How are academics and the institution more broadly supposed to navigate the prickly questions around whether or not students are ‘cheating’? To this question, I think it is incumbent on educators to move away from a punitive approach to GenAI use and start to integrate appropriate, ethical and effective engagement with the never-ending list of tools that are available to all students. To quote Danny Liu, “We want to verify whether a student is learning, not whether they’re cheating”.
GenAI strategies from social science perspectives
Drawing on my experience leading the Faculty GenAI Community of Practice and contributing to panels on this topic over the past year, I’d like to share some social science insights into what has been most effective in supporting students’ use of GenAI.
- Emphasise writing as thinking: For example, in class I will run freewriting sessions 5-10 minutes at a time where I encourage students to ‘thought dump’ their ideas without any breaks. This helps to get in the habit of writing and realising their own creative and critical thinking abilities.
- Require GenAI Declaration statements at the end of assessments: this helps demystify the question of GenAI use, and while it’s not a silver bullet, it also helps us as educators see what tools students are accessing and how they are using them. The declarations also provide a basis for better marking feedback. For example, GenAI is often used to clarify sentences or reduce wordcount, but this can result in a loss of meaning – particularly as language becomes more generalised/sanitised.
- Changing how we mark: while the core task of evaluating students’ work remains, I increasingly focus on assessing the quality and relevance of their sources. Embedding activities that develop critical reading and source verification skills helps students engage with credible, peer-reviewed material.
- The importance of becoming a subject matter expert: emphasising to students that they need to really ‘learn the craft over time’ before relying on any tool to outsource ideas and writing. This means that students develop the skill of discernment and can develop the confidence to verify truths (which is becoming more important in the internet age of rife misinformation!).
I’m keen to hear how other educators are navigating this question of ‘cheating’ and what strategies are in place to scaffold ethical GenAI use in assessment and classroom activities. GenAI continues to move at a rapid pace, and we’ll be sharing, developing and collating more insights in the Faculty of Design and Society (FDS) GenAI Community of Practice. Keep an eye out for our end of year report to learn more.
You can connect with other in the community via RES Hub’s AI Communities and Support, or through the Teaching with GenAI showcase events coming up in October and November. If you’re in FDS, consider joining the FDS Community of Practice – and for those in other faculties, why not start your own CoP at a school or faculty level?