[bronco21016]

What are some productive ways students are using LLMs for aiding learning? Obviously there is the “write this paper for me” but that’s not productive. Are students genuinely doing stuff like “2 + x = 4, help me understand how to solve for x?”

[dsubburam]

I challenge what I read in textbooks and hear from lecturers by asking for contrary takes.

For example, I read a philosopher saying "truth is a relation between thought and reality". Asking ChatGPT to knock it revealed that statement is an expression of the "correspondence theory" of truth, but that there is also the "coherence theory" of truth that is different, and that there is a laundry list of other takes too.

[wvenable]

My son doesn't use it but I use to help him with his homework. For example, I can take a photograph of his math homework and get the LLM to mark the work, tell me what he got wrong, and make suggestions on how to correct it.

[Spooky23]

Absolutely. My son got a 6th grade AI “ban” lifted by showing how they could use it productively.

Basically they had to adapt a novel to a comic book form — by using AI to generate pencil drawings, they achieved the goal of the assignment (demonstrating understanding of the story) without having the computer just do their homework.

[gardenhedge]

Huh the first prompt could have been "how would you adapt this novel to comic book form? Give me the breakdown of what pencil drawings to generate and why"

[Spooky23]

At the time, the tool available was Google Duet AI, which didn’t expose that capability.

The point is, AI is here, and it can be a net positive if schools can use it like a calculator vs a black market. It’s a private school with access to some alumni money for development work - they used this to justify investing in designing assignments that make AI a complement to learning.

[kybernetikos]

I recently saw someone revise for a test by asking chatgpt to create practice questions for them on the topics they were revising. I know other people who use it to practice chatting in a foreign language they are trying to learn.

[furyofantares]

Paste the lecture notes in and talk to it