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A new tool helps teachers detect if AI wrote an assignment

Janet W. Lee

Several big school districts such as New York and Los Angeles have blocked access to a new chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to produce essays. One student has a new tool to help.

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Using AI ethically in writing assignments

The use of generative artificial intelligence in writing isn’t an either/or proposition. Rather, think of a continuum in which AI can be used at nearly any point to inspire, ideate, structure, and format writing. It can also help with research, feedback, summarization, and creation. You may also choose not to use any AI tools. This handout is intended to help you decide.

A starting point

Many instructors fear that students will use chatbots to complete assignments, bypassing the thinking and intellectual struggle involved in shaping and refining ideas and arguments. That’s a valid concern, and it offers a starting point for discussion:

Turning in unedited AI-generated work as one’s own creation is academic misconduct .

Most instructors agree on that point.  After that, the view of AI becomes murkier. AI is already ubiquitous, and its integrations and abilities will only grow in the coming years. Students in grade school and high school are also using generative AI, and those students will arrive at college with expectations to do the same. So how do we respond?

Writing as process and product

We often think of writing as a product that demonstrates students’ understanding and abilities. It can serve that role, especially in upper-level classes. In most classes, though, we don’t expect perfection. Rather, we want students to learn the process of writing. Even as students gain experience and our expectations for writing quality rise, we don’t expect them to work in a vacuum. They receive feedback from instructors, classmates, friends, and others. They get help from the writing center. They work with librarians. They integrate the style and thinking of sources they draw on. That’s important because thinking about writing as a process involving many types of collaboration helps us consider how generative AI might fit in.   

Generative AI as a writing assistant

We think students can learn to use generative AI effectively and ethically. Again, rather than thinking of writing as an isolated activity, think of it as a process that engages sources, ideas, tools, data, and other people in various ways. Generative AI is simply another point of engagement in that process. Here’s what that might look like at various points:

Early in the process

• Generating ideas . Most students struggle to identify appropriate topics for their writing. Generative AI can offer ideas and provide feedback on students’ ideas.  
• Narrowing the scope of a topic . Most ideas start off too broad, and students often need help in narrowing the scope of writing projects. Instructors and peers already do that. Generative AI becomes just another voice in that process.
• Finding initial sources . Bing and Bard can help students find sources early in the writing process. Specialty tools like Semantic Scholar, Elicit, Prophy, and Dimensions can provide more focused searches, depending on the topic.
• Finding connections among ideas . Research Rabbit, Aria (a plug-in for Zotero) and similar tools can create concept maps of literature, showing how ideas and research are connected. Elicit identifies patterns across papers and points to related research. ChatGPT Pro can also find patterns in written work. When used with a plugin, it can also create word clouds and other visualizations.
• Gathering and formatting references . Software like EndNote and Zotero allow students to store and organize sources. They also save time by formatting sources in whatever style the writer needs.
• Summarizing others’ work . ChatGPT, Bing and specialty AI tools like Elicit do a good job of summarizing research papers and webpages, helping students decide whether a source is worth additional time.
• Interrogating research papers or websites . This is a new approach AI has made possible. An AI tool analyzes a paper (often a PDF) or a website. Then researchers can then ask questions about the content, ideas, approach, or other aspects of a work. Some tools can also provide additional sources related to a paper.
• Analyzing data . Many of the same tools that can summarize digital writing can also create narratives from data, offering new ways of bringing data into written work.
• Finding hidden patterns . Students can have an AI tool analyze their notes or ideas for research, asking it to identify patterns, connections, or structure they might not have seen on their own.
• Outlining . ChatGPT, Bing and other tools do an excellent job of outlining potential articles or papers. That can help students organize their thoughts throughout the research and writing process. Each area of an outline provides another entry point for diving deeper into ideas and potential writing topics.
• Creating an introduction . Many writers struggle with opening sentences or paragraphs. Generative AI can provide a draft of any part of a paper, giving students a boost as they bring their ideas together.

Deeper into the process

• Thinking critically . Creating good prompts for generative AI involves considerable critical thinking. This isn’t a process of asking a single question and receiving perfectly written work. It involves trial and error, clarification and repeated follow-ups. Even after that, students will need to edit, add sources, and check the work for AI-generated fabrication or errors.
• Creating titles or section headers for papers . This is an important but often overlooked part of the writing process, and the headings that generative AI produces can help students spot potential problems in focus.
• Helping with transitions and endings . These are areas where students often struggle or get stuck, just as they do with openings.
• Getting feedback on details . Students might ask an AI tool to provide advice on improving the structure, flow, grammar, and other elements of a paper.
• Getting feedback on a draft . Instructors already provide feedback on drafts of assignments and often have students work with peers to do the same. Students may also seek the help of the writing center or friends. Generative AI can also provide feedback, helping students think through large and small elements of a paper. We don’t see that as a substitute for any other part of the writing process. Rather, it is an addition.

Generative AI has many weaknesses. It is programmed to generate answers whether it has appropriate answers or not. Students can’t blame AI for errors, and they are still accountable for everything they turn in. Instructors need to help them understand both the strengths and the weaknesses of using generative AI, including the importance of checking all details.

A range of AI use

Better understanding of the AI continuum provides important context, but it doesn’t address a question most instructors are asking: How much is too much ? There’s no easy answer to that. Different disciplines may approach the use of generative AI in very different ways. Similarly, instructors may set different boundaries for different types of assignments or levels of students. Here are some ways to think through an approach:

• Discuss ethics . What are the ethical foundations of your field? What principles should guide students? Do students know and understand those principles? What happens to professionals who violate those principles?
• Be honest . Most professions, including academia, are trying to work through the very issues instructors are. We are all experimenting and trying to define boundaries even as the tools and circumstances change. Students need to understand those challenges. We should also bring students into conversations about appropriate use of generative AI. Many of them have more experience with AI than instructors do, and adding their voices to discussions will make it more likely that students will follow whatever guidelines we set.  
• Set boundaries . You may ask students to avoid, for instance, AI for creating particular assignments or for generating complete drafts of assignments. (Again, this may vary by discipline.) Just make sure students understand why you want them to avoid AI use and how forgoing AI assistance will help them develop skills they need to succeed in future classes and in the professional world.
• Review your assignments . If AI can easily complete them, students may not see the value or purpose. How can you make assignments more authentic, focusing on real-world problems and issues students are likely to see in the workplace?
• Scaffold assignments . Having students create assignments in smaller increments reduces pressure and leads to better overall work.
• Include reflection . Have students think of AI as a method and have them reflect on their use of AI. This might be a paragraph or two at the end of a written assignment in which they explain what AI tools they have used, how they have used those tools, and what AI ultimately contributed to their written work. Also have them reflect on the quality of the material AI provided and on what they learned from using the AI tools. This type of reflection helps students develop metacognitive skills (thinking about their own thinking). It also provides important information to instructors about how students are approaching assignments and what additional revisions they might need to make.
• Engage with the Writing Center, KU Libraries , and other campus services about AI, information literacy, and the writing process. Talk with colleagues and watch for advice from disciplinary societies. This isn’t something you have to approach alone.

Generative AI is evolving rapidly. Large numbers of tools have incorporated it, and new tools are proliferating. Step back and consider how AI has already become part of academic life:  

• AI-augmented tools like spell-check and auto-correct brought grumbles, but there was no panic.
• Grammar checkers followed, offering advice on word choice, sentence construction, and other aspects of writing. Again, few people complained.
• Citation software has evolved along with word-processing programs, easing the collection, organization, and formatting of sources.
• Search engines used AI long before generative AI burst into the public consciousness.

As novel as generative AI may seem, it offers nothing new in the way of cheating. Students could already buy papers on the internet, copy and paste from an online site, have someone else create a paper for them, or tweak a paper from the files of a fraternity or a sorority. So AI isn’t the problem. AI has simply forced instructors to deal with long-known issues in academic structure, grading, distrust, and purpose. That is beyond the scope of this handout, other than some final questions for thought:

Why are we so suspicious of student intentions? And how can we create an academic climate that values learning and honesty?

(Updated July 2024)

Other AI-Related Materials

• Helping Students Understand the Biases in Generative AI
• Maintaining Academic Integrity in the AI Era
• AI as a Tutor on Research Projects

Additional resources

Research on ai and writing.

Ai.llude: Encouraging Rewriting AI-Generated Text to Support Creative Expression , by David Zhou and Sarah Sterman. Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition (28 May 2024).

AI and Its Consequences for the Written Word , by Thomas Helstrom. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence 6 (4 January 2024).

AI and Writing Classrooms: A Study of Purposeful Use and Student Responses to the Technology , by Laura Dumin. Teaching and Generative AI , Beth Buyserie and Travis N. Thurston, eds., chapter 8. Utah State University, 2024.

AI vs. Human-Authored Texts: A Multidimensional Comparison , by Tony Berber Sardinha. Applied Corpus Linguistics 4 (April 2024).

ChatGPT: A Powerful Technology Tool for Writing Instruction , by Sarah W. Beck and Sarah R. Levine. Phi Delta Kappan 105 (28 August 2023).

ChatGPT Is Bullshit , by Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries, and Joe Slater.  Ethics and Information Technology  26 (2024).

Embracing AI in English Composition: Insights and Innovations in Hybrid Pedagogical Practices , by James Hutson, Daniel Plate, and Kadence Berry.  International Journal of Changes in Education  1 (2024):19-31.

Exploring an AI-based Writing Assistant's Impact on English Language Learners , by John Maurice Gayed, May Kristine Jonson Carlon, Angelu Mari Oriola, and Jeffrey S. Cross. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence  3 (2022).

Improving Writing Feedback for Struggling Writers: Generative AI to the Rescue? , by Anya S. Evmenova, Kelley Regan, Reagan Mergen, and Roba Hrisseh.  TechTrends  (14 May 2024).

The Use of ChatGPT in Creative Writing Assistance , by Svitlana Fiialka, Zoia Kornieva, and Tamara Honcharuk.  XLinguae: European Scientific Language Journal 17 (January 2024) 

• Academic integrity
• Plagiarism, collusion and other examples of misconduct
• Artificial intelligence tools and technologies

Advice for students regarding Turnitin and AI writing detection

On 5 April 2023, Turnitin launched a new tool that identifies material that has potentially been written by artificial intelligence (AI) software (eg ChatGPT). The tool is in the early stages of development and is currently only available in staff view – this setting cannot be changed by the University.

How reliable is the tool?

This is an early release of the tool which the University has chosen to deploy so that we can thoroughly test it and actively provide input to Turnitin on its design.

The tool looks for English language patterns it scores as likely generated from an AI source and produces a conservative identification of AI written content. The scores per sentence and across groups of sentences assigned by the tool must collectively reach a high confidence threshold (98%) before they are flagged as likely having been written by AI.

This means that if the tool indicates that 40% of the overall text has been AI-generated, it is 98% confident that is the case. The University, along with others in the sector, are seeking more detail on the sensitivity and specificity of this model and how confidence intervals are calculated as well as conducting our own tests on its reliability. This information will be publicly shared as it becomes available.

What will the University do if the tool reports a high score for submitted work?

As with the similarity report generated by Turnitin, the result of the AI writing detector tool is a prompt for further investigation.

Should there be a suspicion that part or all of your submitted assessment has been produced using generative AI, you may be asked to explain your essay and argument (how you developed the argument, what sources you used, how you reached the conclusion you did), or to provide drafts or notes of early versions of the assessment.

The Turnitin AI writing detector is a new tool and has only been in use at the University since Semester 1, 2023. This may mean that the tool incorrectly identifies some assessments as having been produced by AI when they have not. Should you be asked to discuss or explain components of your assessment task, understand that this, alone, is not an accusation of academic misconduct. The AI writing detector score would not normally be used as the only evidence to raise an allegation of academic misconduct – but it might be one of several indicators.

When is it OK to use AI tools?

The acceptable use of AI will vary across disciplines, subjects, and assessment tasks. Your subject coordinator will provide this information, but it is your responsibility to check the assessment guidelines and relevant policies, and to understand what is expected of you. Resources on academic integrity are available to you through your subject’s LMS site, Academic Skills , and the Library .

If an assessment task does permit the use of AI tools and technologies in the preparation of the submission, this usage must be appropriately acknowledged and cited in accordance with the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326) .

If an assessment task does not permit the use of such tools, or if you use such tools in the preparation of an assessment submission without acknowledgement, this is academic misconduct. In accordance with the Student Academic Integrity Policy (MPF1310) , any student who commits academic misconduct is subject to the penalties outlined in the Schedule of Student Academic Misconduct Penalties .

As other tools to detect the use of AI become available, the University will consider adopting their use. Work submitted for assessment is subject to checking through these tools at any stage. This includes in the years following graduation, and the University has the right to amend marks or rescind degrees should academic misconduct be found at any stage.

Generative AI in Academic Writing

What this handout is about.

You’ve likely heard of AI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, or others by now. These tools fall under a broad, encompassing term called generative AI that describes technology that can create new text, images, sounds, video, etc. based on information and examples drawn from the internet. Some AI tools are free or offer free tiers, while others require a subscription and payment. In this handout, we will focus on potential uses and pitfalls of generative AI tools that generate text.

Before we begin: Stay tuned to your instructor

Instructors’ opinions on the use of AI tools may vary dramatically from one class to the next, so don’t assume that all of your instructors will think alike on this topic. Consult each syllabus for guidance or requirements related to the use of AI tools. If you have questions about if/how/when it may be appropriate to use generative AI in your coursework, be sure to seek input from your instructor before you turn something in for a grade. You are always 100% responsible for whatever writing you chose to turn in to an instructor, so it pays to inquire early.

Note that when your instructors authorize the use of generative AI tools, they will likely assume that these tools may help you think and write—not think or write for you. Keep that principle in mind when you are drafting and revising your assignments. You can maintain your academic integrity and employ the tools with the same high ethical standards and source use practices that you use in any piece of academic writing.

What is generative AI, and how does it work?

Generative AI is an artificial intelligence tool that allows users to ask it questions or make requests and receive quick written responses. It uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze vast amounts of textual data to determine patterns in words and phrases. Detecting patterns allows LLMs to predict what words may follow other words and to transform the content of its corpus (the textual data) into new sentences that respond to the questions or requests. Using complex neural network models, LLMs generate writing that mimics human intelligence and varied writing styles.

The textual data used to train the LLM has been scraped from the internet, though it is unclear exactly which sources have been included in the corpus for each AI tool. As you can imagine, the internet has a vast array of content of variable quality and utility, and generative AI does not distinguish between accurate/inaccurate or biased/unbiased information. It can also recombine accurate source information in ways that generate inaccurate statements, so it’s important to be discerning when you use these tools and to carefully digest what’s generated for you. That said, the AI tools may spark ideas, save you time, offer models, and help you improve your writing skills. Just plan to bring your critical thinking skills to bear as you begin to experiment with and explore AI tools.

As you explore the world of generative AI tools, note that there are both free and paid versions. Some require you to create an account, while others don’t. Whatever tools you experiment with, take the time to read the terms before you proceed, especially the terms about how they will use your personal data and prompt history.

In order to generate responses from AI tools, you start by asking a question or making a request, called a “prompt.” Prompting is akin to putting words into a browser’s search bar, but you can make much more sophisticated requests from AI tools with a little practice. Just as you learned to use Google or other search engines by using keywords or strings, you will need to experiment with how you can extract responses from generative AI tools. You can experiment with brief prompts and with prompts that include as much information as possible, like information about the goal, the context, and the constraints.

You could experiment with some fun requests like “Create an itinerary for a trip to a North Carolina beach.” You may then refine your prompt to “Create an itinerary for a relaxing weekend at Topsail Beach and include restaurant recommendations” or “Create an itinerary for a summer weekend at Topsail Beach for teenagers who hate water sports.” You can experiment with style by refining the prompt to “Rephrase the itinerary in the style of a sailor shanty.” Look carefully at the results for each version of the prompt to see how your changes have shaped the answers.

The more you experiment with generative AI for fun, the more knowledgeable and prepared you will be to use the tool responsibly if you have occasion to use it for your academic work. Here are some ways you might experiment with generative AI tools when drafting or exploring a topic for a paper.

Potential uses

Brainstorming/exploring the instructor’s prompt Generative AI can help spark ideas or categories for brainstorming. You could try taking key words from your topic and asking questions about these ideas or concepts. As you narrow in on a topic, you can ask more specific or in-depth questions.

Based on the answers that you get from the AI tool, you may identify some topics, ideas, or areas you are interested in researching further. At this point, you can start exploring credible academic sources, visit your instructor’s office hours to discuss topic directions, meet with a research librarian for search strategies, etc.

Generating outlines AI tools can generate outlines of writing project timelines, slide presentations, and a variety of writing tasks. You can revise the prompt to generate several versions of the outlines that include, exclude, and prioritize different information. Analyze the output to spark your own thinking about how you’d like to structure the draft you’re working on.

Models of genres or types of writing If you are uncertain how to approach a new format or type of writing, an AI tool may quickly generate an example that may inform how you develop your draft. For example, you may never have written—a literature review, a cover letter for an internship, or an abstract for a research project. With good prompting, an AI tool may show you what type of written product you are aiming to develop, including typical components of that genre and examples. You can analyze the output for the sequence of information to help you get a sense of the structure of that genre, but be cautious about relying on the actual information (see pitfalls below). You can use what you learn about the structures to develop drafts with your own content.

Summarizing longer texts You can put longer texts into the AI tool and ask for a summary of the key points. You can use the summary as a guide to orient you to the text. After reading the summary, you can read the full text to analyze how the author has shaped the argument, to get the important details, and to capture important points that the tool may have omitted from the summary.

Editing/refining AI tools can help you improve your text at the sentence level. While sometimes simplistic, AI-generated text is generally free of grammatical errors. You can insert text you have written into an AI tool and ask it to check for grammatical errors or offer sentence level improvements. If this draft will be turned into your instructor, be sure to check your instructor’s policies on using AI for coursework.

As an extension of editing and revising, you may be curious about what AI can tell you about your own writing. For example, after asking AI tools to fix grammatical and punctuation errors in your text, compare your original and the AI edited version side-by-side. What do you notice about the changes that were made? Can you identify patterns in these changes? Do you agree with the changes that were made? Did AI make your writing more clear? Did it remove your unique voice? Writing is always a series of choices you make. Just because AI suggests a change, doesn’t mean you need to make it, but understanding why it was suggested may help you take a different perspective on your writing.

Translation You can prompt generative AI tools to translate text or audio into different languages for you. But similar to tools like Google Translate, these translations are not considered completely “fluent.” Generative AI can struggle with things like idiomatic phrases, context, and degree of formality.

Transactional communication Academic writing can often involve transactional communication—messages that move the writing project forward. AI tools can quickly generate drafts of polite emails to professors or classmates, meeting agendas, project timelines, event promotions, etc. Review each of the results and refine them appropriately for your audiences and purposes.

Potential pitfalls

Information may be false AI tools derive their responses by reassembling language in their data sets, most of which has been culled from the internet. As you learned long ago, not everything you read on the internet is true, so it follows that not everything culled and reassembled from the internet is true either. Beware of clearly written, but factually inaccurate or misleading responses from AI tools. Additionally, while they can appear to be “thinking,” they are literally assembling language–without human intelligence. They can produce information that seems plausible, but is in fact partly or entirely fabricated or fictional. The tendency for AI tools to invent information is sometimes referred to as “hallucinating.”

Citations and quotes may be invented AI responses may include citations (especially if you prompt them to do so), but beware. While the citations may seem reasonable and look correctly formatted, they may, in fact, not exist or be incorrect. For example, the tools may invent an author, produce a book title that doesn’t exist or incorrectly attribute language to an author who didn’t write the quote or wrote something quite different. Your instructors are conversant in the fields you are writing about and may readily identify these errors. Generative AI tools are not authoritative sources.

Responses may contain biases Again, AI tools are drawing from vast swaths of language from their data sets–and everything and anything has been said there. Accordingly, the tools mimic and repeat distortions in ideas on any topic in which bias easily enters in. Consider and look for biases in responses generated by AI tools.

You risk violating academic integrity standards When you prompt an AI tool, you may often receive a coherent, well written—and sometimes tempting—response. Unless you have received explicit, written guidance from an instructor on use of AI generated text, do not assume it is okay to copy and paste or paraphrase that language into your text—maybe at all. See your instructor’s syllabus and consult with them about how they authorize the use of AI tools and how they expect you to include citations for any content generated by the tool. The AI tools should help you to think and write, not think or write for you. You may find yourself violating the honor code if you are not thoughtful or careful in your use of any AI generated material.

The tools consume personal or private information (text or images) Do not input anything you prefer not to have widely shared into an AI generator. The tools take whatever you put in to a prompt and incorporate it into its systems for others to use.

Your ideas may be changed unacceptably When asked to paraphrase or polish a piece of writing, the tools can change the meaning. Be discerning and thorough in reviewing any generated responses to ensure the meaning captures and aligns with your own understanding.

A final note

Would you like to learn more about using AI in academic writing? Take a look at the modules in Carolina AI Literacy and the UNC Libraries’ Student Guide to AI Literacy . Acquainting yourself with these tools may be important as your thinking and writing skills grow. While these tools are new and still under development, they may be essential tools for you to understand in your current academic life and in your career after you leave the university. Beginning to experiment with and develop an understanding of the tools at this stage may serve you well along the way.

Note: This tip sheet was created in July 2023. Generative AI technology is evolving quickly. We will update the document as the technology and university landscapes change.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Integrating AI into assignments

Main navigation.

Here we offer strategies and perspectives on integrating AI tools into assignments and activities used to assess student learning.

Creating your course policy on AI

• An effective syllabus works to motivate learning, define goals, explain course structure, and provide support to students as they learn.
• Be clearly stated and specific
• Clarify the context or conditions of allowable AI use
• Explain processes and consequences for non-compliance
• Have a thoughtful pedagogic rationale in support of student learning
• Connect to support resources
• Show support for student well-being

Outcomes for this module

In this module, we will analyze activities and assignments used for assessing learning, provide student-centered perspectives, and offer strategies for developing assessment activities and assignments that integrate student use of generative AI chatbots.

After completing this module, you should be able to:

• Describe why your assessment activities are meaningful to learners.
• Identify and clarify the learning objectives of your assessment activities.
• Identify relevant strategies that can be applied to assessment activities in your course.
• Empathize with student perspectives on using AI in course assessment activities.

Warm-up with a metacognitive exercise

As you begin to explore, think about what you already know and the opinions you may already hold about the educational aspects of AI chatbots. This metacognitive exercise can help you identify what you want to explore and what you already understand. Making connections to what you already know can deepen your learning and support your engagement with these modules.

Begin with the prompt, “Describe an assignment or assessment activity that integrated technology in a way that was effective and engaging for your learning,” and respond to the poll below.

Unpacking your assessment activities and assignments

When designing or adapting an activity or assignment used to assess learning, whether you integrate AI or not, we encourage you to consider two questions: why is this meaningful, and what are students supposed to learn from it?

Define why it is meaningful

Students can learn better when they are motivated and can make meaningful connections to coursework (Headden & McKay, 2015). We might assume that students’ motivations focus on their grades, but that assumption does not provide the full picture, and when applied in isolation it is not likely to sustain deep learning. Articulating what makes an activity meaningful, motivational, and memorable for students can help you create an engaging activity or assignment that enhances student learning and motivation.

Concerning AI chatbots, perhaps the activity or assignment addresses AI in ways that prepare students for future careers, enhance their social connections, or touch upon broader issues they care about. We encourage you to talk with your students about what they find meaningful to inform the design of your activities and assignments. What leads them to want to engage?

Also, reflect on why the assignment is meaningful to you. Is it simply convenient to implement (and standard in your experience as a student and teacher) or does it connect to something deeper in your pedagogy? Perhaps the assignment reinforces the norms and values that you share with other professionals in your discipline, allows you to connect with students in more meaningful ways, builds foundational skills for other parts of the curricula, or explores emergent opportunities and challenges with AI for your field.

Define what students are intended to learn

Next, identify and clarify the underlying learning objectives of the assignment or activity. The objective should describe the observable skills or behaviors students will have learned to perform after completing the activity. Clearly articulated learning objectives can help you develop activities that support learning and assessments that accurately measure student learning.

When thinking about AI chatbots and how they impact writing, you might ask yourself, “What are the underlying learning objectives being addressed through writing?” Instructors may assign writing tasks to assess how students engage with content. In the past, teachers could assume with good reason that a student producing coherent writing must have engaged with the content to generate writing that makes sense. However, we might also question this assumption about the automatic connection between coherent writing and deep engagement. The advent of generative AI has certainly exacerbated this.

Do you ask your students to write to demonstrate and reinforce content knowledge? Do they write to analyze and critique a position? Do they write to formulate arguments and cite evidence? Do they write as a form of creative expression? When you think about the available options, you can likely develop many ways for students to learn and demonstrate these skills with or without writing. Ultimately, honing in on the underlying learning objectives can help you integrate generative AI tools into an assignment.

Students can benefit from understanding how AI works and the educational opportunities and challenges that it presents. Consider offering the content in the modules in this guide to your students as supplemental reading or as part of a class activity.

Strategies for implementing AI into activities and assignments

As you think through how you might address or integrate AI tools in an assessment activity or assignment, we encourage you to consider a range of possibilities related to the specific aims of your course and the needs of your students. Here we offer a variety of pedagogical strategies for you to consider. We present these strategies in the context of students using AI chatbots, but they also apply to contexts without AI. Remember why your assignment is meaningful in relation to your learning objectives to help you select appropriate strategies.

Leverage multiple modalities

Consider ways to diversify when and where you assess student learning and the formats students use to express what they’ve learned.

Use more in-class assignments

Strategies like the flipped classroom model assign lecture content as homework and use the in-class time for learning activities (Lage et al., 2000). You can use this in-class time to integrate more low-stakes assessment activities during which you can better guide students toward using AI in ways that support learning.

Multiple modes of expression

Students may differ in how they can best articulate what they know. Using multiple modalities of expression, such as having students complete assignments that require speaking or graphic representations instead of only written text, stands out as an established strategy within the Universal Design for Learning framework that could apply here. While chatbots primarily generate written text, other AI tools can generate music, graphics, and video. You can thus create assessment activities that integrate multiple modalities at once.

For example, if you are assessing students’ understanding of cultural exchange in the ancient world, students might create a mind map or timeline to visually represent important trends, events, or concepts covered in the assigned readings. AI might then be used to generate images of artifacts, portraits, or cityscapes based on historical descriptions.

Make grading practices clear

Consider ways to clarify for students how they are being graded and what is expected of them.

Require robust citation

Have students learn about and adopt more robust citation practices, especially if they use AI tools for writing. You might begin with conversations about what plagiarism entails and why ethics matter in higher education and your discipline. Then connect students to resources on citation and documentation .

If you and your students decide to use AI tools, you can find style guidelines about citing AI-generated text for APA style and MLA style . These guidelines advise writers to cite the AI tool whenever they paraphrase, quote, or incorporate AI-generated content, acknowledge how they used the tool (for brainstorming, editing, and so on), and vet secondary sources generated by AI. For example, students could include citations for AI in the Works Cited section of their work and also include a statement describing why and how they used AI chatbots.

Establish and communicate clear assessment criteria

Try to bring assessment activities, learning objectives, and evaluation criteria into alignment. For example, if your objectives and assessments center around students proposing a solution to an open-ended problem, then the evaluation criteria might touch upon the feasibility, impact, or comprehensiveness of the proposed solutions. The criteria can vary a lot depending on your content and course, but your students benefit when you communicate these criteria and the purpose and reasoning behind them (Allen & Tanner, 2006).

For example, when integrating AI chatbots into a writing task for students, you might put more weight on the quality of their ideas and the validity of cited sources and less weight on structure, grammar, and word choice. You might then create a rubric that you discuss with students in advance so they have a clear understanding of what will guide you in assessing their work.

Assess learning throughout the course

Consider ways to assess student learning throughout your course as opposed to assessing mostly at the end of the course.

Emphasize the process

You may be able to more effectively assess student learning during the different stages of the process as opposed to assessing learning based on their finished work (Xu, Shen, Islam, et al., 2023). Whether or not students use AI tools, they can benefit from segmenting a large project into smaller components with multiple opportunities for feedback and revision. Also, consider how you might adjust grading criteria or grade weights to put more emphasis on the process.

For some steps in the thinking process, such as brainstorming ideas, formulating a position, and outlining a solution, allowing students to use AI tools might benefit their process. For example, you might have students begin with low-stakes free-writing, such as brainstorming, then use AI chatbots to explore possible areas for further investigation based on the ideas students generate through their exploratory writing. Students might then critique and revise the AI-generated ideas into an outline.

Leverage formative feedback

Teachers provide formative feedback to students throughout the learning process to stimulate growth and improvement. Formative feedback can help students identify misunderstandings, reinforce desirable practices, and sustain motivation (Wylie et al., 2012). You and the teaching team might provide feedback directly to students or you might facilitate students giving feedback to each other. You might then assess how students follow up on feedback they receive.

You can use AI tools to inform your feedback to students or generate feedback directly for students. AI tools could provide instant, individualized feedback efficiently and frequently, supplementing the feedback provided by your teaching team. For example, you might share your existing assignment, rubric, and sample feedback with the chatbot and give it instructions on when and how to give feedback. Importantly, you should review feedback generated by chatbots for accuracy and relevance. Refine and save the prompts that work best. You might later share the prompts you’ve developed with students so they may use them to generate feedback themselves.

Make assignments more meaningful

Consider how you might make your assignments more relatable and meaningful to your students.

Personalize assessments

When done thoughtfully, connecting assessments to the personal experiences, identities, and concerns of students and their communities can help to motivate and deepen learning (France, 2022). You might also connect assignments to contexts specific to Stanford, your course, or your specific group of students.

With AI, you or your students might generate practice questions on topics that came up during a specific class discussion or generate analogies for complex concepts based on their interests and backgrounds. You might ground an assessment activity in local contexts, such as having your engineering students propose a plan to improve Lake Lagunita.

Use real-world assessment tasks

Assignments that leverage real-world problems, stakeholders, and communities that students are likely to engage with in their work lives can be motivational and valid ways of evaluating a student’s skills and knowledge (Sambell et al., 2019).

For example, students might work with real (or AI-simulated) business or community partners to develop a prototype product or policy brief. Students might have more time to work with those stakeholders and refine their proposal concepts if they can use AI tools to assist with time-consuming tasks, such as summarizing interview transcripts, writing a project pitch statement, or generating concept images.

AI itself might provide a relevant topic of study for your course. For example, you might examine AI as part of a discussion in a course about copyright and intellectual property law. Or you might analyze AI companies such OpenAI or Anthropic as case studies in a business course.

Assess more advanced learning

Consider ways you might assess more advanced or wider-ranging learning goals and objectives.

Emphasize metacognitive reflection

Metacognitive reflection activities, where students think about what and how they learn, can help students improve their learning (Velzen, 2017). You might use polls, discussion activities, or short writing exercises through which students identify what they already know about the topic, what they learned, what questions remain, and what learning strategies they might use for studying.

AI chatbots can help guide the reflection process like this reflection tool being developed by Leticia Britos Cavagnaro at Stanford d.school . Or perhaps students complete some activities with AI, then reflect on how it benefits or hinders their learning, and what strategies they might use to best leverage AI for learning.

Prioritize higher-order thinking

While students should develop mastery over foundational skills such as understanding concepts, identifying key characteristics, and recalling important information, practicing higher-order thinking skills, such as solving complex problems, creating original works, or planning a project, can deepen learning. For example, you might frame student essays as a defense of their views rather than a simple presentation of content knowledge. You might adjust assessment criteria to prioritize creativity or applying skills to new contexts.

Prioritizing higher-order thinking can encourage students to use AI tools to go beyond simply generating answers to engaging deeply with AI chatbots to generate sophisticated responses. Students could conduct preliminary research to find reliable sources that verify or refute the claims made by the AI chatbots. AI chatbots might then generate feedback, provide prompts for further reflection, or simulate new contexts.

Putting it all together

Here we offer a practical example: first, a typical assignment as usually designed, and then how you could enhance the assignment with some strategies that integrate AI chatbots.

When thinking about your course, start with small changes to one assignment and steadily expand upon them. Try to use AI chatbots for your other work tasks to build your fluency. Talk with students and colleagues about how the changes to your course work out concerning student engagement and learning. When integrating AI into an existing assignment, begin with an assignment that already has clearly defined learning objectives and rationale. Begin by using AI or other technology to supplement existing parts of the process of completing the assignment.

More examples of AI assignments

• AI Pedagogy Project from metaLAB (at) Harvard
• Exploring AI Pedagogy from the MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI
• TextGenEd: Continuing Experiments, January 2024 Collection from WAC Clearinghouse

Example of an assignment without AI

Currently, your students in an epidemiology course write essays summarizing the key concepts of an academic article about the socio-determinants of diabetes . This assessment activity has meaning because it focuses on a foundational concept students need to understand for later public health and epidemiology courses. The learning objective asks students to describe why socio-economic status is a strong predictor for certain diseases. Students write a five-page essay about a disease that can be predicted by socio-economic status including at least three additional citations. Students complete the essay, which counts for 30% of the final grade, before the final exam.

An example of an assignment that integrates AI

Using some of the strategies in the above sections, you might redesign this assignment to integrate the use of AI chatbots. Keep in mind that you would likely make small changes to a major assignment over multiple quarters. Consider some of the ideas below.

A meaningful assignment

The redesigned assessment activity carries more meaning to students because they might have personal experience of some communities adversely affected by these kinds of diseases, and public health issues like this intersect with other social injustices that students have expressed concern about.

Learning objectives

The objectives of the assessment activity include that students will be able to:

• Describe how this disease affects particular communities or demographics
• Explain the difference between correlation and causality regarding socioeconomic status and the disease
• Propose a public health intervention that could help to address this issue

Assignment elements with AI

Students generate explanations of medical terminology in the selected articles to aid with reading comprehension. They generate several analogies for the core concept that apply to their own life experiences and communities. Students share these analogies in a Canvas forum graded for participation. Instructors provide general feedback in class.

Informed by the article, students then prompt a chatbot with biographical stories for two fictional characters from communities they care about incorporating differing socio-economic factors. Then they guide the chatbot in generating a dialogue or short story that illustrates how the two characters could have different health outcomes that might correlate with their socio-economic status. Students might use AI image generators for illustrations to accompany their stories. Students submit the work via Canvas for evaluation; the teacher shares exemplars in class.

Using an AI chatbot prompt provided by the instructor, students explore possible ideas for public health interventions. The provided prompt instructs the chatbot only to help students develop their ideas rather than suggesting solutions to them. With the aid of the chatbot, the students develop a public health intervention proposal.

Assignment elements without AI

Students discuss the differences between correlation and causation, critically analyze the generated characters and stories, and address any biases and stereotypes that surfaced during the activity. You facilitate the discussion with prompts and guidelines you developed with the aid of AI chatbots. Students write an in-class metacognitive reflection that you provide feedback on and grade for completion.

Students draw posters that summarize their proposed intervention. They critique and defend their proposals in a classroom poster session. Students complete a peer evaluation form for classmates. You evaluate the posters and their defenses with a grading rubric that you developed with the aid of an AI chatbot.

Students write an in-class reflection on their projects summarizing what they have learned over the length of the project, how the activities aided their learning, and so on. This is submitted to Canvas for grading and evaluation.

Student-centered perspective on using AI for learning

When thinking about integrating generative AI into a course assignment for students, we should consider some underlying attitudes that we, the authors, hold as educators, informed by our understanding of educational research on how people learn best. They also align with our values of inclusion, compassion, and student-centered teaching. When thinking through ways to integrate AI into a student assignment, keep the following perspectives in mind.

AI is new to students too

Like many of us, students likely have a wide range of responses to AI. Students may feel excited about how AI can enhance their learning and look for opportunities to engage with it in their classes. They may have questions about course policies related to AI use, concerns about how AI impacts their discipline or career goals, and so on. You can play a valuable role in modeling thoughtful use of AI tools and helping students navigate the complex landscape of AI.

Work with students, not against them

You and your students can work together to navigate these opportunities and challenges. Solicit their perspectives and thoughts about AI. Empower students to have agency over their learning and to think about AI and other technologies they use. Teaching and learning are interconnected and work best in partnership. Approach changes to your teaching and course to empower all students as literate, responsible, independent, and thoughtful technology users.

Look at AI and students in a positive light

Education as a discipline has repeatedly integrated new technologies that may have seemed disruptive at first. Educators and students typically grapple with new technology as they determine how to best leverage its advantages and mitigate its disadvantages. We encourage you to maintain a positive view of student intentions and the potential of AI tools to enhance learning. As we collectively discover and develop effective practices, we encourage you to maintain a positive and hopeful outlook. We should try to avoid assuming that most students would use generative AI in dishonest ways or as a shortcut to doing course assignments just because some students might behave this way.

Assess and reinforce your learning

We offer this activity for you to self-assess and reflect on what you learned in this module.

Stanford affiliates

• Go to the Stanford-only version of this activity
• Use your Stanford-provided Google account to respond.
• You have the option of receiving an email summary of your responses.
• After submitting your responses, you will have the option to view the anonymized responses of other Stanford community members by clicking Show previous responses .

Non-Stanford users

• Complete the activity embedded below.
• Your responses will only be seen by the creators of these modules.
• Course and Assignment (Re-)Design , University of Michigan, Information and Technology Services
• ChatGPT Assignments to Use in Your Classroom Today , University of Central Florida

Works Cited

Allen, D., and Tanner, K. (2006). Rubrics: Tools for Making Learning Goals and Evaluation Criteria Explicit for Both Teachers and Learners. CBE - Life Sciences Education. 5(3): 197-203.

Ashford-Rowe, K., Herrington, J., & Brown, C. (2014). Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2013.819566&nbsp ;

Bijlsma-Rutte, A., Rutters, F., Elders, P. J. M., Bot, S. D. M., & Nijpels, G. (2018). Socio-economic status and HbA1c in type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews, 34(6), e3008. https://doi.org/10.1002/dmrr.3008&nbsp ;

CAST. (n.d.). UDL: The UDL Guidelines. Retrieved January 22, 2024, from https://udlguidelines.cast.org/&nbsp ;

Exploring AI Pedagogy. (n.d.). A Community Collection of Teaching Reflections. Retrieved January 22, 2024, from https://exploringaipedagogy.hcommons.org/&nbsp ;

France, P. E. (2022). Reclaiming Personalized Learning: A Pedagogy for Restoring Equity and Humanity in Our Classrooms (2nd ed.). Corwin.

Headden, S., & McKay, S. (2015). Motivation Matters: How New Research Can Help Teachers Boost Student Engagement. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED582567&nbsp ;

Hume Center for Writing and Speaking. (n.d.). Documentation and Citation. Retrieved January 22, 2024, from https://hume.stanford.edu/resources/student-resources/writing-resources… ;

Lage, M. J., Platt, G. J., & Treglia, M. T. (2000). Inverting the Classroom: A gateway to creating an inclusive learning environment. Journal of Economic Education, 31(1), 30-43.

metaLAB (at) Harvard. (n.d.). The AI Pedagogy Project. Retrieved January 22, 2024, from https://aipedagogy.org/&nbsp ;

MLA Style Center. (2023, March 17). How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai/&nbsp ;

Office of Community Standards. (n.d.). What Is Plagiarism? Retrieved January 22, 2024, from https://communitystandards.stanford.edu/policies-guidance/bja-guidance-… ;

Sambell, K., Brown, S., & Race, P. (2019). Assessment to Support Student Learning: Eight Challenges for 21st Century Practice. All Ireland Journal of Higher Education, 11(2), Article 2. https://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-j/article/view/414&nbsp ;

The WAC Clearinghouse. (n.d.). January 2024. Retrieved January 22, 2024, from https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/collections/continuing-experiments… ;

U-M Generative AI. (n.d.). Course and Assignment (Re-)Design. Retrieved January 22, 2024, from https://genai.umich.edu/guidance/faculty/redesigning-assessments&nbsp ;

Van Velzen, J. (2017). Metacognitive Knowledge: Development, Application, and Improvement. Information Age Publishing. https://content.infoagepub.com/files/fm/p599a21e816eb6/9781641130240_FM… . ISBN 9781641130226. 

Wylie, E. C., Gullickson, A. R., Cummings, K. E., Egelson, P., Noakes, L. A., Norman, K. M., Veeder, S. A., ... Popham, W. J. (2012). Improving Formative Assessment Practice to Empower Student Learning. Corwin Press.

Xu, X., Shen, W., Islam, A. A., et al. (2023). A whole learning process-oriented formative assessment framework to cultivate complex skills. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10, 653. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02200-0  

Yee, K., Whittington, K., Doggette, E., & Uttich, L. (2023). ChatGPT Assignments to Use in Your Classroom Today. UCF Created OER Works, (8). Retrieved from https://stars.library.ucf.edu/oer/8  

You've completed all the modules

We hope that you found these modules useful and engaging, and are better able to address AI chatbots in your teaching practice. Please continue to engage by joining or starting dialogues about AI within your communities. You might also take advantage of our peers across campus who are developing resources on this topic.

• Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
• Accelerator for Learning
• Office of Innovation and Technology , Graduate School of Education

We are continuing to develop more resources and learning experiences for the Teaching Commons on this and other topics. We'd love to get your feedback and are looking for collaborators. We invite you to join the Teaching Commons team .

Learning together with others can deepen the learning experience. We encourage you to organize your colleagues to complete these modules together or facilitate a workshop using our Do-it-yourself Workshop Kits on AI in education. Consider how you might adapt, remix, or enhance these resources for your needs. 

If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected] . This guide is licensed under  Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 (attribution, non-commercial, share-alike) and should be attributed to Stanford Teaching Commons.

Center for Teaching Innovation

Ai in assignment design.

Using generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be both productive and limiting—it can help students to create and revise content, yet it also has the potential to undermine the process by which students create. When incorporated effectively into assignments, generative AI can be leveraged to stimulate students' ability to apply essential knowledge and develop critical thinking skills. 

As you explore the possible uses of generative AI in your course, note that establishing a general familiarity with generative AI and being mindful of accessibility and ethical concerns will be helpful. 

The following process may help you determine how to best incorporate generative AI into your course assignments.

Affirm What You Actually Want to Assess

As you decide how you might incorporate AI into your course, it’s important to revisit your current course assessment plan, most importantly your course learning outcomes —that is, the skills and knowledge you want students to learn and demonstrate by the end of your course. Once you have a clear idea of the specific skills/knowledge you want to assess, the following questions can help determine whether or not your current assignments are effective and assessing what you want them to assess:

• Does my assignment call for the same type of thinking skills that are articulated in my class outcomes? For example, if my course learning outcome calls for students to analyze major themes in a work, is there risk of my final assignment prompting students to do more (e.g., synthesize multiple themes across multiple works) or to do less (e.g., merely identify a theme) than this outcome? If so, there may be a misalignment that can easily be addressed.
• Does my assignment call for the same type of thinking skills that students have actually practiced in class? For example, if I am asking students to generate a research prospectus, have I given them adequate opportunity to develop—and receive feedback on—this skill in class?
• Depending on your discipline, is there a need for an additional course outcome that honors what students now need to know about the use of generative AI in your course/field?

Explore When & How Generative AI Can Facilitate Student Learning

Once you have affirmed your learning outcomes and ensured that your assignments are properly aligned with those outcomes, think about if, when, and how it might make sense to incorporate generative AI. Is there a way to leverage generative AI to engage students in deeper learning, provide meaningful practice, or help scaffold your assignments?

Consider the usefulness of generative AI to serve as:

• Have students analyze AI-generated texts to articulate what constitutes “good” (and not so good) responses to prompts.
• Have students analyze AI-generated texts and engage in error analysis to develop more nuanced and discipline-specific writing skills.
• Leverage the use of generative AI platforms to help students become more discerning. This can help students develop the critical thinking and information literacy skills required to effectively and responsibly use such platforms.
• Have students revise AI-generated texts to develop critical thinking skills.
• Have students engage with a generative AI platform as a tutor. 
• Facilitate students’ responsible, self-guided use of generative AI to develop select discipline specific skills (e.g., coding in computer science courses)
• Have students use generative AI to off-load repetitive tasks.
• Have students use generative AI to conduct preliminary analysis of data sets to confirm broad takeaways and affirm that their more nuanced analysis is heading in the right direction.

Identify When Generative AI Cannot Facilitate Student Learning

It is often the case that students cannot—or should not—leverage generative AI to promote or demonstrate their own learning. To help ensure that your assignment design highlights students’ unique perspectives and underscores the importance of a (non-generative AI informed) discipline-specific process, consider how to emphasize metacognition, authentic application, thematic connection, or personal reflection.  

Even if another part of an assignment calls for the use of generative AI, the following strategies may supplement the uses of AI highlighted above and foster deep and meaningful learning:

• Have students identify the successes and challenges they experienced throughout the completion of a project.
• Have students set incremental goals throughout a project, highlighting next steps of a discipline-specific process, resources they used, and the steps about which they are enthusiastic/nervous.
• Have students self-assess their work, identifying strengths and weaknesses of their product/effort.
• Have students engage in problem-based learning projects, ideally in authentic settings (e.g., problems that focus on our local community, real-world challenges, real-world industries, etc.).
• Have students present projects (and engage with) authentic audiences (e.g., real stakeholders, discipline-specific research partners, native-speaking language partners, etc.)
• Have students connect select reading(s) to course experiences (e.g., labs, field experiences, class discussions). 
• Leverage Canvas-based tools that promote student-to-student interactions (e.g., Hypothesis for social annotation or FeedbackFruits for peer review and feedback).
• Have students provide a reflective rationale for choices made throughout the completion of a class project (e.g., an artist statement, response to a reflection prompt about personal relevance of source selections)
• Have students connect course experiences/motivations to their own lived experiences.

Create Transparent Assignment Materials

Once you have thought about whether or not generative AI can be effectively incorporated into your assignments, it is important to create assignment materials that are transparent (Winkelmes, et al., 2019). Specifically, this means creating ways to communicate to students the task you are are requiring, along with its purpose and evaluative criteria:

• Task. Students will benefit from having a clear and accessible set of directions for the project or assignment you are asking them to complete. 
• Purpose. Students are often more motivated when they understand why a particular task is worth doing and what specific knowledge or skills they will develop by completing the assigned task.
• Evaluative Criteria. Students benefit from having a clear sense of how their work will be evaluated and a full understanding of what good work looks like.

Communicate Your Expectations for Generative AI Use 

Regardless of the extent to which you incorporate the use of generative AI into your assignment design, it is essential to communicate your expectations to students. Sharing clear directions for assignments, communicating how students can be successful in your class, and promoting academic integrity serves both you and your students well. 

Example Assignment Policy Language for Generative AI Use

The following language on the use of generative AI may be helpful as you create directions for specific assignments. Please note that the following sample language does not reflect general, course-level perspectives on the use of generative AI tools. For sample course-level statements, see AI & Academic Integrity .

Prohibiting AI Use for a Specific Assignment

Allowing the use of generative ai for a specific assignment with attribution.

For full details on how to properly cite AI-generated work, please see the APA Style article, How to Cite ChatGPT . "

Encouraging the Use of Generative AI for a Specific Assignment with Attribution

For full details on how to properly cite AI- generated work, please see the APA Style article, How to Cite ChatGPT ."

Confer with Colleagues

There is almost always a benefit to discussing an assessment plan with colleagues, either within or beyond your department. Remember, too, that CTI offers consultations on any topic related to teaching and learning, and we are delighted to collaboratively review your course assessment plan. Visit our Consultations page to learn more, or contact us to set up a consultation.

2023 EducaUse Horizon Report | Teaching and Learning Edition. (2023, May 8). EDUCAUSE Library. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2023/5/2023-educause-horizon-report-teaching-and-learning-edition

Antoniak, M. (2023, June 22). Using large language models with care - AI2 blog. Medium. https://blog.allenai.org/using-large-language-models-with-care-eeb17b0aed27

Dinnar, S. M., Dede, C., Johnson, E., Straub, C. and Korjus, K. (2021), Artificial Intelligence and Technology in Teaching Negotiation. Negotiation Journal, 37: 65-82. https://doi.org/10.1111/nejo.12351

Jensen, T., Dede, C., Tsiwah, F., & Thompson, K. (2023, July 27). Who Does the Thinking: The Role of Generative AI in Higher Education. YouTube. International Association of Universities. Retrieved July 27, 2023.

OpenAI. (2023, February 16.). How should AI systems behave, and who should decide? https://openai.com/blog/how-should-ai-systems-behave

Winkelmes, M. A., Boye, A., & Tapp, S. (2019). Transparent design in higher education 

teaching and leadership: A guide to implementing the transparency framework institution-wide to improve learning and retention. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing .

Detecting and Dealing With AI-Written Student Assignments

March 15, 2023, detecting and dealing with ai-written student assignments .

Artificial intelligence writing programs, also known as AI text generators, use machine learning algorithms to produce written content. They are increasingly used in various academic settings for generating essays, research papers, and even scientific articles. Artificial intelligence writing programs have been on the rise and have made headlines in the past couple of months due to a new program called ChatGPT. 

While these programs can save students and researchers time and effort, they raise concerns about academic integrity and intellectual property. Educators are reacting in various ways to the uptick in AI-generated material, with some welcoming its involvement and collaboration in the classroom and others left unsure about how to handle the change. 

So, let’s talk about artificial intelligence in the academic world. We’ll go over what it is, how students and others are using it in ways that could impact education in both positive and negative ways, how to detect it, the implications, and what educators can do. 

What Is the Current State of AI Writing? 

AI writing is any piece of writing generated by a machine. The quality of the writing produced by artificial intelligence has improved exponentially in the past year, and differentiating between text written by an artificial intelligence program and text written by a human is challenging. 

The release of ChatGPT in November of 2022 has elevated concerns about students having access to powerful AI writing tools. ChatGPT is a free AI writing tool created by OpenAI that allows users to interact with an AI writer. Because of the easy availability to students, academic circles are concerned about the impact AI programs will have on classroom instruction and academic integrity.

So, let’s talk about the current state of AI writing and how it is influencing the classroom environment.

How Good Is It?

AI writing is convincing. Unlike straight plagiarism, it isn’t easy to detect, as it writes brand new content based on what the user inputs and the relevant information it can find on any given topic. One of the concerns about AI writing tools is that they can sidestep plagiarism detectors. 

While plagiarism checks can determine if the same text appears elsewhere on the internet, these same tools do not work for AI-generated text because it is usually unique. It is difficult to determine, and even harder to prove, if and when a student has turned in  an AI-written assignment . 

What Kind of Topics Can It Write About?

There aren’t  really any limits  regarding what topics AI writing programs can create text about. These programs are trained on a near-limitless amount of information, so if there is information on a given topic, you can expect AI tools to be able to write about it. Whether you want a poem about history, food, or travel or an essay about the origins of tea, expect ChatGPT to be able to write about it. 

But if you are writing about a niche topic, such as a person who isn’t well known, it is possible that ChatGPT will not have access to enough information to generate material. 

An important thing to remember is that the information provided by ChatGPT will not necessarily be factual, as the tool pulls from the sources it can access. Some recommend treating ChatGPT more like a toy than a tool and expect it to provide material lacking depth and complexity compared to a human writer.

Things AI Writing Tools Have Done

The sky seems to be the limit when it comes to what AI writing tools can do. AI writing tools have done everything from crafting student essays to passing high-level exams such as the Wharton MBA final. Recently, AI passed four different law school tests from the University of Minnesota. However, it should be noted that it  achieved low passing grades  in each instance. 

In the content writing world, ChatGPT has created news summaries, product descriptions, blog posts, and website content. AI tools also don’t pull only from nonfiction. They have written short stories, novels, song lyrics, and other creative writing assignments. 

Many are using ChatGPT for  outside-the-box uses  such as brainstorming, plotting out novels and scripts, telling jokes, finding recipes, creating workout plans, generating questions for a trivia night or truth or date, finding song lyrics, and planning location-specific date nights. 

How Do AI Writing Programs Work?

AI writing programs scour information from a variety of sources that it has been trained on, including books, websites, and scholarly articles. It then pulls relevant information on a given topic to formulate its response. The most recent version of ChatGPT  was fed 570GB of data , which amounts to approximately 300 billion words. 

These programs then mimic the writing of others and speech patterns to draft unique content. With ChatGPT, students can feed information to the chatbot, which will provide an answer in response. Users can request anything from an answer to a question to an original poem or a vacation itinerary. When asked how ChatGPT works, the program responded with:

“ChatGPT is a transformer-based language model developed by OpenAI. It uses deep learning algorithms to generate text based on the input it receives. The model has been trained on a massive data set of text from the internet, allowing it to generate humanlike responses to various types of prompts. When a user inputs a message, ChatGPT uses the input to make predictions about the next word in a sequence, then generates a response based on those predictions. The model uses self-attention mechanisms to consider the context of the input and generate a more informed response.”

When given the prompt to write a short poem about tigers, the program provided the following: 

“With stripes so bold and eyes so bright, The tiger roams with power and might. Through forests deep and mountains high, It stalks its prey beneath the sky.

Majestic creature of grace and strength, The king of beasts at any length. Its roar echoes in the night, Declaring to all its might.

Oh, tiger, in all your glory, Nature’s beauty, wild and hoary. A symbol of power, courage, and flair, You roam the earth without a care.”

How Are Educators Reacting? 

Educator reactions to AI writing programs are widespread. Some educators are excited about the technology and figuring out ways to incorporate it into the classroom. Other educators are panicking, worried about how it will impact their classroom, and unsure how to handle this new reality. 

Acceptance and Embracing 

Many educators  embracing AI writing tools  see programs such as ChatGPT as a powerful means of collaboration. Students can use these tools to have simulated conversations with public figures throughout history, learn about various topics, or brainstorm story ideas. When used ethically, they can be a powerful tool for sorting through research information.

Because these AI programs are not going away any time soon, teaching students to use these tools in a way that values academic integrity is a conversation that many educators feel is worthwhile. For instance, some educators advocate for using ChatGPT during the initial research stages but not during test taking or any situation where you need to be sure that the student has retained what they have learned.

In one instance, a teacher used ChatGPT to evaluate student work, and the feedback provided by the app was seen as more useful and detailed than their own. This has raised questions about whether the tool could become a valuable asset for feedback and personalized tutoring. 

Strongly Opposed and Pushing Back

Some educators have taken a  firm stance against AI writing programs and are banning their use in the classroom and becoming vocal about schoolwide or districtwide banning of such tools. 

These educators are concerned about the ability of ChatGPT to assist students with cheating and the spread of misinformation, as the information is only as accurate as the databases it is pulled from. There is also trepidation that using AI writing programs could inhibit a student’s ability to learn to write and stifle creativity and problem-solving skills.

Panicking 

Other educators just aren’t sure how to respond to AI-written content. They don’t know how to incorporate it ethically or detect it in the classroom. These educators are left without the knowledge or support to navigate the changing technological landscape with their students. 

One concern of those  unsure about AI writing in the classroom  but not strongly opposed to it is that students do not just access the internet on school devices. Many students have their own phones and laptops that they can use outside of class. Some teachers are expressing that though ChatGPT is frustrating, trying to detect AI-written assignments is an undertaking that would not be sustainable, so other options need to be explored.

How Are Schools Reacting? 

Schools are reacting in a largely negative fashion to the increased usage of artificial intelligence writing programs and are implementing policies against them. Some schools are enacting schoolwide bans. Public schools in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York City have  banned the use of ChatGPT  and other related tools on any devices connected to the district’s network.

However, some institutions, such as Columbia University, recognize that programs such as ChatGPT are here to stay and that it is important to prepare their  students for a future with these types of tools in it . 

How Are Students Reacting? 

Student reactions seem to be as varied as educators. Some students think that collaboration with these tools could be a positive experience in the classroom. Since it will be prevalent in the future, they should learn how to work with it. Many students think that the panic regarding  ChatGPT is overblown  and that it is meant as a toy or for brainstorming and outlining, not delivering a finished piece of work. 

Other students are concerned about the ethics of its usage and the tools’ unreliability. There is  concern among students  that using ChatGPT could impact their critical thinking skills and creativity, and they worry that if some students use ChatGPT to cheat, it could affect other students in the class. There is also concern about the future of literacy skills, communication skills, and writing as a whole. 

And still, other students fall in the middle of the spectrum, wanting their schools and teachers to offer ChatGPT as a tool for those students who would like to use it, and believe that the topic of AI writing should be a conversation and that  forbidding the technology will not prevent its use . The use should be up to students with ethical parameters put in place. 

How Can Teachers and Schools Prevent AI-generated Assignment Answers?

So, now that we know what AI-generated writing is, how it is used, and how the academic world and students are reacting, let’s talk about what can be done about it. There are a few places where educators and institutions can start to limit the use of unwanted AI in their classrooms and encourage only wanted interactions with tools such as ChatGPT. 

Putting Written Policies in Place 

Making the expectations of AI-written content clear is an excellent first step. Each educator or school must decide what those policies will be. Educators can go into this knowing that it may be an evolving policy, with room for alteration as time goes on and they see what works in their classroom. 

Each class syllabus should have an academic integrity section with each teacher’s expectations regarding original work. Educators can go the extra step and bring the conversation into the classroom early on in each course so that students are clear on what the expectations are. 

Explaining the Negative Impacts 

Respect between students and teachers can go a long way toward preventing cheating and plagiarism. Educators can explain to students the negative impacts of using AI-generated material and how it inhibits learning of the subject matter. 

If students are interested in using ChatGPT, there are ways to include these students in the process of exploring the negative impacts of overreliance on these tools. Some educators have created lesson plans around fact-checking ChatGPT assignments to show that they are not always accurate. Students could also compare their essays to those  written by ChatGPT , paying special attention to the emotion and depth of written assignments. 

Create “AI-proof” Assignments

One of the main ways that educators can balance the use of AI in their classroom is to craft lesson plans with ChatGPT in mind. For instance, students could be allowed to use the tool for outlining or research but must put away their devices when writing final written content or participating in live discussions. 

For tests and essays, the focus can be on the information learned during in-class discussions and hands-on labs and assignments. AI cannot generate writing from material that does not exist online, so focusing on discussions and offline material is a great way to create  AI-proof assignments . 

How To Detect AI Content

So, if an educator expects AI-generated content to be used in their classroom without their consent, how can they determine if they are correct? While none of these options are foolproof, there are a few approaches for when AI content is expected. Though it may be hard to prove anything, more conversation in the classroom around academic integrity may be in order.

Know Your Student’s Style and Voice

With increasingly large class sizes, this is not always possible. However, if educators can get to know their student’s voices through their previous writing and discussion, then seeing an assignment with a distinctly different voice can be a  useful early detection alert . Educators can even talk to students about the importance of having their own writing voice. 

Rely on Tools

As AI writing becomes more prolific, you can expect tools that differentiate between human-written and AI-written text to be on the rise. In addition to these, OpenAI is in the process of determining whether watermarking some of its writing is possible. However, even if OpenAI decides to add a digital watermark to its text, there will likely be other programs that will rise in popularity, and it is unlikely all of them will be watermarked. 

So, let’s look at two different types of tools on the market. They are AI detection tools as well as authorship detection tools. 

AI Detection Tools

Two tools that are currently available and claim to be able to detect AI writing are Turnitin and RoBERTa Base OpenAI Detector. 

Turnitin  focuses on academic writing and provides educators with a dashboard for analyzing student assignments and checking for overlap with content databases. Remember that no tool will be perfect. Even Turnitin can be wrong. 

RoBERTa Base OpenAI Detector  was created by the same company that created ChatGPT. It claims it can detect AI writing created by its own tools and says it has a 95% accuracy rating for detecting GPT-generated text. 

There are ways to fool these tools, such as altering a few words and paraphrasing. 

Authorship Detection Tools

Authorship detection tools  work similarly to AI detection tools but analyze the writing against other work known to be written by the same person. Because of this, most of these tools don’t detect just AI but also contract cheating and general plagiarism. They simply help you determine whether a specific student wrote this piece. Two such tools come from  Turnitin  and  Unicheck .

The downside is that educators would have to have a significant amount of a student’s previous writing to compare against and would have to feel confident that it was original work.

Use Proctored Exams

A proctored exam has a specific set of rules the student must follow. A proctor, someone trained in supervising tests to  ensure students follow the guidelines , observes these types of exams either remotely or in person.

Students taking these exams remotely will typically have to demonstrate that they have nothing in their direct vicinity that they can use during the test other than permitted material. They would do this by turning their cameras on and allowing the proctor to see what is nearby. Often, the exams will be taken as the test-taker shares their screen or via programs that do not allow access to other computer tabs during the testing window.

An in-person proctored or monitored exam would require that the student put away all materials except those needed for the test. Proctors would then also stay in the room and ensure that students keep their eyes on their own paper and remain focused on completing the test. 

Switch Back to Manual “Blue Book” Essays 

Another option is to have all work where students may not use AI tools completed in the physical classroom or in a remote setting that is monitored. This would be difficult and stressful to do for all assignments. However, this method can be used when needed to determine if a student is learning what they should and absorbing the information being taught. 

This approach takes the concept of a proctored exam but applies it to other assignments as well. Think of the Blue Book essays of the past. In these situations, using AI-written content will not be an option for students.

The Bottom Line

The consensus, whether one is excited about AI writing tools like ChatGPT or firmly against them, is that the way educators teach will need to shift in response. Communication within educational institutions as a whole and within classrooms is essential. Students, educators, and administration need to be straightforward about policies and expectations and what will happen if a student is suspected of using AI writing software without permission. 

These tools will continue to grow and evolve and will be a part of a student’s life in some capacity. Bringing the conversation about AI, if not the tools themselves, into the classroom will help prepare students for a future where these tools are part of their workplace and lives.

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ChatGPT prompting 101

ChatGPT can be a great study assistant, but the responses you get are only as good as the input you provide. Keep these four tips in mind to craft great ChatGPT prompts :

• Give ChatGPT a role to play
• Be precise and provide context
• Test and improve your prompts

ChatGPT prompts

100% ethical ChatGPT prompts

Write a research question

• Generate three possible research questions for an argumentative high school essay on the following topic: “The long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Brainstorm topic ideas

• Generate 10 questions to help me brainstorm topics for my college admission essay.

Quiz yourself

• I’m learning about [ insert topic here ]. Please create a practice test with 4 multiple-choice questions, each with 4 possible answers and solutions (show the solutions separately under the multiple-choice test).

Learn by metaphors and stories

• I ‘m learning about [ insert topic here ]. Convert the key lessons from this topic into engaging stories and metaphors to aid my memorization.

Find limitations

• What are some common limitations or critiques of research in the field of [ insert topic here ]?

Learn about a topic

• I want to learn about [ insert topic here ]. Identify and share the most important 20% of learnings from this topic that will help me understand 80% of it. Explain [ insert topic here ] to me without jargon and buzzwords, in the most simplified way possible.

Source recommendations

• What types of sources can I use to write an essay on the following research question? “ [insert research question here] ?”

Overview of arguments

• What are the main arguments or debates in the literature on [ insert topic here ]?

Develop an outline

• Develop an outline for an argumentative high school essay with the following research question: “ [insert research question here] ?”The essay will be about 4 pages long.

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Universities’ policies on AI

Based on our analysis of the top 100 US universities, it appears that the majority haven’t established clear-cut regulations concerning AI tools at this time. As a result, it is up to individual professors to determine what is permissible in their respective courses.

Check out policies in detail

Scribbr's stance on AI

We think educators should be open to the possibilities presented by AI-powered tools. Students should employ these tools in an honest and responsible way, using them to facilitate learning rather than to skip steps in the learning process.

You can use such tools in a responsible way that benefits your education during the research and writing process by relying on them for the following:

• Brainstorming and explore topics in an interactive way
• Assisting with programming and coding
• Developing research questions and paper outlines
• Asking for feedback on your own writing

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10 Best AI Tools for Assignment Writing in 2024

AI tools for assignment writing have become essential for students in 2024. These tools use artificial intelligence to help students create high-quality assignments faster and more efficiently. AI-powered writing tools can offer grammar and style suggestions , research assistance , and even essay generation to help students succeed academically.

AI tools for assignment writing have become essential for students in 2024. These AI-powered writing tools use artificial intelligence to help students create high-quality assignments faster and more efficiently. AI-powered writing tools can offer grammar and style suggestions, research assistance, and even essay generation to help students succeed academically.

With these tools, students can get instant feedback on their work, helping them improve their writing skills and learn more effectively. AI tools for academic writing also save time by automating research and formatting tasks. In addition, they can provide plagiarism checks to ensure originality in academic writing.

This article will introduce the top 10 best AI tools for assignment writing in 2024 that students can use to improve their assignments and enhance their learning experience.

Why Use AI Tools for Assignment Writing?

What to look for in an ai writing tool, top 10 ai tools for assignment writing in 2024, contentatscale.ai, eduwriter.ai, is it legal to use ai tools for assignment writing in india, best ai tool for assignment writing – contentatscale.ai.

The Advantages of Using AI Tools for Assignment Writing:

• Save time and effort.
• Improve writing quality and accuracy.
• Generate ideas and structure content.
• Enhance research capabilities.
• Maintain consistency and avoid plagiarism.

Key Features to Consider in an AI Assignment Writing Tool:

• User-friendly interface.
• Quality of content generation.
• Plagiarism detection.
• Multi-language support.
• Customization options.
• Integration with other tools (e.g., citation managers, research databases).

Here is the list of the top 10 AI tools that can help you write assignments in 2024. These tools make the writing process easier and more efficient, offering features like grammar checking , content suggestions , and more.

Jasper AI is a great tool that you can use to write your assignments and is among the best AI tools for assignment writing. It helps you overcome writer’s block and transform assignments to different languages, tones, formats, etc. If you have many tasks taking up your attention, you can definitely use Jasper AI to curate your assignments.

• Write assignments in over 30 languages
• You can generate unlimited words in each plan of the tool
• It has a plagiarism checker powered by Copyscape
• Integrated with Grammarly to help with spellings, formatting, sentences, etc.

• Starter Plan – $24
• Boss Mode Plan – $49

For current pricing, please visit the official website.

Rytr is an AI writing software for students that allows you to make high-quality assignments at minimal prices and really quickly. You have to choose your tone, section topic, and use cases, and the tool will start generating content for your assignments.

• Rephrases different texts into catchy and engaging versions
• Has AI text completer to finish paragraphs and sentences
• Helps you summarize and shorten your assignment content.
• Saver Plan – $9
• Unlimited Plan – $29

AI-powered Yomu AI is one of the best AI tools for assignment writing that will let you write great assignments and academic papers. The tool is even trusted by labs and universities globally and has helped students complete their grants, assignments, essays, etc. on time. It also has a great citation tool to find and include citations in your assignments.

• Helps locate, format, and include citations properly
• Allows you to transform the bullet points and lists into long-form text.
• Great for brainstorming ideas, paraphrasing , refining, shortening, expanding, and summarizing content.
• Starter – $7
• Premium – $8.8

QuillBot is another AI tool for assignment writing through which you can summarize and paraphrase your texts. The tool also provides citation generation as well as a translator for your text. One thing is that the content generated by QuillBot does not pass AI-detection tools consistently.

• Offers Word and Chrome extensions to check grammar and spelling
• Supports nine paraphrase models to create simple as well as academic content
• Ability to make citations in different styles.
• Premium – $9.95

You can use the Writesonic Ai tool to write, edit, or summarize various forms of content, including essays and long assignments. The free trial has a 10,000 word limit and you must get the paid version to continue using it. It has a built-in plagiarism and spelling checker and even expands phrases and sentences into longer content. All this makes it one of the best AI tools for assignment writing.

• Easy to summarize and paraphrase your writing assignments
• Features Chatsonic, chatbot assistant powered by GPT-4
• Even allows you to shorten content and make it accurate and precise.

• Small Team – $13
• Enterprise – $500+

For those who want to write long-form content and big assignments, Contentatscale.ai can be a great AI tool for assignment writing. The tool generates content that is quite similar to human writing and one cannot easily differentiate from text written by humans. Its AI detector tool is also one of the best out there.

• It has a unique option for AI Voice training
• It can detect AI-generated content
• Allows you to analyze natural language processing.
• Starter – $499
• Standard – $999
• Scaling – $1499

AI Writer is an AI-based tool that helps in assignment writing. It generates relevant content for your assignments by choosing recommended keywords or manually providing your list. The tool suggests sections, sub-sections, etc. to develop and structure your assignment perfectly, also citing the used sources.

• Features the capability to reword text
• Great AI text generator and SEO editor
• You can directly publish to WordPress
• Basic – $29
• Standard – $49
• Power – $375

Anyword is one of the best AI tools for assignment writing in 2024 and makes use of machine learning algorithms to create content. It is really helpful with long-form texts and assignments along with blogs , ad copies, social media posts , etc. It even analyzes previously done content to generate content that matches the voice and style.

• Supports around 30 languages
• It has more than 100 performance-driven templates
• Easy Grammarly integration and Google Chrome extension.
• Starter – $39
• Data-Driven – $79
• Business – $349
• Enterprise – Custom Pricing

One of the best AI tools for assignment writing, Copy.ai helps you create long-form content , landing pages , long texts , web copies , and more. All this makes it one of the best AI tools for assignment writing in 2024. You can add a tone and voice so that the generated content is consistent and reflects your ideas. Anyone can learn how to use Copy.ai quickly and use it for their assignments.

• There are more than 90 copywriting tools
• You can save and reuse information through Infobase
• Features a chat feature to help you interact with the AI.
• Pro – $36
• Team – $186

Eduwriter.AI is another AI tool for assignment writing. It offers scripts and long texts to users to complete their assignments. Users can conveniently choose topics and the tool generates college-level content on demand. Eduwriter. AI generates high-quality essays using AI, analyzing inputs by the user as well as from websites.

• Easy to edit content before submission
• Create custom essays using its essay generator
• Ability to create narrative, descriptive, and other types of content.
• Premium – $20

There is no specific law that bans the use of AI tools for assignment writing in India. However, it depends on the rules of each institution. AI tools can speed up writing assignments, but they raise questions about originality and the student’s input.

Many institutions don’t allow AI use or plagiarism in assignments and projects. AI tools can be helpful when used properly, but students should check their college’s rules before using them for assignment writing in India.

ContentatScale.ai is a great AI tool for assignment writing in 2024, and it might be the best choice available. The best thing about this tool is that it creates content that closely resembles human writing, making it hard to tell the difference between AI-generated text and human-written text. It also features an excellent built-in AI detector that can identify AI-generated content.

ContentatScale.ai offers various tools for content optimization and supports natural language processing for users. However, the tool doesn’t have a free version, and the paid version can be a bit expensive. If you work on assignments often, though, it’s an investment rather than just spending money.

In conclusion, AI tools for assignment writing offer a variety of benefits that can improve your writing process in 2024. From grammar checkers like Grammarly and Yomu Ai to advanced tools like GPT-3 and Jasper , these tools can help you write more efficiently and accurately.

Additionally, plagiarism detection tools such as Eduwriter.ai and Copyscape ensure your work is original and well-cited. Give these tools a try to enhance your academic writing experience and achieve better results.

Relates Articles: Top 10 Free AI Writing Tools for Content Creators Copy.ai – Free AI Writing Tool

10 Best AI Tools for Assignment Writing – FAQs

Which is the best ai tool for assignment writing.

ContentatScale.ai is one of the best AI tools for assignment writing out there. We feel that it is the best option which you can use. The best part is that this tool generates content that is almost the same as that written by humans.

Do colleges and universities allow the use of AI tools for assignments?

Most colleges and universities do not accept AI-generated or plagiarized content. Rather than using AI tools for writing assignments, you can use them to come up with ideas and structures for your assignment.

How do students benefit from AI tools for writing assignments?

AI tools for writing assignments help students save time by generating text, help with spelling and grammar, offer new ideas, and focus better on other tasks. It can take a long time to complete a long assignment on your own and AI tools make the job easier.

Are AI tools for writing assignments free to use or paid?

Many AI writing tools for students can be used. Most of them have both free and paid versions. Generally, the free AI writing tools have limited features and generate a limited amount of content. Paid versions of AI tools have many exciting features that you can use to generate better-quality content for your assignments.

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Generative AI & Writing Assignment Design

Guides & tips.

The availability of generative AI requires writing instructors to be more deliberate about assignment design.  Yet many principles we have always valued remain the same: Prompts should provide opportunities for students to use writing as a means to practice critical thinking and reflection; to engage deeply with texts, using sources to help them generate interesting questions and develop compelling arguments; and to recognize the ethical and social dimensions of writing. 

We can encourage students to embrace these opportunities through tapping their intrinsic motivation—striving, as John Bradley puts it, to craft assignments that are “transformational” rather than “transactional.”     We begin with some general recommendations that draw on Mary-Ann Winkelmes’s research-based guidelines for transparent assignment design and are oriented toward this goal.

Writing assignments should include the following, ideally in about one page:

Purpose:  Begin by briefly describing the purpose of the assignment, how doing the assignment helps students reach a particular learning goal of the course. You may want to connect this goal to a future application in or beyond your course.

Tasks:  Craft a concise, specific prompt that is meaningful and relevant to students’ lives. This might mean asking students to draw on personal experiences, but it might also mean asking them to write for an authentic audience (not just you), in a genre relevant to their future professional or civic lives, or in connection to an urgent local or global challenge. Emphasize “distinctive human skills” as described on this useful chart,  Bloom’s Taxonomy Revisited .

Be sure to i ncorporate a series of process steps and deadlines. This might include brainstorming activities, proposals, drafts (for peer review, in-class workshops, or conferences), and reflective writing. Emphasize oral and interactive activities.

Criteria:  Show students what success looks like. Offer models of effective compositions, and invite students to analyze those models to develop a critical understanding of how they work. Consider using models published in Deerfield , the Writing Program journal of outstanding undergraduate writing, or other BU student publications . 

Tell students what you will focus on in your feedback and assessment. Consider deemphasizing criteria that AI-generated prose can easily meet and emphasizing criteria like intellectual risk-taking, originality, nuance, etc. ( Note the useful distinction Kevin Gannon makes between “logistical rigor” and “cognitive rigor” —and don’t mistake the former for the latter.)

See also Anatomy of an Assignment Sheet . 

Crafting Assignments That Discourage AI Use

• Make sure that “ distinctive human skills ” are front and center in each step of the assignment.
•  Ask students to write in longhand and/or talk about specific quotes or sources in class as part of the writing process. 
• Have students record their reading and research process. Consider assigning a research log or using a social annotation tool like Perusall . Formal or informal stepping-stone (scaffolded) assignments can help to ensure that students are engaging in authentic research and reading deeply.
• Offer opportunities for students to write about their own lives and experiences, as appropriate to the assignment genre and course topics. 
• Value creativity and difference. Invite students to explore nonstandard language and question genre conventions in a way that is relevant to your topic.

Crafting Assignments that Incorporate Generative AI

• Be explicit about the kind of AI use you are authorizing for the assignment, and model effective prompting for this use. Chapter 3 of Bowen and Watson’s Teaching with AI offers a useful overview.
• Consider an assignment that showcases what AI can do well and where it falls short–for example, a two-part assignment that asks students to use AI to draft, then write a critical analysis of what AI does well and poorly before they go on to revise or discard the draft.
• Engage AI in the revision process after students have drafted an essay. Let students experiment with the ways that AI can help them reformulate, rephrase, or reorganize their ideas. Include opportunities for reflection regarding their experience working with AI as a collaborator.
• Remember that servers that run AI, such as ChatGPT, are not always accessible during times of high demand, and plan ahead if you intend to use AI live in the classroom. For instance, if you are planning a live demonstration of AI, have it generate one or two responses to be used as backup in the event that the AI tool is not accessible during your class meeting.
• Be explicit about how you want students to cite AI. For example, refer to the MLA guide on Citing Generative AI in MLA Style .

More ideas that can be incorporated into the scaffolding for a writing assignment are available here .

Responding to Unauthorized Uses of AI for Writing

“Use caution about responses that emphasize surveillance or restrictions on the writing process that make the conditions of writing for class radically different from writing conditions students will encounter in other classes, work environments, and their personal lives.”

— MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI Unauthorized use of generative AI tools for academic work may fall within the Academic Conduct Code ’s definition of cheating: “Any attempt by students to alter their performance on an examination or assignment in violation of the stated or commonly understood ground rules.” However, documenting evidence of this kind of misconduct is not easy. The results of detectors like GPTZero and Turnitin are not very reliable, with evidence of “ an alarming bias against non-native English speakers .” (Concern about this bias is the basis for the Writing Program’s authorization of AI use for grammar, usage, and vocabulary in all WR courses; refer to our current guidelines in Section 2 of the syllabus templates .)

Therefore, if you are concerned that a student has used AI to do their work in a way that violates academic integrity, it’s best not to accuse a student based on detector results. Instead, invite the student to have a conversation with you about their process and their ideas. Be honest about your concerns and allow the student an opportunity to respond.  

Learn More: Writing Instruction in the Age of Generative AI

TopAI.tools

Best ai tools for assignment writing.

Welcome to our guide to the best AI tools for assignment writing. By using AI-powered solutions, you can streamline your efforts, automate routine tasks, and become more productive, among other benefits. In this guide, we'll take a look at the top AI tools for assignment writing, highlighting their key differentiators you can choose the right solution for your business. So whether you're looking to improve your assignment writing technuques or simply stay ahead of the curve, read on to discover the best AI tools for assignment writing.

Let's dive in and explore 30 Best AI Tools For Assignment Writing

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Yomu AI, the AI-powered writing assistant that helps you write better essays and academic papers. With Yomu AI, you will save time and write superior papers with ease. Trusted by universities and academic labs worldwide, Yomu has assisted students and academics in writing essays, research papers, and grants. Yomu can help you brainstorm, refine, paraphrase, expand, shorten, summarize, and transform bullet points into detailed text. Finding and including citations in your paper is made effortless with Yomu AI's AI-powered citation tool. It helps you locate, include, and format citations accurately, powered by Sourcely technology. Maintaining originality and academic integrity is an essential aspect of writing, and Yomu AI has you covered for this.

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Sourcely is an AI-powered tool designed to help students and researchers discover reliable sources effortlessly. It offers features like source finding based on essay titles or content, summarizing articles of interest, and filtering results by publication year and citations. With Sourcely, users can save time on research and academic writing by simply pasting their essay or providing the title, allowing the tool to generate suitable sources. The tool is continuously updated and improved by a team of students immersed in the academic world, ensuring it stays up-to-date with the latest research and trends. Sourcely aims to provide an easy-to-use solution for students and researches for finding high-quality sources and helping users achieve their academic goals.

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3.Caktus AI

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Caktus.ai is an educational artificial intelligence tool that provides a range of services to students and learners . Some of the use cases of Caktus.ai include AI-powered essay writing, mathematics problem solving, language learning, and more. It is designed to help students improve their academic performance by providing accurate and relevant information on a wide range of topics and subjects. Additionally, Caktus.ai also offers alternative features such as content creation, such as creating meta descriptions for blog posts and other content. Overall, Caktus.ai is a comprehensive tool that can help students achieve better academic outcomes.

4.PerfectEssayWriterAI

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The AI Essay Writer is an AI-powered writing tool designed to assist students in generating high-quality essays quickly and easily. It offers a range of tools, including an essay writer, outline generator, citation generator, topic generator, thesis statement generator, and grammar and style checker. The tool uses natural language processing and machine learning to adapt to a student's unique writing style and requirements, delivering personalized and accurate results. The AI-powered writing tools are designed to streamline the writing process, saving students valuable time and effort. The tool emphasizes personalized assistance, efficient workflow, accuracy and consistency, continuous improvement, and a user-friendly interface to help students achieve academic success.

5.Writefull Academizer

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Writeful's Academizer is a free AI tool that helps convert informal text to appropriate academic text without losing meaning. It offers features like language checking, abstract and title generator, paraphrasing, and GPT detection. The tool trains to make informal language academic and generates suitable academic text for essays, papers, and theses. The team behind Writeful, consisting of AI/NLP linguists, developed Academizer to help students, researchers, and institutions write, paraphrase, copyedit, and more. Text entered into Academizer is not stored, and the tool is completely free to use with fair use policies in place.

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6.Textero.ai Essay Writer

Textero.ai is a new AI writing tool that helps you create content that fits the style of academic writing. You can gather information, find references, and generate high-quality content faster. At the same time, you can be sure that the essay is written without mistakes. It also complies with the standards of academic writing and is unique. The tool is great for brainstorming ideas when it’s hard to force yourself to start writing an essay or other texts. Using Textero.ai can take your writing to the next level while boosting your creativity, saving time, and increasing overall productivity. With this tool, you can meet tight deadlines and maximize your efficiency, leaving more time for revisions and fine-tuning. Use the software correctly and achieve success in academic writing in a short time!

7.HomeWorkify

📸 Scan Homework and Solve ,Math Photo Solver Physics Chemistry IELTS TOEFL GRE. Homeworkify is an AI homework help app designed to assist students of all ages in completing their assignments with ease. With a user-friendly interface and a wide range of features, Homeworkify serves as the ultimate homework assistant. It offers a Homework Solver that provides step-by-step solutions and explanations for math, science, history, and other subjects. The app also offers interactive learning, detailed feedback, test and exam preparation, and subject coverage across various disciplines. Additionally, Homeworkify includes an Essay Assistant to guide students through the essay writing process and a Study Planner to create personalized study schedules. With Homeworkify, students can enhance their academic performance and achieve success in their studies.

8.Doctrina AI

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Doctrina AI is an educational tool designed specifically for students.It offers a range of features to enhance the learning experience and aid in academic tasks.With Doctrina AI, students can streamline their study sessions using the Class Notes tool. This tool improves and summarizes class notes, helping students focus on key concepts and themes in their materials.The Essay Generator provides a solid foundation for writing tasks by kickstarting the writing process, structuring thoughts, and generating an essay tailored to specific topics and focus areas. However, the final crafting and validity of the essay remain in the hands of the student.The Exam Generator tool takes a personalized approach to exam preparation.By creating exams based on specific books, authors, subjects, publication years, and topics, it helps students hone their understanding and knowledge. Doctrina AI is built on top of OpenAI, and its philosophy revolves around AI aiding, rather than replacing, human learners.It aims to enhance the learning experience while promoting active learning, critical thinking, and personal input.

9.CustomWritings AI Essay Writer

AI Essay Writer is a free online tool by CustomWritings.com.It helps students with essay writing.It offers a range of writing tools, including an AI essay generator, AI thesis statement generator, plagiarism checker, reference finder, and more. With AI Essay Writer, students can submit a topic and the tool will generate a well-structured essay with references, ideas, and concepts in minutes.It cites scientific resources and formats the paper automatically. The tool is accessible to non-native English speakers and can help improve writing skills by providing examples of high-quality writing styles.While the tool has some limitations related to the number of pages generated and paper formatting options, it is constantly being improved to provide a better user experience. AI Essay Writer learns from a collection of high-quality academic essays and offers personalized essay generation based on user preferences.It is a useful tool for overcoming writer's block and finding inspiration for essay writing every single time.

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10.Fast AI Essay Writer

The Fast AI Essay Writer app, available at FastEssay.com, is a multifunctional AI-powered tool designed to assist students in writing essays and managing their academic workload efficiently.This app stands out for its speed, flexibility, and user-friendly interface. It's particularly beneficial for organizing the writing process, taking instant notes, setting reminders, and managing deadlines with an integrated calendar.For those who need more than just organizational help, FastEssay provides professional writing services. With over 700 professional writers, they offer assistance in various disciplines and guarantee the uniqueness and quality of their work.The service is available 24/7, ensuring round-the-clock support for students worldwide. The app is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, which means it's readily accessible for iOS users, enhancing their productivity and academic performance.In summary, the Fast AI Essay Writer app is a comprehensive tool for students seeking to improve their essay writing and time management skills, with the added benefit of professional writing services available at FastEssay.

11.Eduwriter.AI

Eduwriter is an AI essay writer that provides unique scripts and text for student essays and assignments on demand.It simplifies the process of creating an essay by allowing users to choose any topic and generate college-level content. The tool also facilitates the preparation of academic assignments, generation of college essays, original content development, and creation of blogs.The AI Essay Writer is designed to write superior quality and unique essays using artificial intelligence technology that analyzes text both from the user's input and available on various websites. Users can edit the developed material prior to submission, making it unique.To create a custom essay using Eduwriter's essay generator, follow these steps: type in the topic you require, confirm that you are not a robot by ticking the "Recaptcha" box, and press the "write" button to give the tool a raw idea that will use in creating great-quality content based on your instructions. Eduwriter is able to produce different kinds of essays such as expository, narrative, among others and also an arguementative form essay.Its user-friendly design and rich resource repository make essay creation tailor-made to different needs.

Geleza is an AI-powered student tool and learning platform for high school and college students. It offers a portal for managing homework, assignments, essay and letter writing, and practice exams, among other features. The platform uses multiple AI models to learn a student's study pattern and assist with exam preparation. Geleza also provides access to professional tutors for extra help. Students can access Geleza from anywhere in the world and enroll for free to simplify their learning experience.

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Meet Blainy, the research paper companion, and a research paper writer.Its a cutting-edge platform designed to empower researchers, students, and academics in their quest for academic excellence.Whether you're a student at renowned institutions like MIT, Oxford, Harvard, the University of Notre Dame, American University, Michigan State University, Stanford University, or Princeton University, Blainy is your go-to research assistant. Blainy, helps with the challenges that come with crafting high-quality research papers.It created a comprehensive suite of tools and features to make the research and writing process more efficient, effective, and enjoyable. Our mission is to assist you in achieving research paper perfection with ease.Blainy is more than just a research paper writing tool; it's a trusted assistant on your academic journey.Start writing with Blainy today and experience the difference. It's free to join, and provides your shortcut to research paper perfection.

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14.EssayBar

Essaybar is an Artificial Intelligence tool that helps students and professionals generate high-quality essays effortlessly. It is a revolutionary tool that crafts custom essays tailored to specific needs and requirements. Users can choose their own topic, word count, and watch the AI work its magic. Essaybar also features an AI auto-complete feature that can help take essays to the next level. Price starts at $3.99 per month.

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15.Active Recall

Active Recall AI is an AI tool that aims to boost success in exams and certifications.It offers features such as automatically generated quizzes and writing assignments from uploaded study material.It is suitable for students of all ages and can help enhance understanding and confidence for upcoming assessments. One use case is for students preparing for exams.For example, a high school student named Emily uploads a book for study.Active Recall AI generates multiple-choice questions based on the text, helping Emily enhance her understanding and prepare for quizzes. Another use case is for nursing students preparing for exams like the NCLEX-RN.Alexis uploads detailed source materials, and Active Recall AI identifies crucial medical terminologies and devises essay questions based on practical medical scenarios. This helps Alexis apply theoretical knowledge to real-world situations and receive targeted feedback for improvement.Active Recall AI is also helpful for professionals preparing for certifications, such as AWS cloud architects. Users like Jackson can upload study materials and trigger the system to create a tailored question bank reflecting the certification's structure.Short essay questions prompt users to architect solutions to real-world cloud scenarios, ensuring a deep understanding for the certification exam.

16.TutorMind

Tutor Mind is an AI-powered tool that simplifies teaching by providing features such as lesson planning, essay checking, question generation, and plagiarism detection for teachers. It is designed to save time and make the workload easier for teachers, providing quality education. It offers four powerful tools to save hundreds of hours by allowing teachers to plan lessons, mark essays, and detect plagiarism quickly and easily. The tool also includes an advanced AI detector to check past student texts for authenticity instantly. Tutor Mind also provides an optimized large-screen mode for an excellent user experience.

The MyEssai AI tool provides students with instant and specific feedback to improve the quality of their essays. It offers detailed feedback on grammar, structure, and content, and is free to use. The tool has reviewed over 1,000 essays and received positive feedback from users who have found it helpful in improving their grades. It offers different pricing plans for those who require more extensive feedback depending on their writing needs.

Tutorly.ai is an AI-powered homework help tool that offers a chat-based interface to students. Users can login or register for free and use the tool by enabling javascript. They can attach a string of text and use the code "welcom" for a valid month. The tool allows users to ask questions, get help with essays, and paraphrasing. Users can also register for additional services by upgrading their account.

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19.CheckforAi

Checkforai is an AI tool that analyzes written text, including essays and emails, to detect AI-generated content and uphold confidence in the authenticity of the work. It leverages a combination of open AI models, including the Roberta-Bas and GPT detect models, to limit false readings and achieve high accuracy. The tool is useful for identifying high-risk content for search engine penalization, ensuring students are not plagiarizing with AI technology, and providing insights into the authenticity of personal and business communications. Checkforai also offers updates on Twitter and Substack.

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20.Chat Documents

ChatDocuments is an AI-powered document chat tool that allows users to easily interact with PDF, PPTX, XLSX, and DOCX files.With support for multiple languages, users can chat with their documents to enhance productivity and streamline workflow. By using ChatDocuments, it becomes effortless to summarize chapters, write essays, translate paragraphs, proofread documents, and much more.The tool offers a wide range of prebuilt prompts, including prompts for students, recruiters, and lawyers, to facilitate specific tasks. ChatDocuments ensures high levels of security and privacy, keeping your data safe while you work with your documents.

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21.Quizgecko

Quizgecko is an AI-powered quiz platform that generates quiz questions, flashcards, and notes instantly from any text. The tool is designed for businesses, educators, and students to save time on content creation and enhance student engagement with unique content. It allows users to generate multiple-choice, true or false, short answer essay, and fill-in-the-blank style questions and upload files like PDFs, DOCs, and PPTs to create quizzes. Quizgecko offers a Chrome extension that helps users create quizzes and flashcards with a single click. It also provides AI-assisted learning features such as auto-grading and smart reports. Users can easily share their quizzes with others and export them as text, csv, or Aiken format for seamless integration into the learning management system or classroom setting.

22.Conch AI

Conch is an AI-powered tool that helps you write faster and better, humanize AI-written text, chat with any file, and more.With Conch, you can paraphrase, rewrite, or auto-cite your paper, autocomplete sentences, and more. You can also analyze any file (document, PDF, or image) and get the answers you need instantly.Conch's features are accessible on any webpage, anywhere you go, and you can store your work in Conch's custom file management system. The tool is powered by AI, which allows you to ask questions and have the answer instantly, without breaking your writing flow.Conch is useful for students, researchers, and professionals who want to improve their writing skills, breeze through homework, and focus on what matters. For students, Conch can help them get better and faster at writing scientific papers, academic articles, and books.For researchers, Conch can assist them in getting the information they need for their research. For professionals, Conch can help them write job applications, resumes, and more without any AI-detection.Conch is an extension that you can use to generate ideas when you're having a mental block while doing some of your homework. It has helped many users improve their writing skills and skyrocket their grades.Conch is also very helpful in assisting users to improve their writing skills, making it a perfect way to humanize your AI-written essay. Conch offers free ways to gain tokens, which you can use to pay for the AI bypassing.The extension is easy to understand and use, with all the options you need.Conch also has a community of users who are always willing to help if you have any questions or concerns. If you're looking for an AI tool that will elevate your writing skills, enhance your workflow, and make your life easier, try Conch today.

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23.Writefull

Writeful is an AI-powered tool that helps researchers and students with their academic writing. It offers features such as language feedback, paraphrasing, abstract and title generation, and an academizer. Writeful has various widgets to help with language and sentence construction. It is available as a desktop download and can be used with Word and Overleaf for editing and publication. Writeful provides a fast and secure way to revise text, with full encryption and no text storage.

24.Minerva AI

Minerva is an AI-powered research assistant designed for academics and researchers. It utilizes advanced machine learning and natural language processing technologies to provide accurate and insightful responses to a wide range of research questions. Minerva can undertake literature reviews of up to 200 million academic papers and access the latest research to ensure the most up-to-date information. It is available as a handy browser extension and can be used in conjunction with other advanced data analytics tools.

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25.Explainpaper

Explainpaper is a website that allows users to upload academic papers and get summaries and explanations of the content. It uses AI and machine learning to generate human-readable summaries and explanations of the text in the uploaded paper. This makes it easier for users to quickly understand the paper and find answers to their questions.

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26.GPT Zero

GPTZero is a powerful AI-powered tool that can detect and prevent plagiarism, as well as detect generated or AI-generated texts. GPTZero is designed to be used by educators, students, and other professionals to quickly and efficiently identify and prevent academic dishonesty.

27.Isaac Editor

The Isaac Editor is an AI-powered text editor specifically designed for academic writing. It aims to provide an improved and satisfying writing experience to users, and has already attracted more than 12,000 students and researchers. The tool offers a menu for users to start writing and get their work done efficiently.

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28.Pickapic

Pick Pic is an AI tool that allows users to generate images and collect human feedback. It supports academic research and is an open-source project. The tool is intended for research purposes only, and users must grant consent before generating images. Pick Pic's mission is to build the largest open-source, public available human-feedback text-to-image dataset. The tool is actively updated with new data and models and can be accessed through the web app or repository.

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29.StudyGPT

StudyGPT is an AI-powered study assistant designed to bolster academic success.As a comprehensive tool, it offers an array of features such as instant answers to a wide range of questions, a quiz question generator for personalized quiz creation, and an academic search function to access scholarly papers and resources with ease. Its writing assistant aids in crafting well-guided writing assignments, while the document analyst feature allows users to upload and analyze text documents.In addition, the YouTube summarizer is a convenient feature that provides condensed versions of educational videos, saving valuable time for students. Accessible as a Chrome extension, StudyGPT simplifies the integration of AI assistance into web browsing, proving beneficial for students from various fields.It boasts multilingual support and is trusted by over 10,000 top students globally for improving study efficiency and academic research. Its intuitive interface and ease of use make it attractive to users, and it garners positive feedback for its role in enhancing research capabilities and aiding in clear communication.

30.BrainyPDF

BrainyPDF is an AI tool that helps you chat with any PDF document. It allows students, researchers, and professionals to instantly find answers and understand research within PDF documents through a chat-like interface. With BrainyPDF, you can drop in your PDF file and browse it as if you were having a conversation with an AI assistant. The tool can summarize and answer questions for free. For students, BrainyPDF is a valuable resource for exam preparation, homework help, and multiple-choice question answering. Researchers can benefit from easily accessing information within scientific papers, academic articles, and books, aiding their research process. Professionals can also find relevant information within scientific papers, academic articles, and books to support their work. BrainyPDF supports multiple languages, making it accessible to users worldwide. Answers provided by BrainyPDF are backed by sources and include references to the original PDF document, ensuring credibility. The tool offers a simple, secure, fast, and free experience with files securely stored in the cloud.

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Students Can Now Use Artificial Intelligence To Write Assignments, Does It Really Work?

Since it was first developed in November 2022, ChatGPT has taken the academic world by storm. In this digital age, students can use artificial intelligence text generators like this one to write essays and assignments for them. 

Sure enough it’s a useful tool as it can produce answers to questions on a variety of subjects or even when the subject doesn’t exist (break up songs in the style of Tailor Swift, anyone?).

But despite all the fun and potential, there’s no denying the risks which come along with using technology like this whilst studying at university – most notably, but not limited to academic plagiarism. 

Bending the rules, or if we want to be more straightforward – cheating, has always existed in academia; from students paying others to complete their assignments for them, to the old fashioned sneaking in notes to exams,copying answers from friends, or copy and pasting information found online, and so forth. 

It’s not a new phenomenon for any generation but Gen-Z has managed to take the challenge to a new level. The perfect recipe for a disaster if you’re a teacher or a lecturer – “fake writing” is becoming harder to spot and easier to do as technology develops.

The question is, does it really work? What are the risks of using software like ChatGPT and other AI-powered copywriting variations as a university student?

Does Using Artificial Intelligence Really Work? 

Whether you’re a fan of it or not, there’s no denying that artificial Intelligence has begun taking over the world, with art and literature being the starting points for the rapidly growing technology. And as with any new trend, it makes sense that GenZ students are eagerly jumping on the craze. 

It’s not just text to image creations that artificial intelligence programmes can produce, they are now able to generate written content from essays to assignments, to poems, to emails, to song lyrics and blog posts – the opportunities are endless. 

One of the most notable AI writing software’s is ChatGPT which can help create content in a matter of seconds.

The chatbot was developed by Open AI, the same company which produced DALL-E, and uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to produce many forms of written word. 

This free software can help replace spending hours on Google or (so ancient) at the library, as you can ask it questions and prompts in a human-like conversation.

Need a list of the best restaurants in your local area – you’ve got it. Last-minute assignment – ChatGPT can write an essay on a specific subject, just add the quotes.

Nervous about writing a cover letter for your university application or first job – you guessed it, it can do that. 

In just the first five days of the software’s release it reached 1 million users and it doesn’t stop there.

Now a few months on, more and more people across the globe are tuning in to use the technological game changer, especially those in academia. 

How To Use ChatGPT 

If you’re wanting to try out ChatGPT for yourself, you simply need to sign up to make an account with your email and you can begin to type in prompts and gain detailed responses. 

ChatGPT is available to use on both desktop and mobile with an easy navigation on both interfaces, so you can take your pick between either. We tried the large language model out on both a desktop and phone, both are easy to use and you can simply begin asking questions right away. 

ChatGPT on desktop: 

ChatGPT on mobile: 

We asked ChatGPT several different prompts, including asking it to write an essay for us on artificial intelligence, it took only seconds for an answer to be generated. 

We then typed in “explain academic plagiarism in simple terms” to which the AI programme produced a quick human-like response. You can even ask it to regenerate the response for a new answer. 

Try it out for yourself and see what prompts you come up with, and what the responses are. 

The AI software is currently free as it’s in research preview, meaning the creators are gaining users’ feedback and learning about the strengths and weaknesses. It’s likely in the future there will be costs to use ChatGPT, once it’s fully developed. 

And considering its current popularity amongst the GenZ in higher education, will students get a discount?

What Are The Risks For Students? 

Artificial intelligence opens up so many possibilities for the future of academia, but software like ChatGPT raises too many questions for the modern education system.

The whole purpose of writing assignments whilst at university is to learn how to write and develop skills which will not only take students through the degree, but into their adult life too. 

However, let’s be realistic – students have been trying to find shortcuts around writing assignments since the beginning of time (or at least since the first university).

If the technology is available, and even more temptingly – completely free, it is almost naive to think it won’t be quickly put into practice. 

Whilst the new artificial intelligence tool can be undoubtedly useful, it can be just as dangerous for the new generation of students who utilise this technology. If you’re going to use ChatGPT, you should be aware of the risks it poses. 

Academic Plagiarism 

Currently it may be hard to detect whether an assignment or essay is produced by an AI software like ChatGPT as it’s a completely new phenomenon, but it’s not impossible.

Research suggests that Turnitin will be able to catch students who have used AI within their assignments in the near future.

It’s not just plagiarism checkers which can help determine whether content is written using softwares like ChatGPT, universities themselves may be able to tell whether their students have used it to write essays or assignments. 

We all have our own individual writing style, and your lecturers will know how you write. It is not impossible to imagine a future in which an entry in-person exam is introduced to simply familiarise lecturers with someone’s writing.

It might sound even wilder, but going back to a fully pen and paper exam season is also a possibility. Students who start churning out text-book level responses which are first class standard will more than likely get alarm bells ringing, especially if they don’t compare to previous submissions. 

Academic plagiarism is a serious form of cheating and misconduct which can have huge consequences, including impacting your university place.

Universities in the USA have already banned the use of the software on their servers. Australian universities are returning to traditional methods of assessments of pen and paper due to students being caught using AI to write essays.  

Lecturers within the UK have been urged to look at the way courses are assessed due to concerns over the AI tool. Could UK universities be next to ban the software? 

Accuracy Of Content 

If you’ve already used ChatGPT, you may have noticed that it’s not able to answer every single prompt that you type in.

This is because its data only goes up to 2021 so it currently only has knowledge of the world and events before this time, and it also is able to reject inappropriate requests. 

Further limitations of ChatGPT is that it occasionally generates incorrect information as it’s not a search engine, which means it doesn’t search the internet for information and instead uses data to produce responses. 

So, of course this can lead to a very inaccurate essay submission. Artificial intelligence softwares like ChatGPT cannot replace human creativity (just yet)! 

Crisis To Learning 

Aside from the risks involved with academic plagiarism from using artificial intelligence software’s, it can also lead to a learning and development crisis because students won’t build critical thinking and problem solving skills.

The skills and knowledge you gain from writing assignments and essays at university are not only a way to grade work and determine academic capability, they’re also knowledge and practice which will be carried into the working world following graduation. 

At the end of the day, in the majority of cases students are the ones paying for their own education so as the saying goes, you’re only kidding yourself by using AI to write assignments.

Writing for exams and other assessments will remain a necessary skill, even though AI is here to stay.

We’re not suggesting the use of artificial intelligence softwares like ChatGPT is completely negative, as it’s all down to how they’re used, but it can be problematic. 

Moderate Use 

We all know the phrase everything’s good in moderation, and it applies in this instance too.

Using artificial intelligence softwares for research purposes can be great, but one must ask themselves what skills are gained from copying and pasting AI produced content for a degree that is meant to broaden the mind? 

Is it really worth the money spent on tuition fees? Perhaps this method of cheating on academic writing may even fill us with guilt, or at least lead to awkward situations in the future? 

We’d suggest if you’re going to use artificial intelligence, to use it wisely. It can be a great way to get the spark going, or save some time on repetitive writing, or help with brainstorming ideas on keywords or topics for the slightly less-creative minds out there.

We’d say use and learn from software’s such as ChatGPT, but make sure not to rely on them. 

Does The Education System Need To Adapt? 

Artificial intelligence may place many implications on global education systems, but it can undeniably be a useful tool which can help modernise academia, rather than ruin it. 

As technology develops, so does how we’re taught and how we learn. If we take a look at how technology has revolutionised the UK education system for Gen-Z, do you remember the first time electrical whiteboards were introduced into your primary school? Or when you were first taught about virtual learning environments in high school? 

We wouldn’t have been able to achieve effective learning during the pandemic without the use of technology and online resources either. Whilst it may be a completely different ball game with the developments in artificial intelligence, these types of software could be used to aid learning rather than threaten it. 

In the years to come, artificial intelligence is only going to become more modernised and develop further, so isn’t it best for entrepreneurial GenZs to get on board with it as early as possible? Should universities and academic institutions learn to coexist with artificial intelligence technologies?

From an academic perspective, there’s no denying there are plenty of possibilities. Artificial intelligence software’s may be immensely useful tools, and allow students the ability to write quickly and effortlessly, but it doesn’t mean they come without consequence. 

Perhaps educating students on how to effectively use artificial intelligence software’s in a way which isn’t plagiarism or impacts their learning and critical thinking is the starting point for educators. 

Whilst AI certainly works for writing assignments, it doesn’t mean the pros outweigh the cons. It’s important that students understand the risks and implications from using AI tools in academia. 

If you’re caught using ChatGPT in your assignments the consequences can be serious, including impacting your university status. Is a quick and easy fix from writing your assignments or essays yourself worth the consequences?

On the hunt for the ideal student accommodation for the next academic year? We have properties in locations across the UK. 

Read next: Feeling Stuck in Your Degree? You Could Be Writing Songs for Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran Tomorrow.

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Generative AI in your assignments

Can i use generative ai tools in my assignments.

Some subject coordinators may explicitly include information in your assessment guidance as to whether these kinds of tools may be used and how.  You must comply with the requirements of the assessment task – if you are unsure, check with your lecturer.

Tools such as AI chatbots can be helpful to explain concepts in different ways – this may help you to understand difficult concepts in your course.  Tools like ChatGPT can also potentially help you to think about an initial structure for an assignment: for example you might ask for section headings for a document based on your own notes, as a way to get started. 

In some cases, your lecturer may ask you to use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools as part of the assessment.  If this is the case, make sure that you understand how you are expected to use the tool and which parts of the work are expected to be your own original work.  If you are unsure, ask you tutor or lecturer for clarification. 

It is important to remember that when you submit an assignment or other assessment, you are taking responsibility for the content, and claiming it as your own work.  Whilst generative AI tools can be useful for helping you to understand a topic or structure your thinking, using them to write substantial parts of your work for you (where this is not explicitly required as part of the assessment) is academic misconduct and may have serious consequences for you.

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AI-Resistant Assignments

Last Updated: Winter/Spring 2023

• Assignments that emphasize the writing process, rather than just the final product, will discourage students from using AI tools to do their work for them.
• Process-oriented assignments also tend to be more engaging and impactful for students.
• Framing your writing assignments as extensions of the class discourse challenges students to respond to the course content with new ideas of their own (something AI generally can’t accomplish).
• Making revision integral to the assignment helps students critically examine and improve their writing process, while making it harder to take AI-assisted shortcuts.
• Reflective and metacognitive writing assignments make students’ learning visible to them and to you; it also holds students accountable for the intellectual work of your course.

See assignment prompts that incorporate one or more of these principles.

At the time of this writing (winter 2023), the AI writing tool ChatGPT has recently launched, with several competitors soon to follow, and it’s clear that artificial intelligence will have a massive impact on the way we write, both inside and outside academia, for the foreseeable future.  As AI continues to evolve, so will our teaching practices, but one immediate concern for many instructors is the possibility that students may use ChatGPT and similar text-generation tools to avoid the intellectual work prescribed by many of our writing assignments.  

While the current generation of AI tools can’t produce particularly insightful or effective academic writing, that doesn’t mean students won’t try to substitute AI-written work for their own.  Furthermore, savvy users have already found more subtle ways to use ChatGPT to make their work as writers easier, such as using it to produce revisable first drafts or to shortcut the research process by identifying and summarizing a variety of sources on a given topic.  Whether these practices constitute academic misconduct or not is largely up to individual instructors to decide, but if you would personally consider them inappropriate for your courses, it’s worth considering how you might design new writing assignments or reconfigure old ones to make them less susceptible to digital assistance.

Fortunately, many of the existing best practices for designing writing assignments can also make them more difficult to complete with AI tools.  More importantly, though, they can also discourage students from turning to AI in the first place by placing greater value on the writing process, rather than just its product.  This helps to make the learning process more transparent and makes assignments more engaging, accessible, and impactful for students who complete them faithfully.

Making Writing an Extension of the Class Discourse

The best writing assignments will often ask students to engage not just the subject matter or source material of the course, but the discourse around that material that develops within the class itself.  A prompt, for example, might explicitly require students to respond to ideas that have come up in class discussion, or to apply concepts or themes that you’ve examined in class to a new text or subject.  However you frame it, the key to this approach is asking students to contribute something new to the discussion that explicitly builds on ideas they’ve encountered in your course.  In other words, ask students to make their writing an extension of the class itself, rather than an exercise that just happens to address the same basic material. This distinction can be subtle, but here are a few sample prompts that use this approach effectively .

This might not seem like a revelatory practice–after all, don’t all essay assignments require students to engage core ideas from the course?  But there’s an essential difference between simply engaging ideas from a course and responding to them effectively in conversation.  Engagement simply requires a student to understand the material and react to it.  Responding requires them to have a working understanding of the discourse around the material — who has said what, where previous speakers have agreed, disagreed, complemented and contradicted each other, and, most crucially, what remains to be said.  

As scholars, we all understand this implicitly; we review and cite other scholars because we want readers to see exactly where and how we’ve built upon the ideas that have come before, and we craft our arguments in ways that actively invite future scholars to respond to them.  Students, however, especially students who are new to college-level writing, tend not to think of their writing this way until they’re explicitly taught to do so.  High school classes and high-stakes standardized exams generally train students to see writing as a series of hurdles which they must complete for the sole purpose of demonstrating that they know the course material and can explain it in their own words.  Consequently, students often approach their writing exactly the way an AI would: by seeking to remix other people’s ideas in a way that fulfills the prompt, whether or not they say anything particularly new or interesting along the way.

Framing assignments as a way to build on the class discourse requires students to take a more active role through their writing, and in the course itself.  Once they come to understand that their writing will be an extension of the conversation taking place in the classroom, they start to realize that the more they participate in (or at least actively pay attention to) that conversation, the easier it becomes to engage it in writing.  They also become more invested in their writing, as they start to see the essay as a distillation of ideas that grew out of real interactions with real people, not a detached set of musings composed in isolation and shouted into the void (or the cloud).  

The writing produced this way is often messy, over-energetic, unfocused, underdeveloped, or otherwise heavily in need of revision. But it also tends to have a life and a voice that’s distinctive to the course, the term, the class, and the student all at once, and AI tools cannot match this distinctiveness. An AI can learn in the sense that it can gradually produce more refined output, but it can’t understand the ideas it synthesizes well enough to add anything distinctive and relevant to them. It can’t think , and that’s exactly what a good writing assignment will require students to do, above all else. Thus, any assignment that requires students to think — and to articulate their thinking clearly — in response to the ideas they encounter will resist AI’s intervention.

Creating Space for Revision

Most instructors encourage their students to make at least some effort to revise their writing.  We may implore them to start early, to consult the writing center, to read their essays out loud or to a friend, to form peer review groups, and so on. But it’s another thing entirely to make revision an integral and visible part of an assignment. Doing this not only places direct value on revision, but it also allows students to see and understand how revision works and why it’s so crucial to good writing and good thinking.

It’s important at this point to articulate a distinction that might seem obvious to any experienced writer, but is often revelatory to students: revision is not the same as editing. Editing (in this context, anyway) means examining and improving the presentation of one’s ideas–the grammar, the phrasing, the formatting, etc. Revision, on the other hand, means examining and improving the ideas themselves–fundamentally re-envisioning one’s conclusions and the tapestry of sources, responses, counter-responses, and epiphanies that lead to them. Most students don’t fully understand this distinction or, if they do, are not sure how to apply it to their own writing. They need to be taught how to revise, and this makes it hugely beneficial to them when revision becomes an integral part of an essay assignment.  When an instructor and a well-crafted assignment guide them through the revision process, many students discover for the first time what they’re really capable of as writers.

Granted, extended revision can be difficult to integrate into classes that are not explicitly designed to teach writing. Many instructors simply don’t have the luxury of time necessary to collect full drafts, comment on them in any significant way, and repeat again with the final drafts.  Fortunately, this is not the only way to create space for revision. Consider these alternatives, none of which are mutually exclusive:

• Simply spend some time in class discussing revision, giving students examples of what you would consider a solid first draft and solid final draft and offering various techniques for getting from the former to the latter (there are many, many resources for revision advice to be found online–find one that feels like the best fit for your assignment and point students there, or ask the WAC Director for suggestions).  Have students submit their rough drafts along with the final versions, and be sure to comment on how well the final draft improves on the earlier version in your feedback to the students.
• Conduct a peer review session, either in class or asynchronously through the cloud, in which students comment on each other’s drafts.  When they submit their final drafts, ask students to address if and how they responded to their peers’ comments.
• Set aside all or part of a class session on the day drafts are due, and have students evaluate their own drafts: what turned out well, what aspects are still in process, and how will they proceed with that knowledge? Have them turn this into a written revision plan, to guide the process to the final draft.
• In a class with multiple essay assignments, require students to choose one essay to revise and resubmit at the end of the term.  You can allow the revised essay to replace the grade of the earlier version, or make it a separate assignment grade (both approaches have their own pedagogical merits).

Each of these techniques helps to make revision an integral part of the assignment, not a side practice that we might encourage, but not explicitly require. They also create opportunities for you as an instructor to step in and guide students’ revision processes, helping them to see methods and opportunities to improve their writing that they don’t.  While this kind of feedback does require some time and attention on the instructor’s part, it can often allow for less feedback (and easier grading) on the final version of the assignment, as you’ll already have created a dialogue with the students around the assignment that you can simply bring to a close with a few explanatory notes and (ideally) a completed rubric.

The concrete ways that revision complicates the use of AI writing tools are fairly obvious. Essays produced by ChatGPT tend to be remarkably free from grammatical errors, but fairly vacuous; thus, they require little editing but a great deal of revision. And, since it’s generally harder to revise someone else’s work effectively than your own, students who produce their drafts with ChatGPT will often find that the revision process requires more work for less return.

Again, though, the real value of guided revision is that it encourages students to see their writing as a work in progress and to get a better sense of what they can accomplish with a fully developed writing process. The more pride and value they associate with their own writing, the less likely they’ll be to let AI do it for them.

Encouraging Reflection and Metacognition

The WAC Program has (to understate it mildly) promoted reflective and metacognitive writing as a teaching practice for some time, so it’s probably no surprise to see a section on them here. In the context of creating AI-resistant writing assignments, though, reflective and metacognitive writing take on additional layers of value, both because they help students to see the benefits of their own intellectual work and because they make it more difficult to conceal if they’ve allowed AI to do that work for them. 

Quickly stated, the distinction between the two modes is that reflective writing looks backwards (what have I learned and experienced?), while metacognitive writing looks forwards (how can these experiences inform my future actions and methods?).  These modes of thinking go together more often than not, and both are obviously essential for learning.  By challenging students to enact these processes–to actively consider, in writing, what they’ve learned and what they plan to do with that learning–we help them to connect the disparate pieces of their education, understand their own strengths and weaknesses more effectively, and simply develop a better understanding of themselves.

In practice, this is often a much simpler and smaller-scale operation than those principles would suggest.  Any formal writing assignment can be scaffolded fairly easily with one or more informal reflective and/or metacognitive tasks.  These tasks can (and generally should) be short and fairly simple both to write and to read.  They can happen at any point in the writing process–before, after, or even while the student is writing the assignment itself.  Consider a few common scaffolding assignments in this vein:

• A week or more before a formal writing assignment is due, ask students to write a paragraph or two summarizing their topic and articulating why they chose it (ideally, in the context of the ideas above, explaining how their assignment will respond to ideas that they have encountered in class).  Then, ask them to assess the work they’ll need to do to complete the assignment–what sources will they engage and how, what questions will they have to address, what conclusions do they still need to form, etc.?
• The weekend before the assignment is due, ask students to write a concrete plan for their entire writing process. How long do they think it will take to create an outline, write a draft, revise it, and proofread it? When and where will they do this work? What additional help, if any, will they seek out, from whom, and when?
• As they turn in the assignment, have students compose a short note to you about their writing process and how it worked out for them. How did their ideas change between conception and completion? What steps were easy or difficult? Did any of that surprise them? Overall, how happy are they with the final product as they submit it to you? Comment on this note as part of your feedback to the student — based on the final product, what aspects of the student’s writing process served them well, and what practices might they want to change or adopt for the next assignment?
• As they begin work on the next assignment, ask students to consider what they learned writing the last one. What ideas from that project will inform this one? What lessons about their own writing process did they learn, and how will that inform the way they write this assignment?

None of these techniques are particularly novel, but they are powerful, because they require students to consider not just the final product of the assignment, but the actual learning process that the assignment is designed to enact.  It seems obvious to us that we create writing assignments because we want students to learn from the process of writing them, but students tend to fixate on the product rather than the process.  This makes the actual work of writing seem obscure and magical, even when they do it themselves. They sit down at the computer, mull over the topic at hand, and gradually, sometimes painfully, the final product grinds itself into being.  When they’re asked to articulate these steps in writing, though, their process becomes visible to them, and the opportunity emerges for them to critically examine what they do and how they can do it better.

Their writing process also becomes more visible to you, which is useful both instructionally and in the context of making assignments AI-resistant.  In instructional terms, metacognitive writing allows you to respond to the way students work, not just the work itself.  You can see how their ideas evolve and, ideally, help to guide them.  You can see how students approach writing (from methodologies of research to basic time management) and offer encouragement or guidance.  In other words, you can make their learning an active part of the class.

This pushes against the encroachment of AI in a number of ways.  Most concretely, any of the metacognitive steps suggested above could be completed effectively in class, making it much harder (though perhaps not impossible) for students to covertly hand the work over to the robot.  Furthermore, if students know that they’ll have to explain their writing process in some detail, they might think twice about letting AI do the writing.  None of the tasks suggested above should be particularly challenging for students who actually completed the assignment as designed, but they’re considerably more challenging as exercises in creative fiction.  Pointing this out to students when you introduce the assignment can reduce the perceived benefits of letting AI do the heavy lifting.

On a less concrete but more profound level, though, this kind of scaffolding discourages AI-based cheating by placing value on the writing process rather than just the product.  By helping students see how the real intellectual labor called for by your assignment is meant to benefit them, you discourage the transactional mentality that sees assignments essentially as invoices for students to fill.  My experience is that the overwhelming majority of students are more willing to work than we tend to assume, as long as they believe that their efforts will be rewarded in some way, and metacognitive writing can help them see the benefits of their work in a useful and tangible form.

The same can really be said for any of the practices described above. At the end of the day, we cannot force students to feel invested in their educations, nor can we stop them from seeking out ways to make their academic work easier, legitimately or otherwise. However, if we start from the assumption that most students are invested in their education and truly want to learn, and we create assignments that allow them to see and experience that learning as it happens, then the perceived value of letting AI do their writing for them will diminish significantly. It will also allow us, as instructors, to approach AI writing tools from a position of strength by making it a teaching issue rather than a detection and enforcement issue.

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6 best ways to prepare writing assignments in the ai age.

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How might students use ai tools while working on assignments.

• 6 best ways to prepare writing assignments in the AI age

AI has penetrated into everyday lives. From the food that we order to the movie tickets that we book, AI is everywhere.

Similarly, education has also benefited majorly from AI. You probably know who Physicswallah is, right? The firm uses AI to power their educational endeavors, giving them a competitive edge.

And now, AI can also be used to write assignments! While students may use this opportunity to their absolute fullest, it is important that there are some frameworks in place.

And it's the responsibility of the teachers to ensure proper placement of rules and regulations.

In today’s blog, we’ll be discussing the pros and cons of getting help from assignment writers, and how teachers can ensure that its use is regulated well.

AI tools are quite helpful when used in the correct way. So, what may be the incorrect way of using them?

Well, it is relying 100% on these tools that causes a problem. Doing so hinders creativity to a great extent and doesn't let you channelize your thoughts and give them proper structure.

Instead, use AI to do the research work, or to give you a first draft. You can then go on to edit the document, infusing the human touch that AI lacks. Using AI in a positive way will surely go on to make a difference in the deliverables that a student has.

Also read this article : 11 Writing Assistant Apps for Ultimate Productivity

Leverage AI for idea generation and research, but maintain originality. Organize your outline, verify facts, and proofread manually. Use AI tools to check grammar, but always ensure your voice and critical thinking shine through in the final draft.

1. Update academic integrity policy to inform instruction and assessment practices

For the safe, integral use of AI – updating the academic integrity policy is the starting point. It is imperative that you make sure that the policies work towards not eradicating but infusing AI into the mix.

When you form your policy in this way, you’ll provide students with the freedom to use AI. This freedom involves permitting the use of AI in a constructive manner that is beneficial to the students in a variety of ways. Be it forming a first draft or improving an existing one – AI does wonders.

But it also takes the workload off of you. And it is important for students to develop a mindset that helps them integrate AI. Start with determining which AI tools are best and provide a list along with a basic guide on how to use them for your students.

2. Communicate new assignment guidelines with students

Once you have the necessary guidelines in place, you can then move forward to communicating them with the students.

This typically involves compiling a list of the various guidelines that you put in place. With that, it is essential that you also review the guidelines thoroughly. Doing so will make sure that what you aim for is being clearly communicated within the guidelines itself.

Then, move on to communicating the guidelines with the students. This can be done by sending a copy and explaining the guidelines to them in class. This helps in building the framework for an environment that views AI as a tool and not as a threat.

3. Review and revise writing assignments and associated scoring tools

Now, you can move towards reviewing and revising writing assignments. So, AI is an expert at certain tasks – but it also has limitations.

One should know what its limitations are. And, once you understand these limitations, educators can craft prompts that are less susceptible to AI interference.

4. Employ the writing process; live in the formative space

The writing process is beneficial for all writers, not just novices. Incorporate steps like prewriting, drafting and revising. Instruct students to submit drafts. Receive feedback and make revisions that increase visibility in their work and reduce the likelihood of the misuse of AI. Using Artificial Intelligence for assignment needs must be integrated rather than replacing the conventional methods of writing an assignment.

A culture of communication between the teacher and the student encourages positive introduction of technology such as AI. This also encourages genuine work, and providing specific feedback for the same is essential on the part of the educator.

5. Direct students to use writing platforms where multiple drafts can be saved for review

Making sure that your work is authentic, and then proving the work’s authenticity is essential. So, using a platform such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word can help you out with inputs. These help you save multiple drafts, and the changes can be traced back right to the first word written.

This helps in providing a certain amount of originality, whether the document has been written originally or has the content been copy pasted.

6. Institute opportunities for students to discuss their work

Requiring students to discuss their work with teachers or peers reduces the likelihood of the misuse of Assignment AI writing. It doesn’t fully eliminate the risk, rather it provides a certain degree of accountability.

Give an extra activity at the end of an assignment. This can be in the form of peer reviews, writing conferences or reflection sessions. These discussions serve to boost the investment of students in their work and add to motivation. This helps prepare writing assignments in general as well.

So, there you have it! A blog that helps you with how you can integrate AI into writing assignments, amongst other writing endeavours. View it as something that you can positively utilize.

That’s what we aim to do with this blog. Providing you with an overview of how you can use AI help with assignment writing.

You can use AssignmentGPT for your assignment writing needs! Try it out now from the website by clicking here !

1. What are the ethical concerns associated with using AI to write assignments?

2. How can teachers effectively detect AI-generated content in student work?

3. What are the benefits of using AI as a learning tool?

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Six ways to prepare writing assignments in the age of AI

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Every day, new articles are published about AI and while once ChatGPT was the main focal point, new models are continuing to develop and become a part of everyone's online interactions. Every day, educators are faced with challenges relating to these tools as search engines and social media are attempting to harness AI’s power. Preparing our classrooms to combat academic integrity issues such as student collusion, a “copy-paste,” text spinners, or contract cheating have expanded. Questions about the veracity of online searches powered by AI are now a factor that must also be considered. Every day . We’re in deep now as educators have started to understand the threat, the responsibility, and the promise of AI. Our Turnitin Teaching and Learning team - all former and current educators - is there too, and one thing we’ve learned is that AI isn’t going away… and that’s okay.

More practitioners are beginning to realize that there could be some benefits to AI in education when implemented with intention. It is a balance, though, as not every use of AI tools will support teaching and learning. For example: What if AI is used to replace actual student thinking? What if it’s used to complete an entire assignment? That type of usage is the threat we as educators (yes, I am still teaching!) are working tirelessly to avoid. But WHAT IF there are things we can do to protect our writing assignments against student misuse for classrooms today?

Let’s pull a tool from a therapist toolkit–instead of reacting to AI after it was potentially misused by a student, we can proactively respond by putting some guardrails in place.

We recently shared guidelines that focused on eleven strategies for approaching AI-generated text in your classroom . Today, we’re going to expand on six specific tactics for educators:

1. Update academic integrity policy to inform instruction and assessment practices

2. Communicate new policy and assignment guidelines with students.

3. Review and revise writing assignments and associated scoring tools (rubrics, etc.).

4. Employ the writing process; live in a formative space.

5. Direct students to use writing platforms where multiple drafts can be saved for review.

6. Institute opportunities for students to discuss their work.

Notice that these six strategies focus on careful planning and approaching AI proactively. While time is a luxury educators do not have, these tactics may save time later responding to potential AI misuse cases. Let’s dig into the tactics:

How and to what extent is the use of a generative AI tool acceptable within academic environments? Changes to classroom practice rely on answering this question and updating academic integrity policies accordingly. Now is the time to research, discuss, and decide how institutions will respond to the rapidly evolving technology of AI. Our guide for updating academic integrity policies in the age of AI walks through steps for getting started. We share ideas such as establishing a common lexicon like an AI vocabulary glossary and determining ethical use of AI.

While making institutional changes first is ideal, it may not happen fast enough. Most educators are feeling like they’re already playing catch-up and need tools to respond to AI advances right now. For those educators, we recommend answering the questions for their own classroom even as they work with colleagues and leaders for institutional change. Let’s be agile and develop best practices for AI in our classrooms.

Determining acceptable use of AI will inform changes to instruction and assessment. But what does acceptable use look like? That may vary vastly for each institution, department, classroom, and even assignment, but let’s look at some specific examples. As I suggested earlier, there can be positive benefits for AI in education. Perhaps an educator decides that it’s acceptable for students to use AI writing tools during prewriting (see #3 below) to brainstorm ideas or gain other points of view on a topic. Or maybe the educator decides to allow students to submit a draft to AI to get formative feedback on their work. If educators decide to go down this path, they must choose the right AI tool and personally test it to put parameters in place.

2. Communicate new policy and assignment guidelines with students

Introduce updated policies to students and talk to them about AI. The policy should be easily accessible to all stakeholders, particularly students. Consider asking students to lead activities to paraphrase policies and present to peers. One valuable exercise that Turnitin advocates have suggested is a classic “This… Not That” activity with scenarios that students can sort/label based on their understanding of the policy. Simply create a list of a few scenarios and have students sort which are acceptable and which are not. The activity itself is fantastic, but what is even more powerful is the discussion around why some uses are acceptable and others are not.

3. Review and revise writing assignments and associated scoring tools (rubrics, etc.)

Developing best practices for crafting writing assignments that are resistant to student misuse of AI is imperative. As we’ve all likely read in the media, AI is proficient at some things, but not so proficient at others. If we, as educators, familiarize ourselves with the “answers” from an AI tool, then in theory, we should be able to modify our writing prompts to work around the technology. While this strategy isn’t foolproof, it will certainly help place some of those guardrails.

Let’s take an element that some generative AI writing tools struggle with today. In their current iteration, AI writing tools have been found to list sources that don’t actually exist. When prompted, the tool might provide references, but the sources may be fictitious. Therefore, adding a requirement for students to use verifiable sources with a reference list would help combat this issue. Beyond sources and citations, there’s additional criteria educators can consider when revisiting their assignments. Our team of veteran educators created an AI misuse rubric to help with just that. This rubric proposes four traits: student voice, critical thinking/reasoning, sources and citations, and personalization.

Consider comparing tried and true writing prompts against the rubric. Start by identifying which traits are relevant to an assignment and then assess how the prompt stacks up. Use the weaker areas to consider how it might be modified to better safeguard assignments against AI misuse. The closer a prompt gets to Advanced/Proficient, the less vulnerable to AI misuse it will be.

As a final step, educators should also update their scoring guides or rubrics to reflect new demands of the prompt. Early in my teaching career, a mentor of mine used to say, “Measure what matters most.” As we shift assignment/assessment design, our evaluation tools must be aligned. If scoring guides and rubrics heavily emphasize aspects of writing at which AI tools are skilled, the potential for misuse increases.

4. Employ the writing process; live in the formative space.

The writing process isn’t for novice writers only. Educators everywhere keep hearing how the existence of AI is going to force us to revisit our teaching practices . For those who might have stepped away from implementing the writing process, start there. The writing process isn’t for novice writers only, in part because preparing writing assignments so they include steps like prewriting and drafting will bring visibility to students’ work before a final submission. Leverage that process and require students to submit a draft, leave feedback on their work, and have them make revisions based on the feedback. Creating a writing culture with what feels like open dialogue between student and educator makes it much less likely for students to misuse AI. Additionally, research has proven that specific types of feedback have a quantifiably positive impact on student growth. A portfolio approach is one more way to improve visibility into not only the student’s work, but also their process, all of which adds up to protection against AI misconduct.

5. Direct students to use writing platforms where multiple drafts can be saved for review

Take the writing process a step further by teaching students how to maintain a record of their work. Visibility is more important now than ever as students may find their work challenged. Consider instructing students to write in a single web document, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs, as a form of verification so that if questions about the document’s originality surface, there will be recorded documentation to clarify the origins of a student’s work.

6. Institute opportunities for students to discuss their work

Will students use ChatGPT if they must discuss their work with a teacher or classmate? Maybe, but the probability certainly decreases. While requiring discussion may not eliminate the risk, it does provide another guardrail. Plan for assignments to include peer reviews, writing conferences, or reflection assignments live or in video format, creating another layer of visibility and open dialogue. Additionally, if they know they’ll need to share their work, students are often more invested. Not to mention, research shows that having students share their work boosts confidence and motivation toward the task ( Simonsmeier et al., 2020 ).

While not exhaustive, these six strategies can at least serve as a place to begin, and by combining them they have an even greater impact. If educators are unsure where to start exactly, our AI misuse checklist lists these principles (and more!) to help guide them down the path of preparing writing assignments in the age of AI.

Further resources

• Updating your academic integrity policy in the age of AI
• AI misuse checklist
• AI misuse rubric
• AI vocabulary glossary
• Source credibility pack to help evaluate both traditional and AI sources

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Everyday AI > Write your next book with AI help

Write your next book with AI help

Have a book idea that you’ve been putting off writing? Whether you’re looking to start your first book or need a helping hand with your tenth, learn how to use AI as your book-writing helper to get your words out to the world.

Overcome writer’s block

For many writers, there are those days we’re on fire and transferring the voice and words in our heads to real, written text is as easy as pie. On other days, it can be hard to muster a string of words. If you run into writer’s block while writing your book, turn to an AI companion like Copilot for help getting unstuck.

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Title generation

If you’re struggling to find a fitting name for your book, use AI to help brainstorm fitting title ideas based on what your project is about. Feed the AI a synopsis (general summary) by dropping it in your chat and ask, “What would be a fitting title for my book based on my synopsis?” Or, if you already have an existing book title, but you’re not too fond of it or think it could be enhanced, ask AI what it thinks of a title. Provide as much context into your book as feasible so AI generates title ideas that frame your book the way you want.

Completing scenes and chapters

Need ideas or more direction to complete a scene or chapter in your book? Let AI suggest a way forward. For example, if you’re writing a turning point in your book, get AI suggestions for dialogue and potential plot twists . Try sharing the setting, main conflict, and emotions you want to portray in your book and ask AI something like, “Can you suggest dialogue, emotional responses, or plot twists that would enhance this scene?”

Whether you’re writing nonfiction or a fantasy series, research gives your book a strong foundation and authenticity. Solid research creates verisimilitude (making your texts more believable, notably fiction), well-rounded characters, and a more compelling and coherent storyline. Use AI for research help with these book elements:

AI can be a great resource for writing three-dimensional characters with depth. Start by describing the current characters you have in mind. List their personality traits, backgrounds, and story roles (protagonist, antagonist , supporting character) in your AI prompt. Then, ask for suggestions on how you can deepen your characters’ development, such as portraying their inner motivations, values, and relationships with other characters. Try doing AI character research with questions like, “Based on this character’s profile, how do you think they would react under high-pressure situations?”

Time periods

If your book takes place in a certain time period, you’ll want a strong research foundation rooted in fact. Turn to AI to gather information on historical events, societal norms, fashion, technology, and language from a particular era. Let’s say you’re working on a book that takes place during the Regency era. You can prompt AI with questions like, “What were common social customs and class structures during the Regency period in London?” or “Tell me about popular architecture and fashion styles during the Regency era in London, and provide resources to continue my research.”

Some worlds we want to recreate require a strong foundation in science to make them believable. If you’re working on a science fiction novel, start by telling AI the scientific elements involved in your world-building, whether your novel takes place on a made-up exoplanet or a dystopian society that extends far into the future. For example, if you’re writing the former, you could ask, “What scientific challenges would a human colony face on an exoplanet that resembles Earth, but has twice the gravity?”

Editing, proofreading, and feedback

Once you’ve got your manuscript down, use AI to help edit, catch mistakes, and give in-depth feedback on the quality of your book. Run your manuscript through AI to identify grammatical errors or awkward phrasing by feeding parts of it into a prompt for AI book editing analysis. You might say, “Review my manuscript for grammatical and syntax errors, awkward phrasing, and redundancies.” Get in-depth feedback on parts of your manuscript and ask questions like, “Does this scene or chapter end too abruptly? How can I fix it?” or “Can you suggest ways to make this dialogue flow more naturally?”

Ready to get to work with AI book-writing help? Head on over to Copilot or read more tips on ways to use AI in everyday life .

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