Government-issued maps offer a promise for safely exploring our public lands, but they no longer reflect the reality of what’s actually on the ground.

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For The Bitter Southerner, Mike Kane brings us a gothic, savor-y true crime story about the life and death of America’s first game warden. Kane and photographer Teague Kennedy brave mosquitos and crocodiles to retrace the steps of Guy Bradley, who was paid $35 a month in the early 1900s to deter and arrest poachers bent on harvesting the beautiful plumage of wading birds in the Florida Everglades. Illegal hunters prized the feathers, which were sold to milliners making hats for wealthy women in the Gilded Age.

July 8, 1905. A blood-soaked, small wooden skiff bobbed in the waves, adrift off the eastern short of Cape Sable in Florida Bay. Inside, a man lay dead from a single gunshot wound, a revolver by his side.

There are a million ways to die here in the waters surrounding the Everglades and the Ten Thousand Islands. These include: venomous snakes, alligators, crocodiles, sharks, swarms of mosquitoes, punishing heat, and the near constant threat of tropical storms and hurricanes. The man had understood that, here, nature gives no quarter.

He was keenly aware that certain men wanted him dead, simply because his job was protecting local birds whose plumage had become more valuable than gold in the Gilded Age lust for exotic millinery. Still, he persisted, paddling and slogging across vast distances in an audacious bid to defend the defenseless, and knowing it would likely cost him his life.

His name was Guy Bradley, and we are chasing his ghost.

This fall I read The Writing Revolution 2.0 by Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler. It’s a book about teaching writing. The book is fantastic, I highly recommend it. Even if you don’t see yourself as a writing teacher, the authors share a lot of wisdom about teaching more broadly and describe writing activities that can be used in any subject.

Break It Down

Here’s a general principle of teaching: if students are struggling with a skill, a helpful approach is to break the skill down into smaller chunks, focus on one chunk at a time, and build up to the larger concept.

That’s the core idea behind The Writing Revolution. I won’t try to review the whole book here. Instead, I’m going to pull out one specific part of the book that I found really helpful to incorporate writing in math class.

The first part of the book is about sentences. The claim is that sentences are the core building blocks of writing, and teaching students to better understand and craft sentences will help them communicate more complex ideas in their writing. All writing consists of sentences. A focus on sentence construction reduces the cognitive load of writing while developing skills that will improve students’ broader writing skills.

Hochman and Wexler emphasize that these activities help students to improve their writing, but they also help students to think deeply about the content of that writing. The goal isn’t to give students random writing assignments. The goal is to have students write about what they are learning, and deepen that learning. If students are learning about ancient Egypt, they can craft sentences about ancient Egypt. If students are learning about Frankenstein, they can craft sentences about Frankenstein. And if students are learning about negative numbers, they can craft sentences about negative numbers.

The book shares a wide variety of sentence-writing activities. I won’t try to do justice to all of them here. I picked one to start because I wanted to build a routine that my students could become familiar with. I hope to write about additional sentence-level activities in the future.

Because, But, So

One challenge students often have in writing is that their writing is limited to simple sentences. Writing in simple sentences limits students to communicating simple ideas. One aspect of sentence-level work is practicing expanding sentences using conjunctions. Because, But, So is a sentence-level activity that practices using common conjunctions to expand sentences.

In the activity, I take one sentence kernel and ask students to complete three sentences using because, but, and so. Here’s the first one I used with my students:

-2 + 6 is positive because…

-2 + 6 is positive, but…

-2 + 6 is positive, so…

What’s the Goal?

I wrote a few paragraphs ago about how a major goal of writing activities is to think deeply about content. One goal here is to help my students practice their writing. But the most important goal is simply to have students think hard about math — in this case, the relationship between integers being added and whether the answer is positive or negative.

In the first class I did this, I remember one student looking at this task and saying, “that’s not positive…OHHH.” That’s exactly what I’m going for. Giving students practice problems is great. I do it all the time. But practice problems lend themselves to quick, surface-level thinking. Because, But, So asks students to slow down and think more deeply about a topic.

That’s really the point of writing here. Slowing down and writing about a topic is a great way to think deeply about it, to make connections, to consider hypotheticals, to reason about cause and effect. Thinking deeply about a topic makes it much more likely students will remember and be able to apply that learning in the future.

Writing in math class can feel formulaic. It’s common for curricula to tag “explain your thinking” onto the end of half of their problems because we feel like we should make a half-hearted nod toward writing. A Because, But, So activity scaffolds writing and makes it easier to start. It also focuses the writing on the core mathematical ideas, rather than an endless stream of “I found my answer by multiplying” explanations.

Examples

When I pick a sentence kernel for a Because, But, So activity, I try to pick a true statement that is worth explaining and expanding on. Here are a few examples of kernels and some sample sentences students might write.

Because

-2 + 6 is positive because there are more positive than negatives.

4x and 5x are like terms because they both have an x.

When multiplying three negative numbers, the answer is negative because two negatives multiply to a positive and the third negative makes it negative again.

Discount is an example of percent decrease because the discount is subtracted from the total.

But

-2 + 6 is positive, but -2 x 6 is negative.

4x and 5x are like terms, but 4x and 5y are not like terms.

When multiplying three negative numbers the answer is negative, but multiplying four negatives is a positive.

Discount is an example of percent decrease, but tip is an example of percent increase.

So

-2 + 6 is positive, so it makes sense that the answer is 4.

4x and 5x are like terms, so you can add them and get 9x.

When multiplying three negative numbers the answer is negative, so you can multiply as if the numbers are positive and then make the answer negative.

Discount is an example of percent decrease, so to find the answer you subtract the discount from the total.

What Does This Look Like in Class?

I try not to overthink this activity. The basic routine is simple:

• I typically start with a model, using a different sentence kernel. I might model a sentence with one of the conjunctions, then ask students to come up with a sentence for one of the others and do a pair-share. I often model the “so” sentence because that one is the hardest for my students. I’ve modeled a bit less as students have gotten used to the routine, but some modeling is still valuable.

• Then I pass out a half-sheet with the sentence kernels and ask students to write three sentences.

• Once students have had a bit of time to write I have them share their sentences with a partner while I circulate and pick a few sentences to share out.

• My goal is to pick at least one because, one but, and one so sentence to share with the class. We share those, and often talk a bit about the math or maybe think about some follow-up questions.

• I might then have students pull out mini whiteboards and solve a few questions to stamp the learning.

The whole thing lasts ten minutes or less. Here’s the template I use:

Some Advice

Here are a few pieces of advice if you’re going to use this routine:

• Be consistent. Stick with the routine for a few weeks. Students will get better at it over time.

• Don’t stress if the writing isn’t perfect. I gave a bunch of examples above. Those are what I’m aiming for, but I see plenty of sentences that are a bit hollow or don’t fully engage with the math. Sometimes a student asks some great questions about the topic and we have a nice conversation about the math even if their sentences are a bit confused. That can lead to learning, and give me some information about what students do and don’t understand. If the sentences aren’t perfect, it’s not the end of the world. The first goal is to learn something about math.

• Make sure students know the math. When I used the like terms example above I introduced it too soon, right after students learned the concept. Students were still a bit hazy on what like terms meant. The sentences were a mixed bag that day. Some were good, some were pretty confused. It was still a decent learning experience, but students would have learned more if I waited a bit longer and made sure students had a solid understanding of like terms before writing about them.

• Most of all, give this a shot. Because, But, So has been a great way to add a different tool to my toolkit and contribute some variety to math classes. It doesn’t take long to prep, and watching students write has me thinking about learning in different ways. The activity hasn’t been perfect every time and that’s fine, I’m learning a ton along the way.

Giving University Exams in the Age of Chatbots

What I like most about teaching "Open Source Strategies" at École Polytechnique de Louvain is how much I learn from my students, especially during the exam.

I dislike exams. I still have nightmares about exams. That’s why I try to subvert this stressful moment and make it a learning opportunity. I know that adrenaline increases memorization dramatically. I make sure to explain to each student what I was expecting and to be helpful.

Here are the rules:

1. You can have all the resources you want (including a laptop connected to the Internet)
2. There’s no formal time limit (but if you stay too long, it’s a symptom of a deeper problem)
3. I allow students to discuss among themselves if it is on topic. (in reality, they never do it spontanously until I force two students with a similar problem to discuss together)
4. You can prepare and bring your own exam question if you want (something done by fewer than 10% of the students)
5. Come dressed for the exam you dream of taking!

This last rule is awesome. Over the years, I have had a lot of fun with traditional folkloric clothing from different countries, students in pajamas, a banana and this year’s champion, my Studentausorus Rex!

My all-time favourite is still a fully clothed Minnie Mouse, who did an awesome exam with full face make-up, big ears, big shoes, and huge gloves. I still regret not taking a picture, but she was the very first student to take my words for what was a joke and started a tradition over the years.

Giving Chatbots Choice to the Students

Rule N°1 implies having all the resources you want. But what about chatbots? I didn’t want to test how ChatGPT was answering my questions, I wanted to help my students better understand what Open Source means.

Before the exam, I copy/pasted my questions into some LLMs and, yes, the results were interesting enough. So I came up with the following solution: I would let the students choose whether they wanted to use an LLM or not. This was an experiment.

The questionnaire contained the following:

# Use of Chatbots

Tell the professor if you usually use chatbots (ChatGPT/LLM/whatever) when doing research and investigating a subject. You have the choice to use them or not during the exam, but you must decide in advance and inform the professor.

Option A: I will not use any chatbot, only traditional web searches. Any use of them will be considered cheating.

Option B: I may use a chatbot as it’s part of my toolbox. I will then respect the following rules:
1) I will inform the professor each time information come from a chatbot
2) When explaining my answers, I will share the prompts I’ve used so the professor understands how I use the tool
3) I will identify mistakes in answers from the chatbot and explain why those are mistakes

Not following those rules will be considered cheating. Mistakes made by chatbots will be considered more important than honest human mistakes, resulting in the loss of more points. If you use chatbots, you should be held accountable for the output.

I thought this was fair. You can use chatbots, but you will be held accountable for it.

Most Students Don’t Want to Use Chatbots

This January, I saw 60 students. I interacted with each of them for a mean time of 26 minutes. This is a tiring but really rewarding process.

Of 60 students, 57 decided not to use any chatbots. For 30 of them, I managed to ask them to explain their choices. For the others, I unfortunately did not have the time. After the exam, I grouped those justifications into four different clusters. I did it without looking at their grades.

The first group is the "personal preference" group. They prefer not to use chatbots. They use them only as a last resort, in very special cases or for very specific subjects. Some even made it a matter of personal pride. Two students told me explicitly "For this course, I want to be proud of myself." Another also explained: "If I need to verify what an LLM said, it will take more time!"

The second group was the "never use" one. They don’t use LLMs at all. Some are even very angry at them, not for philosophical reasons, but mainly because they hate the interactions. One student told me: "Can I summarize this for you? No, shut up! I can read it by myself you stupid bot."

The third group was the "pragmatic" group. They reasoned that this was the kind of exam where it would not be needed.

The last and fourth group was the "heavy user" group. They told me they heavily use chatbots but, in this case, were afraid of the constraints. They were afraid of having to justify a chatbot’s output or of missing a mistake.

After doing that clustering, I wrote the grade of each student in its own cluster and I was shocked by how coherent it was. Note: grades are between 0 and 20, with 10 being the minimum grade to pass the class.

The "personal preference" students were all between 15 and 19, which makes them very good students, without exception! The "proud" students were all above 17!

The "never use" was composed of middle-ground students around 13 with one outlier below 10.

The pragmatics were in the same vein but a bit better: they were all between 12 and 16 without exceptions.

The heavy users were, by far, the worst. All students were between 8 and 11, with only one exception at 16.

This is, of course, not an unbiased scientific experiment. I didn’t expect anything. I will not make any conclusion. I only share the observation.

But Some Do

Of 60 students, only 3 decided to use chatbots. This is not very representative, but I still learned a lot because part of the constraints was to show me how they used chatbots. I hoped to learn more about their process.

The first chatbot student forgot to use it. He did the whole exam and then, at the end, told me he hadn’t thought about using chatbots. I guess this put him in the "pragmatic" group.

The second chatbot student asked only a couple of short questions to make sure he clearly understood some concepts. This was a smart and minimal use of LLMs. The resulting exam was good. I’m sure he could have done it without a chatbot. The questions he asked were mostly a matter of improving his confidence in his own reasoning.

This reminded me of a previous-year student who told me he used chatbots to study. When I asked how, he told me he would tell the chatbot to act as the professor and ask exam questions. As a student, this allowed him to know whether he understood enough. I found the idea smart but not groundbreaking (my generation simply used previous years’ questions).

The third chatbot-using student had a very complex setup where he would use one LLM, then ask another unrelated LLM for confirmation. He had walls of text that were barely readable. When glancing at his screen, I immediately spotted a mistake (a chatbot explaining that "Sepia Search is a compass for the whole Fediverse"). I asked if he understood the problem with that specific sentence. He did not. Then I asked him questions for which I had seen the solution printed in his LLM output. He could not answer even though he had the answer on his screen.

But once we began a chatbot-less discussion, I discovered that his understanding of the whole matter was okay-ish. So, in this case, chatbots disserved him heavily. He was totally lost in his own setup. He had LLMs generate walls of text he could not read. Instead of trying to think for himself, he tried to have chatbots pass the exam for him, which was doomed to fail because I was asking him, not the chatbots. He passed but would probably have fared better without chatbots.

Can chatbots help? Yes, if you know how to use them. But if you do, chances are you don’t need chatbots.

A Generational Fear of Cheating

One clear conclusion is that the vast majority of students do not trust chatbots. If they are explicitly made accountable for what a chatbot says, they immediately choose not to use it at all.

One obvious bias is that students want to please the teacher, and I guess they know where I am on this spectrum. One even told me: "I think you do not like chatbots very much so I will pass the exam without them" (very pragmatic of him).

But I also minimized one important generational bias: the fear of cheating. When I was a student, being caught cheating was a clear zero for the exam. You could, in theory, be expelled from university for aggravated cheating, whatever "aggravated" could mean.

During the exam, a good number of students called me panicked because Google was forcing autogenerated answers and they could not disable it. They were very worried I would consider this cheating.

First, I realized that, like GitHub, Google has a 100% market share, to the point students don’t even consider using something else a possibility. I should work on that next year.

Second, I learned that cheating, however lightly, is now considered a major crime. It might result in the student being banned from any university in the country for three years. Discussing exam with someone who has yet to pass it might be considered cheating. Students have very strict rules on their Discord.

I was completely flabbergasted because, to me, discussing "What questions did you have?" was always part of the collaboration between students. I remember one specific exam where we gathered in an empty room and we helped each other before passing it. When one would finish her exam, she would come back to the room and tell all the remaining students what questions she had and how she solved them. We never considered that "cheating" and, as a professor, I always design my exams hoping that the good one (who usually choose to pass the exam early) will help the remaining crowd. Every learning opportunity is good to take!

I realized that my students are so afraid of cheating that they mostly don’t collaborate before their exams! At least not as much as what we were doing.

In retrospect, my instructions were probably too harsh and discouraged some students from using chatbots.

Stream of Consciousness

Another innovation I introduced in the 2026 exam was the stream of consciousness. I asked them to open an empty text file and keep a stream of consciousness during the exam. The rules were the following:

In this file, please write all your questions and all your answers as a "stream of consciousness." This means the following rules:

1. Don’t delete anything.
2. Don’t correct anything.
3. Never go backward to retouch anything.
4. Write as thoughts come.
5. No copy/pasting allowed (only exception: URLs)
6. Rule 5. implies no chatbot for this exercice. This is your own stream of consciousness.

Don’t worry, you won’t be judged on that file. This is a tool to help you during the exam. You can swear, you can write wrong things. Just keep writing without deleting. If you are lost, write why you are lost. Be honest with yourself.

This file will only be used to try to get you more points, but only if it is clear that the rules have been followed.

I asked them to send me the file within 24h after the exam. Out of 60 students, I received 55 files (the remaining 5 were not penalized). There was also a bonus point if you sent it to the exam git repository using git-send-email, something 24 managed to do correctly.

The results were incredible. I did not read them all but this tool allowed me to have a glimpse inside the minds of the students. One said: "I should have used AI, this is the kind of question perfect for AI" (he did very well without it). For others, I realized how much stress they had but were hiding. I was touched by one stream of consciousness starting with "I’m stressed, this doesn’t make any sense. Why can’t we correct what we write in this file" then, 15 lines later "this is funny how writing the questions with my own words made the problem much clearer and how the stress start to fade away".

And yes, I read all the failed students and managed to save a bunch of them when it was clear that they, in fact, understood the matter but could not articulate it well in front of me because of the stress. Unfortunately, not everybody could be saved.

Conclusion

My main takeaway is that I will keep this method next year. I believe that students are confronted with their own use of chatbots. I also learn how they use them. I’m delighted to read their thought processes through the stream of consciousness.

Like every generation of students, there are good students, bad students and very brilliant students. It will always be the case, people evolve (I was, myself, not a very good student). Chatbots don’t change anything regarding that. Like every new technology, smart young people are very critical and, by defintion, smart about how they use it.

The problem is not the young generation. The problem is the older generation destroying critical infrastructure out of fear of missing out on the new shiny thing from big corp’s marketing department.

Most of my students don’t like email. An awful lot of them learned only with me that Git is not the GitHub command-line tool. It turns out that by imposing Outlook with mandatory subscription to useless academic emails, we make sure that students hate email (Microsoft is on a mission to destroy email with the worst possible user experience).

I will never forgive the people who decided to migrate university mail servers to Outlook. This was both incompetence and malice on a terrifying level because there were enough warnings and opposition from very competent people at the time. Yet they decided to destroy one of the university’s core infrastructures and historical foundations (UCLouvain is listed by Peter Salus as the very first European university to have a mail server, there were famous pioneers in the department).

By using Outlook, they continue to destroy the email experience. Out of 55 streams of consciousness, 15 ended in my spam folder. All had their links destroyed by Outlook. And university keep sending so many useless emails to everyone. One of my students told me that they refer to their university email as "La boîte à spams du recteur" (Chancellor’s spam inbox). And I dare to ask why they use Discord?

Another student asked me why it took four years of computer engineering studies to get a teacher explaining to them that Git was not GitHub and that GitHub was part of Microsoft. He had a distressed look: "How could I have known? We were imposed GitHub for so many exercises!"

• How GitHub monopoly is destroying the open source ecosystem (ploum.net)

Each year, I tell my students the following:

It took me 20 years after university to learn what I know today about computers. And I’ve only one reason to be there in front of you: be sure you are faster than me. Be sure that you do it better and deeper than I did. If you don’t manage to outsmart me, I will have failed.

Because that’s what progress is about. Progress is each generation going further than the previous one while learning from the mistakes of olders. I’m there to tell you about my own mistakes and the mistakes of my generation.

I know that most of you are only there to get a diploma while doing the minimal required effort. Fair enough, that’s part of the game. Challenge accepted. I will try to make you think even if you don’t intend to do it.

In earnest, I have a lot of fun teaching, even during the exam. For my students, the mileage may vary. But for the second time in my life, a student gave me the best possible compliment:

— You know, you are the only course for which I wake up at 8AM.

To which I responded:

– This is reciprocal. I hate waking up early, except to teach in front of you.

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