> The university insists that homework can't be optional, but it lost its meaning.
The problem is not LLMs, but your university. In my undergrad, almost all the math courses had no required HW. They'd assign it, but you wouldn't turn it in. You'd come to office hours for help on the HW, or ask in class (they'd often dedicate the first 10-15 minutes of each lecture to Q&A).
It was awesome for people like me. No time wasted on neatly presented HWs. I'd do it quickly, verify the answers, and study for the exams.
The flip side was there were many exams (you don't want your grade catered if you do poorly in one exam). A course like calculus could have 4-5 "midterms", and then the final. Often, they'd drop your lowest midterm score so you're allowed one bad day.
Indeed, I've switched over to model similar to this in the course I teach. Weekly optional problem set + in-class quiz every week with one homework problem verbatim + an extension. The homeworks are completely open resource, LLM, friend, sorcery, w/e. I figure that, even if they're given an oracle, they have to internalize the ideas to the point where they can generalize on the follow-up. I'll only really know when the course finishes, but I think this will work out. I want to pair this with an oral midterm and final, but that'll have to wait a semester.
In my country of origin (not US) that's how it worked starting in high school. Homework was called "suggested problems". The teacher reviewed them in class. No grading. We ended up doing it because that was almost the only way to pass the exams (which, btw, could be up to 50 questions long...)
I heard from a friend who went to German university that the homework was never graded, maybe you could get help with it but the professor didn’t have TAs and had a large class. Lots of Midterms were also not feasible given the setup, so often 100% of your grade depended on the final.
I can’t imagine as American how that would go down with most American students.
The problem is not LLMs, but your university. In my undergrad, almost all the math courses had no required HW. They'd assign it, but you wouldn't turn it in. You'd come to office hours for help on the HW, or ask in class (they'd often dedicate the first 10-15 minutes of each lecture to Q&A).
It was awesome for people like me. No time wasted on neatly presented HWs. I'd do it quickly, verify the answers, and study for the exams.
The flip side was there were many exams (you don't want your grade catered if you do poorly in one exam). A course like calculus could have 4-5 "midterms", and then the final. Often, they'd drop your lowest midterm score so you're allowed one bad day.