Maybe it would be worthwhile to explicitly build the assignment around using AI, and grading on editing the result? Kinda like how research papers are graded on properly citing and presenting information that’s not supposed to be original.

If LLMs are going to be a lasting tool, maybe using them effectively is an important skill to teach. Encourage AI use in generating components, but force those components into a structure that AI struggles with, and grade based on how well the AI-generated components fit together in a coherent end product.

I remember when I was studying math in college, the upper level courses regularly gave take-home exams because all the tools and resources in the world weren’t going to help if you didn’t understand the material.

It’s not a great solution, if students are using AI to skirt learning the basics then they aren’t going to develop the skills to understand the work they’re editing. Kinda like calculators; they’re great when you’re being evaluated for more complex tasks where the arithmetic isn’t the important part, but kids still need to learn how to do the arithmetic in the first place before they automate it.

But the genie’s out of the bottle. Fair or not, teachers are going to have to adapt to test the skills that can’t be automated yet. I was around for the tail end of teaching kids how to use the card catalog in the library to do research, but everyone just uses search engines now.

I do not envy teachers right now. They have a Hurculean task before them, and I only see it getting worse as AI gets better.