"There is huge pressure to pass students based on the fees they pay" - this is the real issue at play. I suspect Universities find themselves in a position not too dissimilar to that of printed newspapers when the internet started really taking off.
Newspaper's could see the threat the internet posed to their revenue streams but were blind to (wilfully or not) how they should adapt, adopt and leverage the changing environment.
Univesities need to accept they will not be able to hold back the tide and as you say Hal, adapt accordingly very quickly because the bigger issue at stake is the credibility of the Australian education sector itself.
What's a chatGPT derived Australian University rubber-stamped degree worth? Not much.
People often suggest schools should shift to in-person assignments / assessments in the age of AI. Something I think isn't talked about enough is how in-person assessments advantage a certain type of student and disadvantage another type. There's a type of student who may perform less well "on the spot," but whose brain comes up with even more creative ideas at home when they're in their own space, less distracted and anxious than they may feel in the classroom setting. They may also have the work ethic to spend more hours hard at work at home than other students to craft a detailed and effective analysis. Whereas, I think in-person assessments advantage raw, fast cognitive processing as opposed to work ethic, and I think prioritize a certain brain dumping of memorized information as quickly as possible during the timed exam period as opposed to deep thinking.
Being able to perform on the spot is definitely a useful skill that students will benefit from learning to do, but there also needs to be a way to assess the ability to think deeply. I think AI has great potential to expand access to education, but this is one change resulting from its emergence that I haven't heard talked about much.
"There is huge pressure to pass students based on the fees they pay" - this is the real issue at play. I suspect Universities find themselves in a position not too dissimilar to that of printed newspapers when the internet started really taking off.
Newspaper's could see the threat the internet posed to their revenue streams but were blind to (wilfully or not) how they should adapt, adopt and leverage the changing environment.
Univesities need to accept they will not be able to hold back the tide and as you say Hal, adapt accordingly very quickly because the bigger issue at stake is the credibility of the Australian education sector itself.
What's a chatGPT derived Australian University rubber-stamped degree worth? Not much.
Must do better, Ernest.
Oxford and Cambridge have done written exams for 800 years, and they still seem to be working well.
While time intensive in regards to marking, students only do one set of exams at the end of their final year, which gives them their final score.
No need to reinvent the wheel, just go back to the original formula.
People often suggest schools should shift to in-person assignments / assessments in the age of AI. Something I think isn't talked about enough is how in-person assessments advantage a certain type of student and disadvantage another type. There's a type of student who may perform less well "on the spot," but whose brain comes up with even more creative ideas at home when they're in their own space, less distracted and anxious than they may feel in the classroom setting. They may also have the work ethic to spend more hours hard at work at home than other students to craft a detailed and effective analysis. Whereas, I think in-person assessments advantage raw, fast cognitive processing as opposed to work ethic, and I think prioritize a certain brain dumping of memorized information as quickly as possible during the timed exam period as opposed to deep thinking.
Being able to perform on the spot is definitely a useful skill that students will benefit from learning to do, but there also needs to be a way to assess the ability to think deeply. I think AI has great potential to expand access to education, but this is one change resulting from its emergence that I haven't heard talked about much.