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How can educators prevent students using AI to cheat?
AI-generated coursework and homework will become rife.
AI is going to make teaching better.
How?
By making copying and cheating harder to accomplish.
From creating tiny scrolls of writing on pens, to handing in Wikipedia copypasta (but like, way back in 2004) — students have always found ways to cheat.
AI, in it’s current iteration as of 2023, is about to make typed out essays, coursework and rote-typed assignments a thing of the past. Why? Because even professors can’t tell whether a student or GPT wrote their homework. And some Universities are changing their syllabi already due to ChatGPT.
Teachers have never, of course, been the breed to shy away from a challenge, be that from humans or a machine.
There are some very basic strategies and ideas to circumvent AI homework submission.
1. Use plagiarism detection software more widely
There are several online tools available -used mostly in higher education and the college sector- to detect plagiarized or AI-generated content.
These tools are already used to deeply scan papers and assignments for incorrect citations, mistakes and subtle similarities to text found online. Turnitin, arguably the most famous software for plagiarism detection, claim to have already figured out how ChatGPT writes, for example.
It might be prudent for some universities to ban access to certain software sites and decommission AI-supported software or Office tools in favor of simpler software tools.
2. Create original assignments
Human-effort based, unique assignments that are difficult or impossible for AI to mimic, such as:
- Deep critical thinking
- Crafting
- Painting-by-hand/mouth/foot
- Generating new ideas and building them with objects and materials
- Setting specific problems that…
