In previous studies, we consistently find an equalizing effect from use of LLMs. High performers improve, but low performers improve a lot more.
Now we have a study that finds the opposite effect.
I was just talking to a math teacher last night about something similar. He was talking about how COVID really hurt math learning and the lowest performers aren’t recovering from it (doing even worse than pre-COVID low-performers). I had been talking to him about how I use ChatGPT to learn things (and find it particularly helpful for math), so I asked if he thought this kind of thing might help narrow the gap again.
His answer is that he thinks it will increase the gap, since the kids who would actually sit down and ask an AI questions and drill down into anything they’re confused about are already doing fine (better than pre-COVID since they don’t have to wait for the slow kids as much), and the kids who are having trouble wouldn’t use it. Also, the benefit is that AI can immediately answer questions about the part that you, personally, are confused about or interested in, so neither of us thing it would be that helpful to try to force kids to use it if they don’t want to.
(Schools also have annoying but reasonable concerns that if you tell kids to use the magic machine that can either help them learn faster or just do their homework for them, many of the kids will not use the machine in the way you’re hoping for)
I was just talking to a math teacher last night about something similar. He was talking about how COVID really hurt math learning and the lowest performers aren’t recovering from it (doing even worse than pre-COVID low-performers). I had been talking to him about how I use ChatGPT to learn things (and find it particularly helpful for math), so I asked if he thought this kind of thing might help narrow the gap again.
His answer is that he thinks it will increase the gap, since the kids who would actually sit down and ask an AI questions and drill down into anything they’re confused about are already doing fine (better than pre-COVID since they don’t have to wait for the slow kids as much), and the kids who are having trouble wouldn’t use it. Also, the benefit is that AI can immediately answer questions about the part that you, personally, are confused about or interested in, so neither of us thing it would be that helpful to try to force kids to use it if they don’t want to.
(Schools also have annoying but reasonable concerns that if you tell kids to use the magic machine that can either help them learn faster or just do their homework for them, many of the kids will not use the machine in the way you’re hoping for)