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The AI Takeover

 Artificial intelligence--right? It's gotten scary for us teachers. Plagiarism, generated essays, and student answers that seem too good to be true are everywhere. This intelligence is baked right into their phones. College must be a joke today, but accountability and AI "catching" software is available to use for educators. My advice for dealing with AI is the following: 

  1. Don't let students take home some select assignments 
  2. Have students complete assignments in pen/pencil on paper  
  3. Use free AI detection software on the web 
  4. Be clear about your grading policy and student use of AI
     Be careful what you send home with them. Assignments that you want authentically completed, should stay and be completed in school. Unfortunately, some students will use AI to answer multiple choice questions, fill-in assignments, short-response, and essays. My own son one time showed me AI to complete math problems by taking a picture of it. I sound old now. 
     Have students complete essays on paper. I do allow them to type essays in class, but I run AI checkers and software that monitors their browsing. Our software allows us to block AI websites. Free AI software sites do exist on the web, but they are free. So most of them will not allow  you to post the entire essay into the detector. I currently use https://quillbot.com/ai-content-detector to further evaluate their use of AI and check for cheating. 
      Lastly, be explicitly clear about your grading rules. Recently, a student told me I said it was okay to use AI to write their essays. That kid received a flat 0 because I covered the rules for cheating before giving out the assignment. Hold them accountable for it. They need to learn now and not later in college. 
      Finally, AI isn't going anywhere and it's only getting better. The capabilities are endless. Try to prevent students from accessing it. Chromebooks and technology is great, but it's like sticking AI right into their faces. The cheat code is right there. I do believe the old ways were the best ways in this regard. Who is really learning anything nowadays? It's so easy to cheat. So do the best you can with AI. You could embrace it for certain activities (brainstorming, etc.), but overall, I believe it should not be in the classroom. 

-Mr. Greg 

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