Latest news with #AngelaDuckworth
CNBC
3 days ago
- Science
- CNBC
Harvard-trained educator: Kids who learn how to use AI will become smarter adults—if they avoid this No. 1 mistake
Students that copy and paste ChatGPT answers into their assignments, with little thinking involved, are doing themselves a disservice — especially because artificial intelligence really can help students become better learners, according to psychologist and author Angela Duckworth. Instead of distrusting AI, show kids how to properly use it, Duckworth advised in a speech at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education commencement ceremony on May 17. Teachers and parents alike can show them how to use the technology's full potential by asking AI models follow-up questions, so they can learn — in detail — how chatbots came to their conclusions, she said. "AI isn't always a crutch, it can also be a coach," said Duckworth, who studied neurobiology at Harvard University and now teaches psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. "In my view, [ChatGPT] has a hidden pedagogical superpower. It can teach by example." Duckworth was skeptical about AI until she found herself stumped by a statistics concept, and in the interest of saving time, asked ChatGPT for help, she said. The chatbot gave her a definition of the concept, a couple of examples and some common misuses. Wanting clarification, she asked follow-up questions and for a demonstration, she said. After 10 minutes of using the technology, she walked away with a clear understanding of the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure, "a pretty sophisticated statistical procedure," she said. "AI helped me reach a level of understanding that far exceed what I could achieve on my own," said most advanced generative AI models suffer from hallucinations and factual inaccuracies, data shows — meaning you should always double check its factual claims, and teach kids to do the same. The topic of "how to use AI" should even find its way into school curricula, billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban similarly suggested in a New York magazine interview, which published on Tuesday. "The challenge isn't that kids are using it. The challenge is that schools haven't adapted to the that it's available and kids are literate in using it," Cuban said, adding that simply knowing what questions to ask AI is a valuable skillset. Since AI tools do make mistakes, you can likely benefit most directly by using them for tasks that don't involve your final product, side hustle expert Kathy Kristof told CNBC Make It in February. You might, for example, ask a chatbot to create a bullet-point outline for your next writing project — rather than asking it to write the final draft for you. "While I still see AI making a lot of mistakes, picking up errors or outdated information, using AI to create a first draft of something that's then reviewed and edited by human intelligence seems like a no-brainer," said Kristof, founder of the blog. A recent study, conducted by one of Duckworth's doctorate students, followed participants — some of whom were allowed to use chatbots — as they practiced writing cover letters. When later asked to write a cover letter without any assistance, the group that had used AI produced stronger letters on their own, the research shows. The study, published in January, has not yet been peer-reviewed. "Over and over, I watched [ChatGPT] shorten sentences that were too long, weed out needless repetition and even reorder ideas so they flowed more logically," Duckworth said, referencing the research. ,
New Straits Times
08-05-2025
- General
- New Straits Times
SPM opens doors but is not the only gateway to meaningful life
THE announcement of this year's Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results brought a wave of excitement across the country. With 14,179 candidates achieving straight As — the highest in over a decade — there is much to be proud of. But as headlines rightfully celebrate these achievements, it's worth remembering this: SPM opens many doors but it is not the only road to a meaningful life. To those who didn't get as many As as they'd hoped, your journey is just getting started. According to the Education Ministry, 1,789 candidates — about 0.5 per cent of the students who sat for SPM 2024 — did not pass. But this is not the end of the road. An exam reflects a moment in time — not the totality of your potential and certainly not your worth. I say this from experience. Several decades ago, I enrolled in an engineering programme at a local university because everyone else seemed to be doing it. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long before the cracks started to show. I struggled to connect with the study material and lectures began to feel more like background noise than inspiration. My grades slipped and my interest vanished. And eventually, so did I — officially dismissed from the programme. I felt like my life had derailed. But as life often proves, failure isn't always the end. Sometimes, it's the beginning of a better route. I decided to start over. My SPM results were modest — mostly credits, with two As — but they were enough to get me started. I enrolled in a diploma programme, the first step in a longer journey that eventually led to a degree, a Master's and, ultimately, a PhD. It wasn't a straight path. My peers were graduating, building careers and moving ahead while I was finding my footing and figuring out who I was meant to become. In hindsight, that was exactly what I needed. It gave me time to figure out what truly mattered. That winding path eventually led me to where I am today: an educator in Islamic economics and finance, a field I now consider a calling. It wasn't the most direct route but it taught me patience, resilience and the quiet determination to keep going. It's also why the concept of grit resonates so strongly. Professor Dr Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, defines grit as a combination of passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals. In her landmark 2007 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, she found that grit — more than IQ, exam scores or raw talent — was the strongest predictor of success across diverse settings, from Ivy League undergraduates to West Point military cadets. The paper, which has since been cited over 11,000 times in academic literature, showed that those who kept going — especially when things got difficult — were the ones most likely to succeed. In today's world, where change is constant and challenges are many, that kind of perseverance matters more than ever. Yes, SPM is important. It opens doors. It signals discipline and potential. But it is not the only road to a fulfilling future. Nor is it the only way to define your worth. In Malaysia today, there are more routes to success than ever before. Vocational training, polytechnic programmes, digital skills development, entrepreneurship, creative fields — all of these are legitimate and valuable. Some students may thrive in conventional academic settings. Others may shine through hands-on work, innovation or business ventures. We need all of them. To students celebrating today: well done. Walk through the doors your hard work has opened. But stay hungry, be kind and never stop growing. To those who feel unsure or are left behind: keep walking. Keep building your own road. SPM is not the final word. Some of life's best lessons happen outside exam halls. They happen when you get up, dust yourself off and keep going anyway. That is grit. And in the long run, grit will carry you further than any exam ever could.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Math Study Shows Difficulty in Motivating Teachers to Change Behaviors
Like an online retailer trying to woo a customer back by offering a 10% discount on the boots they've been eyeing, education researcher Angela Duckworth wanted to understand how to incentivize teachers to log in regularly to an online math platform that aims to help them improve their students' academic performance. 'Today is perfect for checking your Pace Report!' 'Keep Zearning!' 'By opening this email, you've earned another 100 digital raffle tickets in the Zearn Math Giveaway!' Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter In partnership with Zearn Math, a nonprofit online math instruction platform used by roughly 25% of U.S. elementary school students, Duckworth and a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Behavior Change for Good Initiative launched a megastudy that peppered 140,000 teachers with different types of email prompts to log into the platform's dashboard each week and check their students' progress. Behavioral scientists like Duckworth, who popularized the 'power of grit' about a decade ago, spend a lot of time trying to pinpoint what, exactly, it is that prompts an individual to sign a form, become an organ donor or click an ad that promises a secure and safe retirement now. 'In the case of education there's the idea of nudging the students directly,' Duckworth said. 'But there's also the idea that's less commonly studied, which is, what do you do to nudge the teachers, who are not in complete charge, but have a lot of authority about what is going to happen in the classroom that day? It was clear to us that if we could get the students onto the Zearn platform that their learning would progress. But are they actually going to log in?' To that end, the team developed 15 different types of intervention emails featuring things like planning prompts, teaching tips, learning goals, digital swag and celebrity endorsements. The goal was to change behavior without mandates, bans or substantial financial incentives — though teachers were enrolled in a giveaway and earned digital raffle tickets every time they opened an email, increasing their chances of winning such prizes as autographed children's books, stickers and gift cards. The researchers then compared the average number of lessons the teachers' students completed on the Zearn Math platform over four weeks to a control group using Zearn that received only a simple weekly email. Related So did it work? Did the emails prompt teachers to log in more regularly? And if so, did the number of lessons their students completed increase? To some degree, yes, it did work. But not at all to the extent that Duckworth and researchers had anticipated. The best-performing intervention, which encouraged teachers to log into Zearn Math for an updated report on how their students were doing that week, produced a 5% increase in students' math progress. Emails that referenced data specific to a teacher's students — versus those without that information — boosted students' progress by 2.3%. And teachers who received any of the behaviorally informed email nudge saw their students' math progress increase by an overall average of 1.9% Duckworth was sure that the emails featuring famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and literary rockstar Judy Blume would move the needle more than anything else. But teachers were virtually unaffected. 'We had sexier treatment conditions,' she said. 'But no, it turns out, a simple message that says, 'Hey, your students' data are here, remember to log in,' that is what worked the best.' Notably, the intervention effects were consistent across school socioeconomic status and school type, both public and private. Moreover, they persisted for eight weeks after the email intervention period ended. Collectively, the reminders resulted in students completing an estimated 80,424 additional lessons during the four weeks their teachers received emails, and an estimated 156,117 additional lessons during the following eight weeks. Yet the limited impact of the email reminders surprised virtually everyone involved with the study: Students whose teachers received any type of behaviorally-informed email reminder only marginally outperformed students whose teachers received a simple email reminder. In fact, the effect was at least 30 times smaller than forecasted by the behavioral scientists who designed interventions, by Zearn Math staff and by a sample of elementary school teachers. 'It's a sober reminder that big effects are very rare,' said Duckworth. 'In general, we're finding in our megastudies and what's emerging across the social sciences is that intervention effects tend to be very small.' 'One of the things that this megastudy has reinforced is a kind of humility about how complicated human beings are and how challenging it is to durably change behavior. A kid is a complicated organism. Teachers are complicated. Schools are complicated,' she continued. 'It would be naive to think that you could radically change behavior with these like light touch interventions.' The findings not only underscore the difficulty of changing behavior, but also the need, Duckworth said, for large-scale, rigorous, empirical research on how to drive impact in math, which is a high-priority subject for education policy experts at the moment. Indeed, the findings come at an inflection point for math in the U.S. The most recent release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that, nationally, average mathematics scores in 2024 were lower by 3 points among fourth-grade students and lower by 8 points among eighth-grade students compared to their scores in 2019 – the most significant drop since 1990. School districts have struggled to rebound after significant academic setbacks incurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. For math in particular, by the spring of 2022, the average public school student in grades three to eight had lost the equivalent of a half-year of learning. Compared to students in other developed countries, Americans have ranked in the bottom 25% of students globally on standardized tests of mathematics for decades. U.S. students saw a 13-point drop in their 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment math results when compared to the 2018 exam — 'among the lowest ever measured by PISA in mathematics' for the U.S., according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which administers the exam. As a result, a contentious debate has erupted surrounding whether educators are effectively teaching the subject — and whether they themselves are being effectively taught how to teach it. 'There was a dawning realization that there's a real urgency around math achievement in the United States,' Duckworth said when her team decided to design the megastudy. 'This very light touch nudge was helpful, but it does underscore how hard behavior is to change. And if there are bigger levers to influence teacher behavior, I think we would have found a bigger downstream effect on student achievement.'
