Beyond AI Detectors: Six Strategies for Encouraging Authentic Student Work
Many schools and educators are frustrated with AI.
They’re frustrated because students can now leverage AI tools to produce written assignments in seconds.
The fallout here is teachers are now having to rely on AI writing detection tools or other one-off tactics to respond to instances where they suspect students might be using AI to craft one of their classroom assignments.
We also found in our last episode that AI writing detectors can produce inconsistencies, which is concerning given some educators have already used AI detection findings to accuse students of cheating/plagiarism and the fallout that comes with it.
I also empathize with teachers — it continues to feel like an impossible job with rapidly developing technology, a tsunami of priorities, drastically different needs across each students, and the potential for so much classroom disruption with external events like a pandemic.
So what can teachers do in a world with AI to encourage students to complete their own work beyond using flawed AI detectors?
Before I jump into the strategies, let’s introduce two quick caveats:
First, young people are individuals and no strategy will work for 100% of students 100% of the time. It is about identifying bright spots and building off them, but there will always be good and tough days.
Second, why would students use AI to complete an assignment? I speculate that there could be six motivations here (though this is not exhaustive):
- The assignment is boring
- The assignment is challenging
- The assignment is not a priority
- Their work is not as good as AI
- The subject is boring
- They are unclear about how they’re expected to use AI in the class and thought it was okay
- They don’t like or trust their teacher
After walking through these caveats, here’s the six strategies I think could move the needle for student engaging in classroom assignments, even when they could opt for AI:
Redefine student’s relationship with writing
Stop over policing structure and grammar; allow them to see writing as a vehicle for thinking, expressing, convincing, informing, and entertaining. Invite original tone of voice.
Go multimodal
The proliferation of AI tools has made it easier than ever before to record a podcast and create images/video. If there’s flexibility in the product a student can submit to demonstrate mastery on their end, why not let them choose? How cool would it be if a student can in one day with an intricately baked cake to demonstrate their mastery of topics you all covered (which actually happened in a OneGoal classroom last year).
Go meta
One of the reasons it is so easy to use ChatGPT to submit an essay is because many essay prompts focus around demonstrating a comprehension of classroom material, analyzing authors purpose, or evaluating a literary element. What it we went beyond this to intentionally create brain teaser-like prompts which juxtapose topics which don’t actually connect at face value? I had a law professor who did this so successfully by creating complicated, subjective legal scenarios that we then had to analyze and give our opinions on with legal arguments; the kicker was, every exam was open book and take home — it did not make his written exams any easier!
Respond to AI use…with AI use
In the same way that students now have access to revolutionary technology which can potentially save them time and expand their impact — SO. DO. YOU! If an average teacher spends 15–20 hours outside of the classroom weekly completing tasks like creating supplemental learning materials/lessons/assignments, grading, and planning for upcoming units, how might your work week look and feel different if you had tools which allowed you to complete these workflows in 3–5 hours a week? Would you get more sleep? Focus on those ambitious projects you haven’t been able to get to? How would you show up differently as a teacher? How would your students receive your class differently? The exciting piece is…this is not a theoretical scenario, there are teachers using AI tools right now that are saving themselves hours of time and creating mental/physical bandwidth to tackle other ambitious work flows.
Develop team projects
It may be easy for one student to opt into creating written assignments using AI when they know it is not acceptable…but it is harder to get three other students to do it with you. Plus, students are given the opportunity to learn two critical durable skills they will need when they enter the workforce — teamwork and interpersonal communication.
Invite and encourage personal connections and interests
This can be tough to do when teachers are constantly pressured to teach to standards and upcoming state tests, but wherever you can invite students to share personal connections and interests to the assignment, this can increase engagement and buy in. Every teacher knows most students love talking about themselves and you can learn a lot about your students if you ask questions and listen. If I can transform a student who hated reading to become a reader by talking about The Walking Dead and getting him a comic book as starter book, you can get your students to authentically complete your assignments without using AI (unless you want them to)!
Teachers — I know this time is especially tough so thank you for your continued efforts and service to impact our young people, even when it is really hard.
For non educators— buy a coffee, send a gift card, or send some kind words to a teacher in your network today!
Check out the full episode which includes more texture to each strategy here. Join the conversation at TheAIEducationConversation.com
I’m thrilled to announce I will be presenting at Sequoia Con 2024!! If your team, school, district, or institution is ready to take the leap in exploring AI implementation, my session will support with strategies for implementation and navigating change management!
The team at Evergreen is also giving any of my followers $50 off conference registration if you use my code: AICONVO.
You can register here. Early bird registration ends on Thursday February 1st. Hope to see you at my session!
#HumansAtTheHeartOfEducation
