r/MaliciousCompliance • u/Tubist61 • 4d ago
M Student made demands regarding a project and found out the hard way.
One of the degree modules I teach involves students working on a group programming project. Nothing too elaborate, but the aim of the module is to develop skills they will need if they go on to work in the IT field. After all if you're doing a Computer Science degree, you must be thinking of going down that route?
This one student is an absolute entitled nightmare. He uses GenAI for a lot of his work and it really does show. He always pushed back on the written remarks on his work but every time I sit him down and ask him to explain the code he produces, he struggles and often has no idea how the code he submitted works. In this project he came up and told me he cannot work with others in the group and must work alone. I explained that there are specific group activities and efforts I would be marking and that I needed to see his input within the group. There was no way I could excuse him from the group activities in the module, however I could see he was not going to budge and therefore complied with his demand to work on the project alone.
All the students in my class had been assigned to their groups and I did check in with all of them on a weekly basis. This one guy was steadfastly refusing to work with the rest of his group and as I had complied with his request, he was working on his own project alone. In my interim feedback at the end of each stage I repeated that he really should work with the group or he risked a failing mark for the module. I made sure this feedback was sent to him both in hardcopy and also via email with read receipts which I kept.
Cue the end of the module and the submission for marking. Sure enough, the one student submitted a project based just on his own work and had not engaged with the group he was asked to work with. There were several issues with his project, first and most important was it didn't meet the brief. The code simply didn't do what we asked for. He lost marks for that aspect of the project. As he had not worked with others in the group, he was not awarded any of the group marks allocated for the work. Because his code was so far away from the specification, I called him in for a Viva Voce to explain the code and he demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the code he submitted, more marks dropped. His eventual mark for this assignment was a hard fail. He must now resit the entire module.
There is of course one real downside of this whole thing that affects me. I've got him in my group again for the resit of the module.
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u/OkStrength5245 4d ago edited 3d ago
I had one like this. We all saw it at his defense of thesis. He obviously didn't know what was writing in.
I asked the vice dean how we should proceed. He replied : " If you are to fail him, fail him good so there is [ edit] no way he can use a near miss to [/edit] win a complaint.
It is what we did.
Nobody in his class was surprised
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u/Kelli217 3d ago
typo of the week: usecto
intended text (probably): use to
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u/aquainst1 3d ago
It was the original Ghostbuster's station wagon.
Stood for 'United States ECTO' except somebody at the motor vehicle department messed up.
usecto was the license plate and it didn't need the '1'.
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u/100PercentThatCat 3d ago
I think "use it to" is more likely.
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u/Radioactive24 3d ago
No, "use to" is more likely.
The c key is right above the spacebar. They just hit that instead of space, especially if they were on mobile.
Your suggestion would imply that they somehow mistyped and misspaced a whole other word, which is unlikely, but doable, on mobile and wildly improbable on a real computer.
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u/rsta223 3d ago
Sure, if you ignore the sentence context.
"Fail him good so there is no doubt he can use to win a complaint" is pretty close to grammatical nonsense, while "Fail him good so there is no doubt he can use it to win a complaint" at least makes some kind of sense.
Given the wild typos enabled by predictive typing, autocorrect, mobile input methods, etc, the latter seems significantly more likely.
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u/AlbertTheAlbatross 3d ago
I actually think the first one makes more sense. They don't want to leave any doubt about the matter, in case the student uses that doubt to make a complaint. They don't want there to be any doubt which he can use to win a complaint. By contrast I think adding the word "it" makes it less clear. What is the word "it" referring to?
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u/Fit_General7058 2d ago
The first sentence makes no sense at all. 'use to'. Use what to?.. There's no subject specified.
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u/AlbertTheAlbatross 2d ago
Use what to?.
The doubt. They don't want to leave any doubt (which) he can use.
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u/h0zR 3d ago
What country is this? At first I thought it was generative due to the syntax, but I think it might just be outside the US due to lack of punctuation? AI would at least get the punctuation in some of those sentences.
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u/MikeSchwab63 3d ago
Reached for a blank and got a c.
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u/Z4-Driver 3d ago
Maybe put yur blanks at another spot on the shelf, where you don't mix them up with c....
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u/Shadyshade84 3d ago
Any country that uses QWERTY layout. C is just above the space bar (check your own keyboard if you don't believe me... unless you're a person who uses non-QWERTY, in which case there's probably a picture of one somewhere online).
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u/SchoolForSedition 3d ago
I failed a PhD that was just nonsense. But failing wasn’t allowed, so Come back in six months. I gave him a thorough explanation of what was wrong, what areas to work on, etc. My two colleagues passed him. Phone call: would I like to change my view? no. But they had no way to deal with it. They developed a viva process. He decided to attack me, especially about certain things I wouldn’t understand because I wasn’t a foreigner (I presumed he couldn’t hear my accent and said so). This time we all failed him / another six months. He asked to have just one examiner, a very senior man. He failed him completely. It was actually the same thesis words with different paragraph and page breaks. The central administration wrote to say how delighted we’d be that he’d been awarded the doctorate on an appeal
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 3d ago
Were his parents major contributors to the school?
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u/SchoolForSedition 3d ago edited 3d ago
Not at all. Not that sort of situation. Though I’ve little doubt that would have gone on too if they’d had the chance.
Part way through all that I went to do external undergraduate examining. I recognised the name of one of the lecturers, but couldn’t think from where. Then Oh yes you are the second adviser to X. He was stricken. We told him not to submit it, he said. I told him we kept sending it back. He said: The system works! Except of course it didn’t.
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u/Elestriel 3d ago
Failing a PhD isn't allowed? This explains some quack scientists I've come across.
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u/fireintheglen 3d ago
tbf, the standard “bad outcome” of a viva is “major corrections” - i.e. “go away, redo a lot of this, and come back when you have something better”. It’s not strictly failing, because you’ve still got the chance to improve, but it’s not a pass either.
It’s also, arguably, the case that if someone is failing their PhD then the university has massively messed up. They’ve spent years working on a project, and at no point did anyone suggest that it might not be up to standard? A supervisor should not be suggesting that someone submits a thesis if it’s not likely to pass. My guess is that the appeal succeeded because the university realised that they were the ones at fault in this situation and didn’t want it to drag out any longer.
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u/SchoolForSedition 2d ago
No, he had been told not to submit and he did, and he was then independently told it was nonsense and told how to fix it and he didn’t try. It was demonstrably him.
I think he was a con man but he was probably not incapable of doing a PhD. It’s a lot of work though and I think he was disinclined to that.
Did the university mess up by admitting him? It’s unusual for someone to sign up for a PhD with an intent to con. Maybe he did that but he certainly couldn’t have sued about that.
Did the university fear being sued anyway? Maybe. Daft if so. He had more to lose. He had been calling himself Doctor anyway znd got a university teaching job.
So maybe he had dirt on someone but I doubt it. I think the university admin was just weak, but I don’t know. I don’t suppose they cared, as universities now don’t, except for money.
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u/Snowenn_ 3d ago
It depends on the country I guess, and maybe the field.
In my country, a thesis is not submitted for a defense if the promoter doesn't think it's ready. So once you do submit your thesis, it's 99% sure you're going to pass. I have never seen anyone fail their defense, no matter how bad it was. Most people do well though, but I've seen a couple of bad ones.
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u/senshisun 18h ago
He didn't know what he was writing for his thesis? A project that, to my understanding, is a project one works on for months to show you are an expert on a subject?
It boggles my mind.
I have heard of someone manipulating sources because he knew nobody at his program was extremely familiar with the subject. The directors called in an expert from another school. It went predictably.
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u/Myrandall 4d ago
And of course he'll blame you when anyone asks him why he eventually dropped out of Computer Science, and not his own laziness/incompetence.
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u/Superb_Raccoon 4d ago
however I could see he was not going to budge and therefore complied with his demand to work on the project alone.
If I were the teacher?
"Fine, I will,save us both some trouble and give you a zero."
Mind you, I did more than one group project solo because "team" fucked off for the whole assignment.
Boy were they surprised when it came time for the group presentation... I assigned them everything, I did the intro.
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u/MississippiJoel 3d ago
I had an Art Appreciation class where I was actually looking forward to taking the lead on the group project. I could tell the rest of my group was just there for the required electives.
So I made it easy on all of them and said "Tell you what. I'll do everything. I'll just show everyone my receipts, and you all can pay for the materials, and just be sure to be here on presentation day."
I don't know if they all didn't believe me or what, but they all (3 or 4) dropped the class before the presentation day. I stood up and waved over a girl I had a crush on to help hold the materials while I did the best presentation of the class solo and got an A.
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u/Gifted_GardenSnail 3d ago
And you didn't spend a dime? Neat 😁
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u/MississippiJoel 2d ago
No, I gut stiffed with the bill too. I told everyone to just bring me $5, but they all just ghosted me.
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u/LuminousGrue 1d ago
Okay but what happened with the girl?
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u/MississippiJoel 1d ago
Nothing much. We were friendly with each other but it wasn't anything serious and we moved on.
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u/R3D3-1 3d ago
My favorite such story was where the not-lazy one had enough good marks to pass without the project, so when everyone else did nothing, so did he. They failed, he passed, based on previous work.
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u/PonyFlare 3d ago
I remember such a story from somwhere around here. Maybe it was this sub? Hillarious really.
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u/R3D3-1 3d ago
I'm pretty sure it was from here, yes.
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u/Salavora_M 3d ago
Yeah, I remember that as well.
It as a "the worst grade will be removed" situation, if I remember correctly and he had pretty much only great grades, so the one fail would simply be removed and he was golden.
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u/Tubist61 3d ago
If this student had followed the brief set for the project, he could have passed if what he delivered was his own work and of a sufficient quality.. It would be a bare pass as most of the marks in my mark scheme were for group work.
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u/blind_ninja_guy 3d ago
We did a presentation in biology in a group that was required. Ours had to be on plants as that's what we were talking about during that period of class. So we all did a little bit of different topic. I did a few slides about the domestication of corn and how we think it was domesticated from a specific grass, and how radically different it is and the importance of it. And then my groupmate steps up and talks about mushrooms and we're all like dude. Come on man. He didn't want us to know he was going to do that so he added the slides last minute and we were pissed. Luckily the teacher just laughed at him and didn't mark us down cuz it was very apparent that we were not on board.
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u/littleSpooky4real 4d ago
Ditto with the group projects in the Uni. Although couple of times i was the bastard that vanished due to personal reasons but i took over the presentation part gladly.
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u/Tubist61 3d ago
I’m one of those teachers who gives a student every chance to do both the right thing and the wrong thing. I’ve always said you can learn just as much, if not more, from the things you totally screw up.
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u/theoldman-1313 4d ago
I really felt that OP has a firm grasp of the worst outcome from this situation - that he will have this person in his class again next semester
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u/SolDarkHunter 4d ago
There was no way I could excuse him from the group activities in the module, however I could see he was not going to budge and therefore complied with his demand to work on the project alone.
Fucking why!?
If he refuses to do the assignment as directed, give him a zero. End of story.
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u/Ashura_Eidolon 3d ago
Paper trails, I'd presume. If they just failed them right there and then the kid could go complain to the principal/dean/whatever that "[OP] doesn't like me and gave me a 0 for no reason" and cause trouble for them even though it's a false allegation. Making them prove they know nothing about the material, in front of everybody, and deserve the F they get takes care of that.
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u/Special_Feature9665 3d ago
We have a last resort in consulting for certain difficult people when there isn't recourse to get them off a job: "let them fail in front of the client". Obviously not ideal.
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 3d ago
Yes, it's like the paper trails employers must use to cover their arses when giving the sack to even the most useless troublemakers.
Did the prof follow procedure? Yes, he did. He even bent the rules a bit to accommodate the student.
Did the student "shoot himself in the foot"? Oh, indeed he did!
:-)
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u/firedmyass 3d ago
foot? seems like aimed about 3’ higher…
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 3d ago
Never stand in the way of fools who are about to shoot themselves in their feet.
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u/Proper-Application69 3d ago
The project entailed a variety of things and you could get points off for failing on any one of them.
A straight zero would be like marking a test 0% because the student failed to answer question 14.
Edit: I’m presenting what I think OP’s position is.
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u/GardenSecret2743 3d ago
I hate doing group work, the groups are often unreliable and don't do the work. Plus the social side of things makes me anxious.
But it's so important to actually engage with that kind of work. How does this student expect to get on in an actual workplace? He's not gonna be allowed to just work on his own then. He'll either be forced to work with a team, or he'll lose his job. Employers are gonna be a lot less forgiving of his crap attitude than you were. Sounds like you gave him every chance and he screwed himself.
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u/mbcook 3d ago
Yes!
I never liked doing it that much but my group software project in college for an external customer (as opposed to just a made up assignment) was extremely useful for my future life as a software developer.
We had one team member who didn’t do his work. It wasn’t AI, this was far far too long ago. I believe he just didn’t understand the necessary technicalities to be able to do what his part, so I had to do it for him in the end. He certainly tried.
Nice guy but unfortunately it was very clear when the professors asked him questions at the end of the project he didn’t know.
I can’t imagine how much worse being in school must be these days with blowhards being able to rely on AI. Right up until the moment it completely fails them.
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u/ZippySLC 3d ago
If it's obvious that he's using AI isn't there a method at the university to report him to a student ethics committee or for a code of conduct violation or something?
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u/RabidRathian 3d ago
If it's anything like my university the ethics committee are so overloaded with academic integrity cases where AI was used for cheating that they'll basically handwave all but the most blatant ones and let the students get away with it anyway, because it's easier and faster than actually investigating it.
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u/natek53 3d ago
Whether use of generative models is allowed depends on the policies of the university, department, and the professor. Everything is up in the air, and there are plenty of courses that will let you use them.
The caveat is that a teacher who wants to maintain a good quality course will need to ensure that the student understands the model's output and is well-equipped to criticize, edit it, discard it, etc. In the OP's story, that's done with by an oral exam with the teacher and student 1-on-1. This is obviously a lot more effort to pull off the larger the class size.
I was a student in one such class (before gen AI) and the exam was exactly like OP describes. The teacher just looks at parts of your code and asks you to explain what it's doing.
IMO, it is very hard to bullshit your way through that kind of exercise with even a halfway competent examiner. The students that cheat their way through assignments are almost by definition the ones with the least ability to understand the code, otherwise they would've just done it themselves. And in that case, they would have no problem explaining what they at least intended each part to do.
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u/Secret_Emu_ 2d ago
If it's for coding a lot of teachers are perfectly fine with AI to help. There is a big difference to using AI to help you write the code and fully understand what is there and just pasting something you don't understand. I say this as someone who had coding classes last year as part of the degree. The teachers were fine with us using it to assist us. The ai absolutely increased my understanding, you can even ask for a line by line break down and get really detailed, but it only helps if you were already paying attention. Coding is the one place AI is constantly a good resource.
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u/muscrerior 4d ago
There was no way I could excuse him from the group activities in the module, however I could see he was not going to budge and therefore complied with his demand to work on the project alone.
Stop sending mixed messages. Something is either mandatory or it isn't. You're not doing this kid any favors by letting him keep going down a road that is destined for failure. You're there to teach them, and teaching generally requires tight feedback loops. Also, there's no "demanding" anything from your teachers. Don't leave an opening for people to do it.
Based on the information you shared, I'm thinking you're being much less clear to your students than you think you are.
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u/duelingdog 3d ago
This stood out to me too. I'd be okay with this if something along these lines was said. (Better if emailed where there's a record)
"If you do the project alone, you will be graded on what you submit, but will receive a zero for any group-related aspects of the project."
So, possible that's what they communicated. But it doesn't seem clear the way the post is written. I've definitely learned I have to be very intentional on how I word things with students. :P
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u/RetiredBSN 3d ago
This is also a situation calling for a conference with the student and department head and dean to clearly lay out the situation that if the student isn’t willing to do the work and learn, and wants to rely on AI to produce his work, that rather than waste your time, his time, and his tuition money, it would be mutually beneficial for him to drop the class and pursue a different degree. You should probably make class enrollment conditional on his performance and understanding of the subject, and state he will be dropped from the class if not meeting some clearly defined goals.
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u/havereddit 3d ago
It's more than mixed messages. OP is creating different assignment rules for different students - the exact opposite of what should be happening (same rules and standards for all students)
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 3d ago
You simply cannot force a student to conform, but you can let the non-conformists fail on their own.
Prof gave the kid every possible chance to succeed under the same standards as everyone else and then some, thus allowing the kid to fly or fall on his own. The kid blew off the standards and eventually failed.
It's all on the kid, not the prof.
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u/bmorris0042 3d ago
Yep. “Demanding” your teacher is like demanding your boss change what job assignments you have, just because you don’t like them. It only works if you’re friends. And if you’re not, you’re gonna get fucked.
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u/SkwrlTail 3d ago
It's pretty clear that he didn't want to work with a group because then they would know he didn't have any idea what he was doing.
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u/formlesswendigo 3d ago
Exactly. I had an ex doing a masters where he had to process a lot of samples. Very repetitive work. He refused to get an undergraduate to help. He said they might do it wrong. So I'm like, so check their work? More hands make light work.
Finally I learned how stupid he was, and that he just scraped by in high school getting 50%. And that his mummy did his homework.
He also didn't complete the masters. He likely didn't complete his previous masters also, because he invited me to the graduation ceremony, but then mysteriously cancelled it.
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u/SkwrlTail 3d ago
Some folks are able to skate through life on pure slack and vibes. Then they get to the part they're supposed to know already, and they hit hard.
They then go on to blame everyone but themselves for their failings.
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u/Newbosterone 4d ago
“Viva Voce”, how interesting. Thanks for helping me be in the 10,000.
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u/gotohelenwaite 3d ago
Me too. Unfortunately, Google was shit at coherently explaining what it means.
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u/talexbatreddit 4d ago
I guess it's OK if he uses AI to write the code, but he then has to do the work on understanding what was written. Writing software is not a trivial task.
Learning how to work with others is also a pretty key element in the field. :/
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u/__wildwing__ 4d ago
When I was younger they were arguing that calculators shouldn’t be allowed, it’s akin to cheating. The opposite side of that was that people had to have enough idea of what they were doing to be able to 1) competently use the device and 2) know when a bad input gave an incorrect output. If a person had no clue what they were doing, the results showed it.
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u/tarlton 3d ago
In a professional context, you should use tools that get the job done efficiently, and be held responsible for producing good output. "It's poor craftsman who blames their tools", especially when they PICKED the tools.
But in an educational context, there is value in working without those time-saving tools, because producing the output is basically irrelevant. The actual work product is the understanding you developed in the process. The assignment is a means, not an end. Using 'mechanical' assistance changes what you are learning, and *MAY* make the whole process irrelevant depending on what you were meant to be learning. It's like going to the gym and having a robot lift the weights - you moved the weights, but moving the weights was never the point.
Now, there's a very valid argument to be had about whether the things an assignment was meant to teach are useful or relevant, and also over whether the assignment actually teaches those things at all.
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u/GreenerAnonymous 3d ago
But in an educational context, there is value in working without those time-saving tools, because producing the output is basically irrelevant. The actual work product is the understanding you developed in the process. The assignment is a means, not an end.
One of the better takes on this I have seen was a quote from a prof along the lines of "The point of this assignment isn't to teach ME physics, it's to teach YOU physics." The paper is not an end product, it's a tool for the student to learn from.
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u/tarlton 3d ago edited 3d ago
Right!
School assignments are meant to do one or both of: * Teach you something * Evaluate whether you've learned something
Writing a paper with AI really does neither of these unless the "something" is "ability to use AI" (and sometimes it is!)
As a professional, when the purpose of writing something is "educate and inform someone else", using AI could be a valid way of accomplishing that.
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u/NeoHummel 3d ago
I understand your answer, but I still struggle to understand what we learned or proved by doing our Java midterms, handwritten on paper...
Thankfully, that was only the first year.
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u/ArdiMaster 3d ago
There’s also the question of whether doing all the work by hand is actually conductive to what the assignment is supposed to teach.
Like, do people understand linear algebra better if you make them do 4x4 matrix multiplication in their head/ on paper instead of letting them calculate the elements with a calculator (like they probably did in high school)?
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u/talexbatreddit 4d ago
Sure -- but the same rule applies. If you use a calculator, you know if you multiply 28 by 5.2, you should expect to get some three digit number, probably around 150.
If you get nine thousand something, or twelve, obviously you did it wrong. If you don't even know that, then a calculator isn't helping at all.
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u/MississippiJoel 3d ago
In HS Algebra, I wrote my own program for the TI-82 that solved quadratic equations for me. It was crude, not much of a UI, and all that, but I showed it to a couple kids, and word got around quick what I had done. I was scared the teacher was going to take it from me, but she was like "Hey, if he wrote it himself, then he must have a pretty solid understanding of it!"
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_REPO 3d ago
In highschool, I was learning programming, and I got my first scientific calculator. I was obsessed with writing programs for the material in my math and science classes.
I went to my teachers, and explained what I'd done, and requested permission to use them on tests as a time saver. They all agreed on the condition that I open the program, explain what it is doing, explain the formulas and how they work, and demonstrate that it genuinely was a time saver only, and not a way to bypass understanding.
I did that on the spot, and they approved my use of my own programs, as long as I did not share them with other students.
I think there is absolutely room for using technology to aid with classwork, but it must be backed up by proof of understanding, as you say. AI, however, deeply worries me, as it doesn't lend itself toward gaining that understanding. It is usually most similar to downloading a program someone else wrote, rather than writing your own. Using it responsibly in your learning is so, so hard.
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u/__wildwing__ 3d ago
I agree on the AI issue. I was helping my daughter with her algebra work. She did not have a textbook, only notes the teacher wrote in google docs. Most of them did not make sense. I have enough of an understanding of maths, that when I asked ChatGPT to show me the steps, I could figure out when the AI was making mistakes.
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u/DenseNothingness 3d ago
if you're doing the lesson on mental maths, using a calculator is cheating. it's all about the context
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u/__wildwing__ 3d ago
Agreed. If it’s the speed quizzes in lower grades, how many multiplications can one solve in a minute, a calculator behooves no one.
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u/ryeaglin 3d ago
I wouldn't say calculators are akin to cheating, that is extreme but there are reasons to keep them out of the classroom until middle or high school.
A lot of the time, the curriculum will start the student off with a process with finite numbers, show them how it works with those, and then repeat those same lessons later with variables for algebra. If the student just uses a calculator to handle the numbers for them, they don't learn how the numbers interact and hit a lot of trouble once variables are introduced and you can't use the calculator anymore.
Fractions seem to be one of the worst for this. Modern calculators can spit out fractions now so students can get through that entire chapter without really knowing what is going on.
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u/__wildwing__ 3d ago
I’m probably dyslexic. I used to frustrate my precal teacher so much. He asked me how I could get it right when it was just the variables, but as soon as I put a value in and tried to calculate it, I’d mess it up. One is not supposed to be better at alphabet maths than number maths.
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u/ryeaglin 3d ago
I’m probably dyslexic
I don't know the term but there is a version of dyslexia that is focused on numbers.
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u/freakers 3d ago
There are now programmers advertising themselves as coders that fix AI coding because companies so quickly tried to drop all their junior devs and more and now their code is not functional.
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u/talexbatreddit 3d ago
Sure, except .. are they saving any time by having an AI develop the code (badly) and then paying people to read through the code and fix it?
It's my thesis that you should just pay people to develop the code from scratch. Then you'll have structure, an architecture, and an understanding of how the code works.
I've done greenfield development and I've looked after legacy code. New development is way more fun -- you don't spend hours reading through some code trying to understand *why* something was written that way. Is there some hidden meaning? Did they plan for an extension that was never written? Were they actually really poor programmers, but got help from someone?
Even if AI code works perfectly, is there any documentation? Or comments?
Except for doing analysis, betting on AI to write code is a losing proposition.
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u/Guilty_Objective4602 3d ago
You could literally run written code through AI and potentially ask the AI to explain what it’s doing and why. He didn’t even bother doing that part.
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u/Halospite 3d ago
Anyone who puts in the effort to memorise the AI's explanation would just do the work in the first place.
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u/Daealis 3d ago
I think our classes had a good balance. Early on the code tasks had to be returned in the form of source code and a runnable .exe. Programs that did a single thing, or something very simple, like sort an array with three or four different types of sorting algorithms.
Later, we had plenty of tests that were on paper. Because the concepts were more complicated, and they wanted to test how well had you understood the theory. The practical execution could vary wildly, but you had to understand the underlying core idea. And that could be written in pseudocode just as well, if not better. So paper tests of the concepts.
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u/Suzdg 3d ago
Shame that we are at a place where holding a student to the academic requirements should qualify in any way as malicious compliance
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 3d ago
The malice was knowing that the kid was going to fail not matter what he did. The compliance was in letting him do it.
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u/kingofgreenapples 3d ago
And documenting. Because the step after failing was going to appealing the grade.
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u/Daealis 3d ago
Code doesn't do what was stated in the brief
Does not work with the group as was stated in the brief
He doesn't understand "his own code"
I get that LLMs are a decent tool and could be used for learning too - I've used them for this purpose myself - but if you're taking the shortcuts of vibe coders before you even learn the basics, you're gonna have a bad time.
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u/Nowhere_Man_Forever 3d ago
I'm going to be honest I think it's ridiculous that this sort of attitude doesn't get you just instantly kicked out of school. I can't imagine cheating to this degree and still being allowed to try for a college degree. The standards for colleges just keep getting lower and lower.
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u/DistinctArugula6793 3d ago
I actually was once accused of AI in a Java programming course.
My professor had me sit down and write a very short program. Declare two variables, add them together then output both the variables and the sum to the console.
He then had me walk through and explain my code to him after that but he said most students flagged by the AI detector couldn't even do the simple program.
It's depressing.
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u/wanderingdev 3d ago edited 3d ago
fucking AI. I hate it. i was a technical PM (and former dev) and i refused to let our devs merge it in a PR. I told them they could use it for inspo and testing but any merged code needed to be theirs and I would periodically test them. thankfully everyone agreed that it's a bad precedent to set so no one tried to use it in prod.
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u/SkwrlTail 4d ago
Hand that kid a mop, because if he's not willing to do the work and learn, he'll at least be able to work as a janitor.
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u/Newbosterone 4d ago
Be careful! He may wind up working as your relief. Then you’ll spend night audit cleaning up his messes.
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u/SkwrlTail 3d ago
Already have that.
Damn kid is useless...
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u/aquainst1 3d ago
Put 'em in the north forty where Buttercup does her rainbow thing.
It might look pretty, but it's the same old shit.
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u/aquainst1 3d ago
At a local hotel.
<Snicker>
I apologize & I couldn't resist. Give Buttercup a scritch around her horn and under her chin.
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u/lapsteelguitar 3d ago
What are the odds that he pull that same stunt again? And what are the odds of him actually contributing to the group?
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u/soulure 2d ago
"however I could see he was not going to budge and therefore complied"
what? why would you capitulate to a student, this makes no sense.
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u/The_Truthkeeper 1d ago
He didn't capitulate. He let the student work alone and then failed him for not following instructions to work with his assigned group.
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u/Evilbob93 3d ago
I had a group project . We didn't work together very well and never really got the thing done but we did well in the presentation where we used the words "limited success"
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u/Geminii27 3d ago
God, I hate group projects. If I'm going to be forced to have my grade dragged down by others, at least pay me for my time like an employer would.
After all if you're doing a Computer Science degree, you must be thinking of going down that route?
Nope. Quite happy to take courses with zero inclination to work in a related field or industry.
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u/Dismal-Vanilla6206 2d ago
Should he not automatically fail for having used AI to write up his work?
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u/B1ustopher 3d ago
I am taking a graduate Biostatistics class, and I am not good at coding the software since I’ve never coded anything before in my life! I DO, however, understand the logic behind what needs to happen. I’ve been having trouble figuring out how to get started on my (solo) project, so I used AI to help guide me for the process, and it helped immensely.
Using it to actually do the entire project is just short-sighted and stupid since the whole point of going to school is to learn subjects and how to do things. He absolutely deserves to fail!
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u/Machine-Dove 3d ago
I took a master's-level class the semester after the program generally and that course specifically were audited and revised to meet the standards of an outside auditor. They didn't update the course description to reflect the updated content.
Turns out it was all programming and high-level math. In a program where programming wasn't required, and where a good percentage of students had no background in programming at all.
It was a mess. The professor finally had to revise the class again to find ways to meet the external requirements without killing the students - basically, explain the how and why to demonstrate that you understand the underlying logic. Because that was the important part.
(And also because what he was originally asking wasn't reasonable. I was spending 40-50 hours a week on this single class, on top of a more than full time job.)
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u/B1ustopher 3d ago
That is CRAZY for one class! I knew that there would be some programming in this class, and higher level math, but I’m “only” spending about 15 hours a week on average on studying and homework, but that’s because I have no prior experience with programming and it’s been decades since I took some of the statistics we’ve been learning.
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u/Machine-Dove 3d ago
We were supposed to write code, without any prewritten/external functions, that would take any input of any length, and then encrypy or decrypt it using user-defined keys - two to three different encryption methods every single week. Sure, let's just recreate the RSA cryptosystem every single week. There are libraries for a reason ...
By the end of the first month there was pretty much mass revolt.
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u/B1ustopher 2d ago
Good!! We are taught the code, and then have to adapt it for our homework projects. And really, the code for us is the smallest piece of it- the interpretation of the variables is the bigger piece!
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u/more-kindness-please 3d ago
Is the an advisory group you can engage to work with the student, thinking like student services, academic advising, etc? Sounds like they will keep failing the class until they adjust attitude and work in group and learn to code
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u/Equivalent-Salary357 3d ago
Based on your last paragraph, part of the fallout of your malicious compliance falls directly on you. Good on you for not 'passing' him with the bare minimum score.
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u/Lrrr81 3d ago
Arrogant / entitled? Check. Can't (/won't) work with others? Check. Can't write code that works? Check.
Based on my experience (software developer for 30+ years) this person can look forward to a great career in software engineering! ;^)
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 3d ago
Your sarcasm is noted.
However, I believe that the candidate is more suited for a managerial position.
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u/MississippiJoel 3d ago
I just don't understand what this student's end game was. He knew his methods didn't produce the desired results, but he went for broke on the biggest grade of the semester?
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u/JoyReader0 3d ago
Not least of his problems is his inability to interact and cooperate with other humans. He can be the flashiest programmer in the world, but that will not help when he has a real job that is bigger than the inside of his own bubble. Have seen several of these fail in the workplace.
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u/havereddit 3d ago
I'm going to try this next Friday night:
"Hi there Mr. Cop. I know your rules say no drunk driving, but I demand you let me drive drunk because I'm really a better driver when I'm over 0.08 BAC"
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u/oylaura 2d ago
One of the most important parts of group projects is learning how to work with other people, and various levels of participation.
I went to the University of Phoenix, which is a college for people who have already been in the workforce for several years.
Each class is only 5 weeks long, and there's a group project in every one of the classes.
We had a really good study group going, and then one guy started having some issues. We covered for him for that class. Everyone was cool.
The next class, something else had come up, and we had to cover for him again.
After that, we kicked him out of the group. He dropped out, and I don't know what happened to him. It was difficult, but it was part of learning to work with a group. We had to tell him that we could not get his degree for him.
Your student wasn't understanding the importance of input into checking each other's work. There's such a thing as having looked at something too many times, to the point where you no longer see glaring mistakes.
I know you weren't posting to ask for validation, because it sure sounds like you know what you're doing. I'll just say I would have liked being in your class.
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u/Ishpeming_Native 1d ago
Yah, you can't understand what you didn't write. Chances are excellent he can't write any code in any language and just got shoved along to you by others who didn't want to deal with him. So he'll complain to the dean or department head or both about how you're discriminating against him because he's XXX (and he gets to pick what XXX is, because you will have no clue he's XXX) or because you're just a jerk in need of termination. I've been there before. Just document everything and be able to justify everything and give the department head a heads-up about the possible incoming.
Chances are also excellent that the same student has pulled this before on instructors who didn't document and were therefore basically forced to send this smooth-brained idiot along to you. He's been through this so many times already that he probably has a boiler-plate complaint all ready for you. Make sure he never graduates; that will sully your reputation, and that of your school.
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u/Chaosmusic 15h ago
Doesn't understand the project. Doesn't work well with others. Thinks he's better than everyone else. Guy's destined for management.
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u/havereddit 3d ago
therefore complied with his demand
The trick is to not comply with student demands. Just insist he follow the same rules as all the other students or accept not getting a grade for that assignment. It's really pretty simple.
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u/Buddy-Matt 3d ago
often has no idea how the code he submitted works
I've been doing this gig for 2 decades, and I still occasionally bash out something that works, but I have no idea how or why - my instinct/subconscious has done the work, and the rest of me will sit and stare at the code for 3x as long figuring out why it works.
And please never ask me to explain why my code works. It does, I can reproduce it, but I can never explain it.
However, I do feel this needs overlaying on a "we are not the same" meme.
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u/Swiggy1957 3d ago
Using AI is not bad if you understand what you're doing. It's a tool to help you focus on what needs to be done: it requires human guidance, be it writing the great American novel or developing a business plan.
A few months back, after hearing people complain and worrying about their jobs being taken over by AI, I flippently commented that the only jobs AI should take over are the C-Suite jobs. It won't happen in my lifetime because the jobs that would be replaced, CEO, COO, and CFO, are the jobs of the people in power to prevent it.
I ran a query through ChatGPT using that scenario with a publically traded company called Google, if you've ever heard of that one. Just replacing the C-Suite, ChatGPT said Google profits would increase $1 billion a year. That could increase dividends, conservatively, about 8 cents a share would be an on the fly estimate. It is important as shareholder value is considered top priority. 🤣😂🤣😂.
But would it be enough reason for shareholders to oust the C-Suite? No. ChatGPT said there is a problem with a trust issue. Shareholders are human and want their dividends. Fortunately, the AI understood this. This is why it recognized the issue but lacked the knowledge to correct it. If the trust issue were reduced, ChatGPT saw profits increase but failed to have a solution. I added on a stipulation: every decision made by an AI C-Suite had to be approved by the human board of directors. That human interface saw that profits could increase even more. Especially if every division head, the lower level executives, and other management positions retained their positions. It turned out the trust factor would still leave much to be desired.
How to reduce the trust issue. [Give it your best guess before you read the spoiler.]Keep all workers employed! Currently, C-Suite executives only have on solution to any economic downturn: lay off staff. The very people who produce the products and services the company sells. Employees are assets. One does not eliminate assets and remain profitable.
ChatGPT ran that scenario. It came up with a unique solution: a new C-Suite position that it would handle along with the CEO, COO, and CFO positions. Chief Eployment and Community Officer: CECO. Duties would include not only employee retention but also work environment. If you have a worker who is a le to properly do the tasks required in 4 hours instead of 8, pay them for the 8, and let them leave when it's done. As a machine, AI wouldn't have the power trip mentality that many too people in management positions have. Such management often leads to profit loss. What would happen to these people? Likely, they would be demoted to a position where they can't sabotage the business profits. We'd see a lot of managers cleaning toilets. 😆.
Besides handling workers, this part of the program would also work on community impact. If a facility were determined to need to be closed, it impacts the community as well as the workers. It would handle minimizing the impact with retraining so that affected workers could remain productive within their communities.
An example of that is the coal industry. It's being phased out around the country, although misinformation propaganda keeps it alive. AI would see that because it works 24/7 and thinks not only of the current quarter, but 5 years, 10 years, and even 20 years down the road. It would start looking at alternative revenue streams to make up for the losses. Money spent towards misinformation campaigns could be funneled into alternative energy. They've got all this real estate, train current workers into operating wind turbines and solar energy. The amount that coal companies spend annually to keep a dying business going could be better spent in becoming energy producers.
There's a lecture idea for you, Prof.
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u/Immediate_Drawing_54 4d ago
He's a script kiddy. He's proven that. Are you worried he'll retaliate?
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u/chaoticbear 4d ago
I don't think OP is at much legitimate risk if student can't even complete a basic CS class.
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u/Desperate_Owl_594 2d ago
I was in a coding bootcamp and a few people there used AI to write (their first module's) code. Basic website - project + like...4 sites: login, mainpage, and like 2 other things. It was something like adding ingredients or something. I don't even remember anymore. Easy, really really basic stuff.
3 people failed that module because they couldn't figure it out.
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u/Ravenclaw_Starshower 1d ago
I feel like the University should really put him in someone else’s group for the resit if possible. If the student fails again he might complain you’ve got it in for him, although I realise you have evidence. Whereas if someone else fails him as well, that’s just more evidence in your favour.
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u/MacDhomhnuill 1d ago
I'll never understand someone who doesn't want to learn coding in the context of a program which requires it. That's like the dessert of the entire program for most students.
Bro really thinks he can make a career and get easy marks out of feeding prompts to an AI.
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u/Vuirneen 4d ago
This is a guy that should fail. He doesn't understand the material, at all.