real world" software development work involves understanding existing code and/or choosing solutions.
AI can help you write a linked list, but can it help you know that you need a linked list vs. a queue or a binary tree? Can it help you to make more architecture-y decisions like deciding whether need a document database, a traditional SQL RDBMS, or maybe something else?
I'm not in a teaching role but those are the kinds of things I'd like to see examinations cover -- what tool or data structure are you choosing, and why?
Or, similarly, can the student understand existing code and fix bugs or make performance improvements?
Bottom line, though, is that for most cases, professors should just absolutely accept the reality of AI. They should assume all students are using AI tools. In fact they should probably mandate it in order to assure a level playing field.
AI can help you write a linked list, but can it help you know that you need a linked list vs. a queue or a binary tree? Can it help you to make more architecture-y decisions like deciding whether need a document database, a traditional SQL RDBMS, or maybe something else?
I'm not in a teaching role but those are the kinds of things I'd like to see examinations cover -- what tool or data structure are you choosing, and why?
Or, similarly, can the student understand existing code and fix bugs or make performance improvements?
Bottom line, though, is that for most cases, professors should just absolutely accept the reality of AI. They should assume all students are using AI tools. In fact they should probably mandate it in order to assure a level playing field.