AI and Cheating

 One of the biggest concerns teachers have about AI in the classroom is AI being used to cheat. Now, cheating with AI can look different in different classrooms or different from assignment to assignment. One of the important things you as a teacher will need to do if you're going to have students using AI in your classroom is to set up guidelines and parameters for how and when AI can be used for a particular assignment (learn more about that by coming to my last 2 PD sessions on AI). So, for the purposes of this post, I'd like to focus on cheating with AI in the form of writing. Kids will often complain about having to write essays or research papers, and the temptation to have AI do the work might be tempting to some. We would like to think that our teacher spidey sense and knowledge of our students would kick in and we would recognize it right away, but that may not happen. There may also be a temptation to use an AI detector, but they're finicky tools. Putting your total faith in them is a mistake, quite honestly. Anecdotally, there have been stories of AI detectors flagging student work as AI generated when it's written by non-native English speakers. So an AI detector may be a jumping off point, but it certainly should not be the judge and jury.

So, what's a teacher to do? Well, Tech & Learning magazine recently put out an article called, "7 Ways to Detect AI Writing Without Technology." And it's a gem! I encourage you to take the time to read the entire article, but in the meantime, here's a TL;DR for you:

• AI generated text tends to be long, so do some digging if a submission from a student seems longer than they normally write.
• AI generated text often doesn't seem to completely cover the requirements of the assignment even when it's overly long.
• AI writing seems emotionless even when writing about emotional things, so pay attention to how you feel when reading the words on the page.
• Lots of lists and bullet points come out of AI, so if there's a list or bullet point when there doesn't need to be one, time to investigate.
• No mistakes -- when the grammar and spelling are perfect, or the grammatical structure is fantastic, it's not unreasonable to suspect AI. Heck, even teachers make typos (just ask your students to find your typos -- they're happy to point them out haha).
• The writing is not like previous writing the student has done. Even when we're working on our students having voice in their writing, they still have a voice. 
• You gut is telling you something is rotten in Denmark. This is why teachers can never be replaced by AI! You know your students, and you start to know what their work is like, so when something is turned in that doesn't feel like "them," see if you can find anything out.

So, you suspect or even know something has been generated by AI. Now what? Well, remember, we're dealing with KIDS, and school is for LEARNING, so make it a learning experience! Some suggested discussion questions to have with the student:

• Did you use AI to do any of the work for this assignment?
• How much did you do? How much did the AI do?
• Why did you decide to use AI to help you?
• How did the results of what the AI generated for you make you feel? Confident? Nervous? Satisfied?
• Do you think there is something else you could have done to get this work finished without using AI? 
• What do you think is the best way to handle this? Re-do? New assignment? Any consequence?

If a consequence is warranted, that's fine, but ultimately, kids need to learn how to co-exist with AI in education, so we as teachers need to be their guides.

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them in the comments!

A Possible Cool Tool Alert!

 Let me share a personal story. My daughter struggled mightily in math. In fact, her junior year in Algebra II, she barely passed. Math was always a hard subject for her, and as she progressed through school, her grades got worse and worse. When it came time to register her for classes her senior year, I told her NOT to register for a math class (which would have been pre-calc). She would have for sure failed math her senior year and screwd up her graduation, and I was not setting my kid up for that kind of emotional blow her last year of high school. She had enough math credits to meet her graduation requirements, so she took no math class in high school. However, I knew she had holes to fill in her math learning, so the summer between her junior and senior year, I enrolled her at Kumon. Their testing of her showed learning deficits going all the way back to 4th grade math, which would explain why she was in a downward spiral as the curriculum upward spiraled. She spent that summer and most of her senior year going through her program at Kumon (she was REAL happy with me, as you can imagine!) and when they tested her at the end of the year, she was testing at Algebra II. How in the name of all that is holy did my kid go from 4th grade math to Algebra II in one year???? I can tell you I attribute it to 2 things:

1.) A personalized curriculum, designed to address exactly where all her deficits were.

2.) One-on-one instruction from her instructor at Kumon.

Before you start pointing out to me that a classroom teacher simply cannot do this for every student in their class, let me say you're right. That is simply too herculean a task for the average teacher, creating a personalized curriculum and offering individualized instruction for every student in your class.

But AI can help. 

Let me introduce you to Khanmigo, the AI assistant in beta testing from Khan Academy. Check out this TEDTalk from Sal Khan. It's 15 minutes, but it is well worth your time to see.

Highlights, in case you didn't watch (and some teasers to MAKE you watch):

• Khanmigo is not a cheating tool! If a student asks it to give an answer, Khanmigo will instead tutor the student, trying to find out where they need help.
• Khanmigo will look for a student's mistakes in solving a problem, ask they student to explain why they did what they did, and then tutor the student to guide them to the right answer.
• Kahnmigo works within Khan Academy for math, coding, history, and ELA.
• In the video, see how a student chats with Jay Gatsby to help understand why he acts the way he does in the novel.
• In the video, see how Khanmigo works with a student on working together to write a story.
• In the video, see how a student can practice a debate with Khanmigo.
• Khanmigo can work Socractically as a guidance counselor.
• In the video, see how Khanmigo addresses the student question, "Why do I need to know this?"
• Khanmigo will create lessons, generate progress reports, and evaluate student work.
• Sal Khan says that this will free up teachers to have more time to get back to their human interactions with students!
• Khanmigo thinks before it acts! Watch the video to see how it thinks and therefore tutors a student!

Finally, a point to consider that Sal Khan says so much more eloquently in the video than I can summarize: You might feel the need to slow down with AI or even eschew it altogether. But the problem with that is that the bad actors out there aren't going to slow down and then we end up in a situation where the bad actors have better AI than the good actors, and that leads to some pretty big problems! Instead, we as the good guys in education, can embrace AI and use it appropriately and teach our students the same which will help keep the good AI in the game. Plus the time we can gain back allows us to get back to what Sal Khan calls HI -- Human Interaction, which is what we all want to make sure isn't lost as AI gains ground. Watch the video. He says it so much better!

Now, why is this a POSSIBLE cool tool? First, we don't have an AI policy in place for using AI with students yet, so we can't jump into it. Plus, there are privacy issues that need to be reviewed (hello, SOPPA, we meet again). But I felt that Khanmigo was powerful enough to talk about now so that when we can hit the ground with AI in our classrooms, we have a really cool tool we might be able to use!

Talk to me in the comments -- did you watch the video? What did you think? Was your mind blown like mine? 

Google Certification is for YOU!

Are you a Google Certified educator? If you answered no, I'm going to ask you another question:

Here are 10 reasons why you should get your Google Certification!

1. Be a part of the coolest group of tech geeks! Getting Google Certified places you among the top Google educators in the world!
2. Stand out from the crowd! Google Certification lets you show everyone you've got mad skills -- you're smarter than the average bear!
3. Grow Big and Strong! By getting your certification, you'll learn about all the Google tools and how they can be used in your classroom -- you'll be so full of new ideas, you'll be bursting at the seams!
4. Spend Time to Save Time! By taking the time now to get certified, you'll end up saving time in the long run once you learn all the tricks Google Workspace has that are going to really streamline your work!
5. Get Unstuck! By getting certified, you'll learn so many handy tips and tricks that you'll be able to help your students and colleagues whenever they run into a problem. Whole document disappeared? You'll know what to do! Colleague can't figure out how to crate an email signature? You'll know how to help!
6. Go Green! Through certification, you'll learn the best and easiest ways to go as paperless as possible! Save a tree -- get Google Certified!
7. Build Your Toolkit! Getting certified means you become familiar with all the Google Workspace for Education tools, so you'll always know the best tool for the job!
8. Have a Meaningful Experience! How many times have you felt like a professional development experience was a waste because it just didn't apply to you? Well, we're a Google school district, so Google Certification is going to be immediately applicable to what you do in your job and with your students!
9. It Costs You Nothing! Getting certified costs you nothing but your time. All the training is free and online so you can work on what you need when you want at your own pace. Yes, you do have to pay a fee to take the exam, so I guess it does cost you something, but look at the next point --
10. It Earns You Money! By getting Google Certified, you can actually earn a little bit of money that will cover the cost of your exam AND leave you some extra to spend as you wish! Last year, CSD implemented a stiped opportunity for getting and renewing Google Certifications.

So, learn new skills, fine tune the ones you already have, be part of the cool crowd, and get some money...seriously, what is stopping you from getting Google Certified? Let me know what those barriers are in the comments and let me see if I can find a way to help you navigate them! What questions do you have about Google Certification? Drop them in the comments and I will answer them!