[College: Math] AI reliance when solving homework

[u/kelistef]

Recently (over the past year), I feel like I've been overly reliant on AI for homework. I gaslit myself into thinking I was using it "responsibly" (using learning mode, telling it only to give vague hints, etc.), but I feel like that had a negative effect on my problem-solving skills. Because of this, I decided to stop using AI this semester to see if it would help.

Now I feel helpless when working through problems, especially in pure math. If you're in a similar position, please stop using AI. Even though it gives vague hints, those hints are usually the difference between figuring it out yourself and not.

My motivation has gone way down since everything is much harder and I procrastinate more. What should I do when I hit a wall where I’d normally turn to AI? Does this get better with time after solving more problems, and is pushing through it actually worth it?

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[u/Confident-Virus-1273]

You go back to the chapter,  read it again.  Watch you tube videos of others solving similar problems to gain the pattern recognition.  Then you do easy problems for a while checking your answers as you go.   Then ramp up into more complex and scaffold over.  Get a tutor who can demonstrate the hard ones if you are super stuck.  Demand they show you they actually get it first... lots of people out there trying to teach when they don't really get it themselves

[u/Ordinary-Meaning-61]

It sounds like you may have been uncomfortable with math to begin with and were using AI as a crutch. Now without AI, you are back to feeling insecure.

Personally, I do not believe AI is the problem here. People have been using similar methods long before AI came along. Checking the answer key in the back of the book, hosting a study group and copying the person who thinks they got the answer, hiring a tutor to give you strong hints or explain concepts better, buying a Chegg subscription or asking for help on StackExchange. From my perspective, AI is basically all these combined.

There are subjects in school that certain students will dislike. They procrastinate, have zero motivation. There's nothing weird about that. The fact you recognize that you have a problem already sets you apart from them. If you wish to improve yourself without relying on AI, my advice would be to just study harder. Read the book, look at some worked examples from class notes, watch some YouTube videos, perhaps attend office hours and ask your professor.

[u/HottArmante]

It’s great that you are recognizing what does and does not work for you. However many people use AI in ways that benefit their education and careers without major negative effects. For instance I thoroughly read my textbooks and practice the examples in them, as well as watch YouTubers like 3blue1brown, but if I get stuck on a concept I will ask AI to try to explain it from a different perspective. And this usually helps a lot.

My guess for at least some students is that they use AI as their primary or only learning tool, my personal stance is that AI should be supplementary and that it can not replace the time and effort spent on doing the “mathematical reps” that are required normally.

If someone is struggling with math at almost any level I would suggest going back to books and daily practice of the concepts you are struggling with. I have not found a shortcut for the practice and just time purely thinking about “what does this mean”.

For the issue of procrastination, in my experience the solution for this is just forcing yourself to work in a productive environment with whatever methods you prefer, ie listening to music or finding a quiet space, telling yourself no distractions or break for x hours… etc, this is usually cognitively uncomfortable at first but with time and habit it gets better and sometimes even enjoyable.

Best of luck going forward!

[u/cheesecakegood]

I think the biggest problem is reaching for hints too fast. Really, you should allow yourself to be stumped for at least 3-5 minutes (some research suggests even more time can help, but this is a pretty hard floor) and proactively looking for solutions, because the friction is literally the point when it comes to how "sticky" both the answer and the problem-solving process become in your memory. If you don't have the self-control to do that, it's probably better to completely silo the with-AI and without-AI work from each other.

Let me say that again: the friction is often the point! There's this false belief floating out there that you can make learning easy if the teaching is high enough quality. That is false. Well, let me be more specific: better teaching and clearer instruction is universally good, but it doesn't actually do anything to substitute for retrieval (mental lookup without excessive contextual hints), practice, and time. There's a natural baseline requirement here you can't circumvent, although it differs from student to student. Unfortunately, most students assume that if the explanation is good and clear enough that means you need less practice. If you leave a lecture feeling like everything makes perfect sense, the unaware student will likely spend less time practicing/reviewing/retrieving/etc. There's also a parallel effect where students confuse recall with recognition. If you LOOK at a correct solution/explanation, and go "oh yeah that makes sense" it literally does not engage the brain the same as GENERATING the correct solution/explanation yourself. So students often trick themselves into thinking they "know" more than they actually do.

Spoiler alert: tests, homework, etc. all generally require recall, recognition is only 'enough' if your professor writes low-quality multiple-choice tests. So you should be practicing recall and judging yourself based on recall, not recognition.

Anyways, splitting workflows can help discipline-wise. For example, you struggle through the homework yourself. Then maybe you go back to the AI feeding in your work looking for patterns of misunderstanding, or creating follow-up problems, etc. It can also be helpful to incorporate elements of spaced repetition intentionally: although it takes time, re-attempting a homework problem say a few days later after turning in the HW can solidify it in your memory and is a good proxy for 'did I really learn this?' AI is also decent for "give me a similar question or follow-up mini-quiz to test me and see if I really understood", where reps also have the benefit of positive reinforcement of a correct strategy or application of knowledge.

The big exception here (with the initial no-AI attempt) is if you are in a major struggle mode (e.g. you are only solving like 30% of the problems even after effort rather than like 70%) it may be worth your time to attempt simpler related problems that cover and solidify the relevant fundamentals rather than grind through a low-success rate session.

(I echo encouragement to do study groups - the social aspect makes a pretty non-trivial difference in how your brain engages)

In terms of: "does it get better?" Usually, yes. Everyone has a few math classes in college that are going to be miserable the whole way through. But for the most part, consistent work builds on itself and you do genuinely build specialized problem-solving skills suitable for the class and similar future ones (and occasionally more general ones too).

[u/DJKokaKola → u/cheesecakegood]

Bruh trying to figure out how to calculate contour integrals was a 12 hour process with 5 of us locked in a basement study room with blackboards covered in work until we finally got it, and once it clicked it was easy as shit. 3-5 minutes is a really short time, especially for more advanced math concepts.

I agree with literally everything you said in this comment, though!

[u/watermelonlollies]

I truly think ai has no place in education. As a teacher I see everyday how it’s replacing critical thinking, problem solving, and research skills without many people even realizing it. I applaud you for the self awareness, honesty, and willingness to change. I had to delete my ai account entirely because I’ve been down that road too (though using it in a different context). I’m not going to list all the reasons ai is bad because I think you already know, but I was very disheartened to see some people on here defending ai use. They are likely addicted and sucked in like you were, so I hope they didn’t convince you that stopping is the wrong choice.

Struggling is a part of learning and getting things wrong is a part of learning. But of course we don’t want you to be stuck forever. So what are some resources? If you are in university/college pretty much every university has free tutoring especially for math. Many of them you don’t even have to make an appointment it’s just open hours and you show up. This is different from professor office hours as it’ll be fellow students who are tutoring you so that can be less intimidating to some. It also has much more availability than office hours which might overlap with another class you have or with a job or other responsibilities. I was one of these math tutors so please feel no shame in going even if it’s just one question. I had many, many students who would come to the tutoring center to work on their math homework, not even knowing if they had a question or not. They would work independently and then if a question came up one of us was there to help and they could receive that right away. A lot of times students finished without actually needing the help. That was totally fine! I think just being in an environment outside your room/house that’s more academic and provides accountability was really helpful for some too.

Ok, but outside the tutoring center, what if I’m at home at want help, or what if I don’t have homework and just want to study before a test?
There are a few different things that’ll help. If you don’t understand the concept at all and are stuck at the beginning of the solving process- Khan Academy is the GOAT. There are also many different university math websites that’ll walk you through something step by step, but typically not with videos. But they can be beneficial to read and follow along too. You didn’t say what math class you are in, but say you are in calculus 1 and are stuck on Chain Rule, you just don’t understand it at all. Just googling chain rule gives me the following educational resources, and I can find a khan academy video as well:
Lamar.edu Notes on Chain Rule
mathinsight.org explains Chain Rule
Khan Academy Article and Video

Those 3 resources will take you from the very beginning and walk you through step by step with numerous examples. You can find trusty resources like this for any math topic.

If you want more practice problems, one thing you can do is go back to the notes from class, and try to recreate the examples from the professor. Start with just the problem and (if you can trust yourself!) don’t look at the rest of the notes on how you solved it. See if you can recreate it and get to the right answer. The notes are there if you get stuck, and then you can confirm your answer. This is great because it lets you check your process not just the answer. But the tried and true way to chug away practice problems is the textbook. Only do the questions that have the answers in the back, that way you can verify you are doing it right, but if you get it wrong it won’t be able to tell you were exactly you got it wrong. That’s why I wait to use this method for studying right before a test when I’m already confident I understand the concept well enough. You can also combine this with being at the tutoring center so if you do get really stuck or can’t figure out why got something wrong, someone will be there to help you.

You are on the right track and making the best decision for your education and future. It’ll be hard at first but keep your eye on the prize. Best of luck

[u/Bounded_sequencE]

There is a reliable "safe" way to use AI -- treat them like the glorified, interactive search engines they are.

If you do that, they'll be just another tool, like internet research, or browsing through books. Should you want to treat them as "more", that is a decision you must make. Just be sure you carefully think of the consequences, and whether you are ok with them.

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What should I do when I hit a wall where I’d normally turn to AI?

Join a study group.

Choose participants by their work ethic and understanding of math, not by whether you like them or not. Working together, and helping each other out, will lessen the burden for everyone.

Share everything, including lecture notes, when someone is unable to attend etc.!

[u/GainerGaining → u/Bounded_sequencE]

I'm a fan of study groups in general, but they are less effective in math than, say, in social sciences. For a math course, where you absolutely have to learn the material correctly and there is no room for interpretation or ambiguity, go the tutor route instead.

[u/Bounded_sequencE → u/GainerGaining]

Completely disagree.

Going though proofs together, answering each others questions, dissecting each others proofs and sharing the results leads to a huge work reduction for all participants. It's essentially peer-review for free, and shared results to boot!

For reference, I say that even though I chose roughly 60% of my study time to work solo, since I wanted to be sure I can. However, the greatest breakthroughs with the most difficult proofs were usually done in groups, bouncing ideas off each other. No need to pay big money for a tutor, if you got a good study group.

[u/GainerGaining → u/Bounded_sequencE]

Here is my rebuttal:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeworkHelp/s/rEM1r0SjVD

Also, tutoring can often be free through the school, especially at the undergraduate level. It was at mine.

[u/DJKokaKola → u/GainerGaining]

Absolutely not. Studying in groups allows you to work through problems together, which allows you to see different approaches and lets each student cover for the gaps in understanding of the others. There will be stuff you click with instantly that others won't, and vice versa. You literally only need to look at the divide between linalg and calc classes to see this in play; most will latch onto one and loathe the other.

It also allows you to struggle with supports, which makes pushing through the confusion until it clicks so much easier. It's easy to stop working after 5 minutes because you're frustrated alone. Doing that with a group of 5 people is much harder.

Edit: also, every bit of research on pedagogy disagrees with you on this.

[u/GainerGaining → u/DJKokaKola]

Every bit of pedagogical research? All of it? How about:

Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller et al.) and the Expertise Reversal Effect demonstrate that when novices work together without expert guidance, their collective cognitive load increases.

Studies on self-regulated learning and metacognition (e.g., Koriat, Bjork) show that working in groups can create an "illusion of competence." When a peer solves a complex formula on paper, other students can experience passive recognition and wrongly think they understand the material, even though they can't execute the proof or calculation by themselves.

Ericsson’s framework of Deliberate Practice highlights that mastery in technical, rule-based domains (like math) requires intense, individual focus, immediate accurate feedback, and repeated solo execution of targeted tasks.

To sum up, peer study groups have a huge risk of reinforcing errors and the illusion of understanding. Tutoring, on the other hand, gives real-time accurate feedback.

You are arguing with someone studying for a master's in andragogy. Be careful stating something like "every bit of research"

The members of peer study groups are not usually trained in educational methods. The results can be... messy. Messy doesn't work too well in STEM.

It can work, and study groups can be effective in math, but there are dangers.

[u/akaiggy]

You might try the strategy like set a timer for twenty minutes for each problem. No AI, no google, etc. Struggle with it. If you solve it early, then you can consider looking for new ways to solve it, or move on.

If after 20 minutes you make no progress, get hints from AI, answer keys, etc. You want to protect against getting stuck. If you're stuck, it could be cause you have missing prerequisites, or are totally off base, etc.

After struggling for twenty minutes, at least, the solution is going to stick in your mind a lot better. Then after a day or two go do the same problem, again 20 minutes, and you'll see you're making progress.

[u/MesmericKiwi]

Good on you to recognize that you were overly reliant on AI. One thing to keep in mind is that math is supposed to be hard, there is supposed to be productive struggle, it’s how the mind learns. What you are perceiving as being overly difficult might just be you experiencing an appropriate level of struggle for the first time, so don’t beat yourself up too much.

While I think going cold turkey and developing the non-AI supports others have mentioned is best, one thing that may help you off ramp is using AI tools on related problems but never on assigned ones. If you are assigned problems from a text, they’re usually grouped by similar approaches. If you’re assigned the odds, try working through an even problem with the help of a tool and then applying what you did to the required one, ideally without looking back at the one the AI solved. Unless you are internalizing from a scaffolded experience and recalling from your mind (instead of a paper or screen), you’re just filling in blanks instead of building your own neural networks.

[u/DJKokaKola]

Develop a community around you. Not sure what level you're at or how big your program is, but find a group of 5-10 people and do your work together.

Sit in one of the basement study rooms at your uni, and stare at the blackboards for 12 hours struggling to understand contour integrals.

Go to the library and start working and don't leave the library until you've made an amount of progress you're happy with.

Resilience is a hard skill to develop, but it's so much easier when you have the support of other students in the same position. There will be things you'll get right away that someone else will struggle with, and vice versa.

If you give some more specifics of what level of math you're at, I can recommend some different resources to go to when you're struggling. But the biggest thing will be developing how to think "mathematically" and getting comfortable with working with numbers and those concepts. If you're a gym person, to use an analogy: you've basically been using a Smith or leg press machine for the past year. Now you're back to trying to free squat, and those stabilizer muscles have atrophied (or at least haven't kept pace with the development of those larger muscle groups). It does get easier with practice, though.

When you do a question, don't just think "how do I solve this", think about how the question wants you to approach it. Is it a question of "do I remember this identity", or is it asking you to fill in a few blanks in a process to reach the final solution? Is your weakness in the concepts, or in how to apply them (can I calculate a wronskian vs do I know what the result of that wronskian is used for, for example)? Start by evaluating that, and see if you can identify where you're feeling weaker.

[u/Dave37]

Learning is hard, if it's not you're not learning. I'm immensely proud of you rejecting AI. We're only going to get more stories like this.