What About the Really Good Kids?

How much time and energy are teachers putting in to catching the cheaters without considering the ramifications of threats about AI punishments on the really good students?

When teachers give long threatening speeches about what will happen to students who use generative AI, what impact does that have on students who would never do something like that?

IT IS TERRIFYING TO THEM.

They fear being accused of doing something they did not do. They fear that their academic achievements could be attributed to a machine, and how will they ever convince their teachers (or their professors) that they did not actually commit this act of academic misconduct? They are afraid to even touch the tools in case someone believes that they cheated.

It’s Easy to Focus on the Problem

In our classroom spaces, it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of trying to prevent students from using AI to complete their work.

• How many students in your class do you think would actually do it?
• What is the cost to your high flyers when the focus is solely on inappropriate usage of generative AI? 
• If we teach students to fear AI, are we preparing them for a world where AI is becoming increasingly ubiquitous?
• Who is going to teach this generation of students how they CAN use AI?
• Have you ever examined the flip side of this question?

Unintended Harm

This post is not about shaming teachers for trying to take control of a new disruptive technology. Generative AI has disrupted the process of teaching and learning. It has brought new challenges and new considerations and we are all figuring this out together.

In the process of conducting my research for my Doctorate in education, I’ve been fortunate to benefit from conversations relative to both K-12 education and post-secondary education, and I’ve come to realize that there is harm to students who hold themselves to a high academic standard when teachers and professors threaten with ramifications that may come to pass if the teacher suspects the student of cheating on a written assignment.

Can we Find a Happy Medium?

Teachers, you do need to have a plan in place for those times that a student does engage in some academically dishonest behaviours. Just like you have a plan in place for other behaviour infractions.

If you’d like some thoughts that may be helpful as to how you might navigate this challenge gracefully, please take a look at my blog post titled AI Detection Tools; it does not advocate for using those tools – there are far too many false positives in that environment – but it offers a script that in almost any conversation will let you get to the bottom of the issue without burning bridges or destroying your teacher-student relationship.

These challenges can be navigated. Kids behaviour needs to be corrected sometimes. But we don’t need to let AI take dignity away from either us, our curriculum, or most important of all, our students.