Key points:
- AI has a place in the classroom, but students shouldn’t rely on it to write papers
- Educators can use a few key strategies to identify AI-generated work
- See related article: Debunking common myths about AI in education
- Everything You Need To Know About AI In Education
As the school year starts, the excitement and stress about the potential use of generative AI has K-12 teachers and university faculty collectively stressed about these new tools and their potential impact on instruction. A recent professional development meeting about AI at a midwestern university set a new attendance record for such events.
There is no sure-fire way to identify text as generated by AI, and some of the early tools offered to do such have either been shown to be only somewhat effective or have been withdrawn from public use as not meeting their developer’s standards. A spate of AI detectors are available, including CopyLeaks, Content at Scale, and GPTZero, but most will note it is important to consider the results in conjunction with a conversation with the student involved. Asking a student to explain a complex or confusing portion of a submission might be more effective than any of the AI detectors.
Instructors at all levels should consider the following criteria to help them determine whether text-based submissions were student or AI-generated:
1. Look for typos. AI-generated text tends not to include typos, and such errors that make our writing human are often a sign that the submission was created by a human.
Baule’s scholarly interests focus on online student engagement, educational technology-- particularly the impact of 1:1 implementations, social-emotional learning, and the history of education. Baule led several efforts to improve student emotional health and reduce discipline issues prior to moving into higher education. He also writes on aspects of early American history.
Baule has held memberships in the American Association of School Administrators, the American Library Association, the American Association of School Librarians, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the Consortium for School Networking, the International Association of School Librarians, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Staff Development Council, and many of their state affiliates. He has served as a consultant in the areas of educational technology, facilities design, library program development, team building, and communications.
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