I asked teachers to tell me how AI has changed how they teach.
The response from teachers and university professors was overwhelming. In my entire career, I’ve rarely gotten so many email responses to a single article, and I have never gotten so many thoughtful and comprehensive responses.
One thing is clear: teachers are not OK.
They describe trying to grade “hybrid essays half written by students and half written by robots,” trying to teach Spanish to kids who don’t know the meaning of the words they’re trying to teach them in English, and students who use AI in the middle of conversation. They describe spending hours grading papers that took their students seconds to generate: “I’ve been thinking more and more about how much time I am almost certainly spending grading and writing feedback for papers that were not even written by the student,” one teacher told me. “That sure feels like bullshit.”
In my unqualified opinion having gone through academia to get a master’s degree in engineering, graded homework or assignments are way too simple for quantifying understanding of a subject.
For what it’s worth I think, at least from my perspective having gone through a STEM education, it should be broken down into the following categories:
Exams
Open book, reference-sheet, or closed book depending on the subject and the desired objective.
Closed book
Closed book exams work well for simple questions where it is more about memorising a method or theory that will be required to be memorised when the subject is applied for quick thinking. For example V = I / R for calculating voltage, current, and resistance and Kirchoff’s law: the sum of all currents into and out of a node must equal zero.
Then lots of these little questions and problems can be presented and it can be marked via a weighted measure of both how many you got correct and how many you did with no expectation that you would finish all of the questions exam paper.
There should only be a one of these types of exams in a given academic year and it should make up the smallest percentage of the grade for the year.
Reference Sheet
Reference sheet exams work well as an in-between for when you want to test memorised knowledge of how to apply a method or theory but not memorising of what that theory is. For example, the quadratic formula for finding the roots of a quadratic equation.
I’d say that a max of two exams of this type is suitable making up the next largest percentage of the grade and with the expectation that students can finish all the questions on the exam.
Open Book
Open book exams are perfect for essay style exams or exams with a few big problem questions which require the application of two or more theories / methods to get a (correct) answer.
These exams should be the largest percentage of exam grades from the year as these are about the students demonstrating their ability to find the knowledge they need in their reference sources (text books, literary works, etc.) and apply it in a long form answer with lots of working out or justification shown. Finding and thinking critically about information is a more pertinent skill in the modern day than just memorisation.
Coursework / Labwork
This should be ongoing throughout the academic year with the workload co-ordinated between subject teachers to ensure the students aren’t overwhelmed perhaps split into half-year and quarter-year sections, with one solo piece and one group piece.
It will allow the students to demonstrate group work and independent learning, with assistance from the teachers if the students require guidance. Ideally it should be a mixture of theoretical and practical with a written report of the outcomes or essay to reflect how the knowledge is applied in the world outside of academia.
To combat an over-reliance on Wikipedia, ChatGPT, etc. a portfolio of marked up reference materials should also be submitted. This isn’t just citing a source in the correct format you found on Wikipedia, a copy of the page(s) with the relevant text highlighted or a website print out or photographs or videos, anything to show that you have gone and done the work.
Depending on the subject, this should ideally be the largest contribution to your overall grade as it is the method that best demonstrates an understanding of a subject.
Presentations
This category encompasses everything from presenting and defending a thesis, demonstrating physical skill by showing something the student made, to delivering training of learnt knowledge.
This is key because no matter the subject, a student should have some ability to pass on the knowledge they have learnt to other students.
This assesment format has the most freedom in how the assessment should be performed and marked and will differ the most between subjects.
Finding a balance between these is key but if this framework was applied throughout the whole of a student’s time in academia from primary school to university and give the students some agency in how they approach the learning then the education system would produce better students who are able to find how to engage with the subjects and therefore produce work to the best of their ability.
Schooling and homework is from the 1800s
Today is 2025
And what do you suggest?
Another option would be to do hand-written in-class essays, but I have a hard time asking that of students. I hardly write by hand anymore, so why would I demand they do so?
Because first graders can do it?
Yeah what’s with that? Doesn’t seem like they want to really try and fix the problem.
Essay in class works. Doesn’t even have to be done in one sitting. We sometimes give students a sheet with 100 squares and they’re allowed to write 100 words to bring in.
Granted it doesn’t work for everything. There are some assignments that can’t be done in that mode.
But another great technique is interviewing students about their work. 99% of the time, they have no idea what they’ve written. And you grade accordingly.another option would be locked-down old laptops that don’t have internet access but only a word processor
Seems pretty simple to me: No graded homework. Grade based on test scores, quizzes, and in-class work.
If a student needs heavily weighted homework/essay grades to offset mediocre test scores, they are a mediocre student and deserve their mediocre score.
Hard work is not a replacement for talent.
Most real life challenges take more time than a test though. You can ace tests and be shit at anything real.
My solution would be to give complex projects and have a mandatory presentation component with questions and discussion.
A presentation component is the kind of class work I mentioned.
When you hire someone to do a job for you, do you want someone who will bust their ass all day and turns in mediocre work? O
Or do you want someone who does the job quickly, efficiently, competently?
When you’re working, do you want to bust your ass all day on something you are barely but technically qualified to perform? Or would you prefer to follow your passion?
Heavily weighting effort for effort’s sake favors the talentless over the talented, and does neither any favors.
I will counter that even for talented people it’s important to learn work ethic and how to study.
Even someone who is not naturally talented can learn topics by disciplined study, that too is an important skill in life.
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Any ai/chatgpt gets an automatic 0 and discipline from the school for me. I don’t care how well crafted the paper or assignment is.
