7.1 Potential Impact on Plagiarism and Cheating — The AI-Enhanced Classroom: Redefining Teaching and Learning

Guiding Questions

What are some of the main concerns around plagiarism with AI?
How can we address the issue when there is no agreed upon definition of improper use?
How can we start to develop a AI-use policy for students?

The Issue of AI Plagiarism

As AI tools like Chat GPT, which can produce human-like writing and has an immense database of information, emerged, those in the education community immediately worried that students would use the technology to complete assignments for them. This issue has raised a number of questions about what exactly qualifies as plagiarism, how teachers can detect AI-written work, and what policies encourage ethical use of AI.

Traditional plagiarism detection tools struggle to identify AI-written work, as it is not copied directly from another source. Furthermore, AI can be prompted to produce content in a specific tone or style, which makes it even more challenging to recognize as non-original work. Another concern is that different AI writing tools may be detected by different plagiarism detectors, making it more difficult to establish a consistent approach to identifying AI-generated content. This situation may make grading even more time consuming for teachers and encourage students to focus more on evading AI checkers rather than genuinely learning the subject matter.

Some of the main ways that students may be able to use AI improperly include:

Generating essays that sound like human writing. Generative AI tools can create human-like pieces of writing very quickly and can write in specific styles and tones.
Paraphrasing and rewriting. AI tools can quickly paraphrase or rewrite another piece of writing in order to avoid traditional plagiarism detectors. Also, tools like Bing Chat and Perplexity can quickly paraphrase or summarize a concept, while also citing the source of the information.

Providing answers to homework, worksheets, quizzes, and tests: AI tools can quickly answer both open-ended and fixed answer questions.

Defining Improper Use

Since these technologies are still new to the education space, there is no clear consensus yet on what constitutes improper use of AI in academic settings. Opinions vary widely on whether students should be allowed to use AI, and if so, what for. Several major public school districts in the US have chosen to block ChatGPT from school devices and completely ban students from using AI to assist with any tasks. On the other hand, many colleges and universities are taking a more nuanced and measured approach by updating their academic integrity policies to respond to new technologies. Some of these different approaches are likely the result of the vastly different resources that public schools have compared to large universities.

However, if you are a teacher or administrator in a district that has not communicated a clear plagiarism policy, it may be up to you to lead a discussion on creating a fair use policy for your class or school. Next, we’ll discuss some ways you may choose address the issue of plagiarism and how you can start a productive conversation with key stakeholders.

Addressing the Issues

First, because there is so much uncertainty, clear communication of rules and expectations to both students and parents is key. This is particularly true for an environment where rules may differ by class.

Next, ensuring that students understand the technology and its implications, including the ethical concerns surrounding AI-generated content, is essential. Likewise, discussing the ethical issues of plagiarism and what students miss out on by outsourcing their work to a computer is part of combatting unfair use of technology.

You can also address the issue by finding and allowing ethical uses of AI in the classroom. These might include using it to research or obtain background information and citing it as a source in writing. It can can also be used to brainstorm, plan projects, provide feedback, create outlines, or edit. Again, it’s up to you to decide how students can use the technology for assignments in your class.

Additionally, you may choose to combat the issue by incorporating assignments and activities that cannot be easily completed using AI, such as discussion-based assignments that require critical thinking and personal engagement and others that we discussed in Module 5. Implementing a flipped classroom model can also help; students engage with content at home and focus on problem-solving and collaboration during class time. Part of addressing the issue of cheating in the age of AI will undoubtedly involve innovating the types of tasks we are assigning students.

Now, a note on AI detectors:

Several tools have been developed to assist educators in identifying AI-generated content. AI text classifiers can analyze writing patterns to detect AI-generated text, while GPT Zero is specifically designed to identify GPT-generated content. However, this technology is far from perfect, mainly because AI technology is developing more rapidly than the detectors can catch up to. These detectors can produce both false positive and false negative responses, meaning that some students will get away with cheating, while other innocent students will suffer punishment for something they didn’t do. This raises serious equity concerns about which students’ work is most likely to be flagged.

Creating an AI use policy

So, what goes into creating a fair-use policy for AI in your school and classroom? First, we suggest involving all relevant stakeholders in the dialogue so that you have buy-in from those effected by the rules as well as those enforcing them. This would include other faculty and staff, parents, and students. Particularly, involving student voices is key because they are more likely to follow rules that they had agency in creating and they are the ones who will be living in an AI-driven future.

Some basic questions you can use to start this conversation include:

What should students be allowed to use AI for?
What shouldn’t students be allowed to use AI for?
Do students have to cite AI as a source? If so, when and how?
What are the consequences for using AI unfairly?

Conclusion

In conclusion, AI has the potential to significantly impact plagiarism and cheating in academic settings. By understanding the issues and taking proactive steps, educators can ensure that AI is used ethically and responsibly while maintaining the integrity of the learning process. In the next lesson, we’ll continue this conversation by discussing the importance of honor codes and how you can craft one with your classes.

Key Takeaways

New AI technologies have a major impact on plagiarism and cheating because of their ability to complete a variety of different assignment tasks.
There is no agreed upon definition of fair-use of AI in education because the technology is still new.
Creating a clear AI-use policy will help clarify how students can engage with AI in their education.