The book report is now a thing of the past. Take-home tests and essays are becoming obsolete.<\/p>\n
High school and college educators say student use of artificial intelligence has become so prevalent that assigning writing outside of the classroom is like asking students to cheat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cheating is off the charts. It\u2019s the worst I\u2019ve seen in my entire career,\u201d says Casey Cuny, who has taught English for 23 years. Educators are no longer wondering if students will outsource schoolwork to AI chatbots. \u201cAnything you send home, you have to assume is being AI\u2019ed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The question is how schools can adapt, because many of the teaching and assessment tools used for generations are no longer effective. As AI technology rapidly improves and becomes more entwined with daily life, it is transforming how students learn and study and how teachers teach, and it\u2019s creating new confusion over what constitutes academic dishonesty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to ask ourselves, what is cheating?\u201d says Cuny, a 2024 recipient of California\u2019s Teacher of the Year award. \u201cBecause I think the lines are getting blurred.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuny\u2019s students at Valencia High School in Southern California now do most of their writing in class. He monitors student laptop screens from his desktop, using software that lets him \u201clock down\u201d their screens or block access to certain sites. He\u2019s also integrating AI into his lessons and teaching students how to use AI as a study aid \u201cto get kids learning with AI instead of cheating with AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
In rural Oregon, high school teacher Kelly Gibson has made a similar shift to in-class writing. She also incorporates more verbal assessments to have students discuss their understanding of the assigned reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to give a writing prompt and say, \u2018In two weeks, I want a five-paragraph essay,\u2019\u201d says Gibson. \u201cThese days, I can\u2019t do that. That\u2019s almost begging teenagers to cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Take, for example, a once typical high school English assignment: Write an essay that explains the relevance of social class in \u201cThe Great Gatsby.\u201d Many students say their first instinct is to ask ChatGPT for help \u201cbrainstorming.\u201d Within seconds, ChatGPT yields a list of essay ideas, examples, and quotes to back them up. The chatbot ends by asking if it can do more: \u201cWould you like help writing any part of the essay? I can help you draft an introduction or outline a paragraph!\u201d<\/p>\n
Students are uncertain when AI usage is out of bounds<\/p>\n
Students say they often turn to AI with good intentions for things like research, editing or help reading difficult texts. But AI offers unprecedented temptation, and it\u2019s sometimes hard to know where to draw the line.<\/p>\n
College sophomore Lily Brown, a psychology major at an East Coast liberal arts school, relies on ChatGPT to help outline essays because she struggles putting the pieces together herself. ChatGPT also helped her through a freshman philosophy class, where assigned reading \u201cfelt like a different language\u201d until she read AI summaries of the texts.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I feel bad using ChatGPT to summarize reading, because I wonder, is this cheating? Is helping me form outlines cheating? If I write an essay in my own words and ask how to improve it, or when it starts to edit my essay, is that cheating?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her class syllabi say things like: \u201cDon\u2019t use AI to write essays and to form thoughts,\u201d she says, leaving a lot of grey area. Students say they often shy away from asking teachers for clarity because admitting to any AI use could flag them as cheaters.<\/p>\n