The latest version of ChatGPT has only been around for a few months. But Aaron Romoslawski, the assistant principal at a Michigan high school, has already seen a handful of students trying to pass off writing produced by the artificial-intelligence-powered tool as their own work.
The signs are almost always obvious, Romoslawski said. Typically, a student will have been turning in work of a certain quality throughout the year, and then 鈥渟uddenly, we鈥檙e seeing these much higher quality assignments pop up out of nowhere,鈥� he said.
Romoslawski and his colleagues don鈥檛 start with a punitive response, however. 鈥淲e see it as an opportunity to have a conversation.鈥�
Those 鈥渄on鈥檛 let the robot do your homework鈥� talks are becoming all too common in schools these days. More than a quarter of K-12 teachers have , according to a recent survey by study.com, an online learning platform.
What鈥檚 the best way for educators to handle this high-tech form of plagiarism? Here are six tips drawn from educators and experts, including a , two education technology nonprofits focused on building students鈥� literacy skills.
1. Make your expectations very clear
Students need to know what exactly constitutes cheating, whether AI tools are involved or not.
鈥淓very school or district needs to put stakes in the ground [on a] policy around academic dishonesty, and what that means specifically,鈥� said Michelle Brown, the founder and CEO of CommonLit. Schools can decide how much or how little students can rely on AI to make cosmetic changes or do research, she said, and should make that clear to students. She recommended 鈥渢he heart of the policy [be] about allowing students to do intellectually rigorous work.鈥�
2. Talk to students about AI in general and ChatGPT in particular
If it appears a student may have passed off ChatGPT鈥檚 work as their own, sit down with them one on one, CommonLit and Quill recommend. Then talk about the tool and AI in general. Questions could include: Have you heard of ChatGPT? What are other students saying about it? What do you think it should be used for? Discuss the promises鈥攁nd potential pitfalls鈥攐f artificial intelligence.
鈥淥ne of the big concerns right now is that teachers want to encourage curiosity about AI,鈥� said Peter Gault, Quill鈥檚 founder and executive director. Strict discipline at this point 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 sit right with teachers where there鈥檚 a lot of natural curiosity here.鈥�
Romoslawski uses that approach. And so far, he hasn鈥檛 had a student try to use ChatGPT on an assignment twice. 鈥淲e鈥檝e gotten to the point where it鈥檚 a conversation and students are redoing the assignment in their own words,鈥� he said.
3. If students use ChatGPT for an assignment, they must attribute what material they used from it
If students are allowed to use ChatGPT or another AI tool for research or other help, let them know how and why they should credit that information, Brown said. Since users can鈥檛 link back to a ChatGPT response, she suggested students share the prompt they used to generate the information in their citation.
When Romoslawski and his colleagues suspect a student used ChatGPT to complete an assignment when they weren鈥檛 supposed to, he also brings up citation, in part as a way into the conversation.
鈥淲e ask the students 鈥榙id you use any resources that you don鈥檛 cite?鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淎nd often, the student says 鈥榶es.鈥� And so, then it creates a conversation about how to properly cite and attribute and why we do that.鈥�
4. Ask students directly if they used ChatGPT
Don鈥檛 beat around the bush if you suspect a student may have used AI to cheat. Ask them in a very straightforward way if they did, CommonLit and Quill say.
If students say 鈥測es,鈥� Romoslawski likes to get a sense of why. 鈥淢ore often than not, the student was just struggling on the assignment. They had a roadblock. They didn鈥檛 know what to do,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey were crunched for time, because we鈥檙e a high-achieving high school and our students are taking some pretty rigorous courses. This was their third homework assignment of the night and they just wanted to get through it.鈥�
If the student says 鈥渘o,鈥� but you still suspect them of cheating, ask if they got other help with the assignment. If they still say 鈥渘o,鈥� explain your concerns by pointing out differences between the work they turned in and their previous writing, CommonLit and Quill suggest.
5. Don鈥檛 rely on ChatGPT detectors alone to determine if there was cheating
There are a number of tools鈥攊ncluding one from OpenAI, ChatGPT鈥檚 developer鈥攖hat purport to be able to distinguish an AI-crafted story or essay from one written by a human. But most of these detectors don鈥檛 publish their accuracy rates. And those that do are ineffective about 10 to 20 percent of the time.
鈥淵ou can鈥檛 fully rely on that as the sole proof of academic dishonesty,鈥� Brown said.
6. Make it clear why learning to write on your own is important
Students in general, and particularly students who take advantage of AI to cheat, need to understand what they are missing out on when they take a technology-enabled shortcut. Educators should try to persuade students that learning to write on their own will help them reason and think, or be critical to future job success, Gault said.
But others will need a more immediate incentive. The strongest argument one teacher came up with, according to Quill鈥檚 Gault? Tell students that learning to write will make them more persuasive, and therefore, 鈥測ou can convince your parents to do what you want.鈥�
