Scott Shrake

🚨🚨 Excited to share our first *positive* results on AI in education! Most AI tutor work focuses on making the chatbot better. We suggest another lever: deciding what students should practice next to improve learning. We combine an LLM tutor with reinforcement learning to personalize problem sequencing using signals from student-chatbot interactions and solution attempts. We tested this in a 5-month randomized field experiment in a Python course across 10 high schools in Taipei. All students had the same course material and the same AI tutor. The only difference was adaptive vs. fixed problem sequencing. Result: across 770 students, adaptive sequencing improved performance on an in-person final exam taken without AI assistance by 0.15 SD, with larger effects for beginners. Our evidence suggests the gains came from stronger engagement and more productive AI use.

The closer people are to the cutting edge of AI the more they’re having an existential crisis and losing their minds about what the future will hold. That’s not a coincidence.

There’s only three “non power conference” squads ranked top-20 in KenPom’s offensive efficiency. Colorado State (14) Akron (17) Yale (19) Colorado State is the best three point shooting team in America (45%), Yale is second (44%) and Akron is fourth (42%) Need these teams in the dance.

Two conversations this weekend make me think that there's a vibe shift afoot in Silicon Valley around what one should work on and what is worthwhile. Culturally, it feels like the moment is ripe for new frameworks: • Davos expert morality is stale and discredited. • It's also apparent that the "just be super based" Counter-Enlightenment is not really an answer. (Yes, woke went too far, but simply inverting it doesn't work.) • EA is no longer the automatic default for smart people. • There's increasing skepticism of slot and slop machine dynamics. Overall, "what is worthy and valuable?" feels like it's becoming more central.

Colorado State’s Josh Pascarelli is quietly becoming one of the most impressive shotmakers in college basketball. The 6-foot-3 Marist transfer drilled eight threes today in the win over Colorado, his second straight game with eight made triples. He finished with 28 points on 8-for-10 from deep in a massive rivalry win for the Rams.

Colorado State will wear these sweet "Snow Days" helmets Nov. 8 vs. UNLV. Snow Days is CSU's 3-day celebration of Colorado's winter sports & outdoor lifestyle 🏔️☃️

My TOP 4: 2. Tim Skipper (interm HC UCLA) He has learned under great HCs including Jim McElwain & Jeff Tedford. Tim is a great person and he has shown he can put life into a program. He is gaining national respect and can bring in players who will compete immediately.

An interesting tidbit: Colorado State football had a program record 15,740 announced student attendance last week against UNC. That total (students only, not full crowd) was more than the announced TOTAL attendance of eight FBS games last weekend.