I have included the basic "I am a student -- help me learn, don't just do everything for me," but I also am trying out telling it to generate a .history folder with a markdown history of every prompt and a summary of the action take in response.

I _know_ there are some tools that offer the prompt history automatically, but I've told students they can use _whatever_ tool they want, but should let me know if the folder isn't showing up as they work.

The .history folder is required if they used AI and I intend to review it and try to give specific feedback to the students using it as too much of a crutch.

I just started this last Friday, so wish me luck!

To enable it, run /config > output styles > Learning

https://gist.github.com/1cg/a6c6f2276a1fe5ee172282580a44a7ac

https://gist.github.com/1cg/a6c6f2276a1fe5ee172282580a44a7ac

(They have the same content duplicated in an AGENTS.md as well - I really wish Anthropic would hurry up and teach Claude Code to check for that file too.)

> * Run bash commands

Students who prefer to use zsh keep winning.

best to

a) adapt assignments so that agents are bad at producing solutions

b) have more scenarios where students have to do things in controlled environments. Universities managed to adapt to 'any solution you need is readily available online' so I don't think it will be that different to have several times a month/year where students have to go into a room with nothing but pencil and paper to prove what knowledge they have vs what they have the skills to access

This seems unreasonable to me. One of the best uses of AI is that you can just tell your computer what to do in natural language and it does it. Running bash commands isn't part of the education, its busy work.

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ojK9Q_ARE

I bet most people would not steal even if they knew they could get away with it.

CS336: Language Modeling from Scratch

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357075

The onus should be on the instructor to make sure that the student ends up actually understanding and being able to code/solve problems that they pose without using coding agents.

Why? Because:

1. this is exactly what is going on in the real world. People are able to get AI to do whatever the hell they want, but the ones who just use it lazily end up with huge cognitive debts and codebases riddled with opaque bugs that they do not understand whatsoever. If we prevent students from confronting this temptation, then we are sort of coddling or shielding them from it, and not really preparing them to avoid pitfalls of this type.

2. you can actually learn a LOT by being given the answer, if you actually care to learn. i personally think it's pretty fucking lame to handicap a student's ability to learn in an attempt to prevent lazy abuse. isn't the whole point of a grade to measure how well you understand things? can't you have pop quizzes, assignments on a computer with no agent use, written tests, etc etc. to catch the lazy abusers? this is an unnecessary prevention of lazy abuse that unfairly handicaps learning

There really needs to be diversity in delivery styles for different modules of courses according to their aims, with 'ai access' as a key variable.

If AI is allowed, it should be based on $x of usage/student, with an audit trail to prove no external funding was used, and module aims based on using AI to the max while conserving token use. Like actually creating wild, ambitious shit which takes cutting edge services to the max.

If AI is not allowed for a module, then it really needs to go back to the old skool, with handwritten exams, or coding using old machines and textbooks. Some skills, techniques, etc, really do need drilling.

Straddling the middle will help nobody, result in accusations, increase the burden on teaching staff, and result in a course without a realistic focus.

Though I guess if you're a big brand university, you don't really need to care about innovating. The money will keep pouring in. The whole further education sector is in dire need of a shake up.

The solution is to scale the difficulty of the objective measures. Expect far more from students.

Reorient the university around physical laboratories and timesharing resources no single student could afford. It's already like this in many STEM disciplines.

More internships, more networking, more large projects. Less trivial tests of knowledge and credentialism.

The "but we do not let them write code directly" is a smoke screen to appease critics and parents. Yes, hello parents, you pay for your offspring to become a mindless industry tool.

Let's train people to use all the tools available to solve the hardest problems, rather than solving toy problems with a slide rule.