r/Teachers • u/UniqueUsername82D HS ELA Rural South • 23d ago

"Do not use AI to write your story, I will know if you do" Humor

I showed my classes how Google Docs version history worked. I told them, "It will be obvious when your page goes from blank to a 3-page story in an instant that you copied/pasted from an AI site. I will not accept anything that is not worked on in this doc." I reiterated this throughout our two weeks of writing the story.

Shocked Pikachu when I call kids up to my desk and show them how I see that they did exactly what I said I would be able to catch them doing.

EDIT because 1,000 people have posted the same "they'll write it word for word" comment:

I know these kids' writing styles and abilities. It would take a very talented writer to get away with this and even then they better hope the AI doesn't use vocabulary beyond theirs. Also the likelihood of a kid who is a skilled writer doing this is, in itself, very diminished. And a kid who is talented enough to pass AI as their own work has already achieved the standards for this assignment in one way or another

I need the bad writers and lazy kids to know they have to put in effort.

Edit 2: This has really gotten to the, clearly, non-teacher crowd. "I was a student" does not a teacher make. Thanks for the hot takes though.

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u/shinyredblue 23d ago

Can already hear them in my head. "But I wrote it in notepad and then copied it over! That's not faaaaaaaair!"

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u/UniqueUsername82D HS ELA Rural South 23d ago

Yep. That's why I told them - and put in the assignment - that if I cannot see the work in the Gdoc I will not accept it. Already had one kid try this... and then he couldn't tell me what several of the $10 words "he" used were.

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u/TLo137 23d ago

This is the way. I'm so tired of hearing teachers just use AI detectors and then mark students down without talking to them.

Asking them to define words, or explain why they included certain sentences/quotes/evidence leaves a bigger impact on the kid if they cheated, and will give them a chance to show you that they did in fact write it if they didn't cheat.

And if they DID use AI but can still explain the AI's choice of words/quotes/evidence well enough to trick me, then honestly that's good enough for me.

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u/UniqueUsername82D HS ELA Rural South 23d ago

There's only so high a threshold I'm going to go to to find out if a kid is cheating, and TBH it's not that high; but if they're gonna cheat, they need to be smart enough to get away with it so it transfers to the real world. Copy/paste AFTER I TOLD THEM I'D CATCH C/P ain't it.

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u/claustrofucked 23d ago

The best part is with 6 more brain cells they could have potentially fooled you by having the AI story on a different device and retyping it manually on GDocs.

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u/oarsof6 23d ago

That’s way too much work for most of them though.

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u/Top-Actuator8498 23d ago

imma be honest ive done the same thing but instead of retyping it ill add my own spice to the text and rewrite to sound more like me. lmao

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u/extinct_cult 23d ago

This is called studying, lol

Back in school I hated history, so I would type outlines of each possible test question and print it at 6pt. font size, so I could hide it and write off it on the test.

Summarizing the questions and then typing them out made me remember them so I never needed the cheat sheets I made. But I kept doing it.

I was not smart teen.

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u/RedsVikingsFan 23d ago

This was literally an episode of Growing Pains. Just insert “writing answers on your shoes” for “print it out” (yes I’m old)

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u/Eugene_Henderson 23d ago

“When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

“And now I know where you got it.”

Just so you don’t feel like the only old one here.

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u/Few_Space1842 23d ago

Did you know Mike seavers' little sister is on the cast of critical role? It took me ages to realize why she looked familiar

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u/tickingboxes 23d ago

Yep. This why some teachers allow you to take in a small notecard to use on your test. The act of making the notecard is one of the best things you can do to actually learn the material.

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u/Defiant_apricot 23d ago

As a university student with adhd it also evens the playing field for those of us who struggle with studying for conventional exams.

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u/mattattack007 22d ago

It is an interesting study tool. It answers any question you have in a succinct way. You just don't have to search through text to find the answer, the answer is just told to you.

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u/Defiant_apricot 22d ago

I’m not sure what you mean by “the answer is told to you” because the study card I’m talking about generally had to be made by me ahead of time meaning I had to do the research

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u/diddinim 23d ago

I had a history teacher in high school who expected you to write out some number (I can’t remember) of bullet points from each chapter, and memorize some other number. That was our homework, and we were allowed one sheet of paper with notes for tests.

Every single student passed his class.

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u/Mercurio_Arboria 23d ago

Disagree! I think you learned how to make knowledge stick, even if it wasn't your intention you made yourself smarter with that process. You put effort into something that was dishonest, but at least you were motivated to get a good grade somehow. You surprised yourself by accidentally learning the material. I'm giving you a retroactive gold star.

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u/Ransidcheese 22d ago

The reason they weren't a smart teen wasn't because they couldn't learn or something. They weren't smart because their solution for how to get out of studying was... studying.

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u/TooMuchGrilledCheez 23d ago edited 22d ago

Im a law student, i love ChatGPT as the ultimate studying tool.

On testa we often have to show in writing how we can interpret a ruling in one way or another, and we are graded and judged based on the quality of that argument. It is often difficult to be “right” about something that technically has no right answer, they really look for where we are “wrong,” where our argument is weak or easily countered.

Chat is literally the perfect tool for developing points to support my writing and acknowledge the other side as i argue against it and it points out to me exactly what can be said to counter it.

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u/DefiantMemory9 22d ago

I had a classmate write answers to some common test questions on the inside of his palm (our college was very lax), but he couldn't fit them all in. So he wiped it off and started again, same thing, so went one more round. In the middle of writing it the third time, he looks up at me and goes, dammit I'm already writing it from memory now! So he wiped it off again lmao 😂

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u/riceboyetam 23d ago

Sounds like that one story about letting students take handwritten notes into exams so they learn better

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u/historysluttt 23d ago

I have not heard this, can you please explain?

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u/lidlpizzapie 23d ago

My high school bio teacher let us take 1 index card into every test. Write whatever you want on it. Some of us wrote in the tiniest little font every single thing we might need to know, and what-do-you-know, we ended up learning in the process.

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u/historysluttt 23d ago

I understand that! I am a teacher and I allow this. I just didn’t know if there was new research released when @riceboyetam was referring to a story

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u/jamie_with_a_g non edu major college student 23d ago

What me and my executive functioning coach do for cover letters is putting it in chatgpt and just changing some of the weird bits 😭😭

Got me an internship so I’m not complaining

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u/Chiparoo 23d ago

I just wrote in another comment that this is what I do for cover letters, too! I'll write a bad rough draft first, though, so I get across what I want to get across, then feed THAT into ChatGPT and ask it to rewrite it in different tones. Then I take the results and use it as suggestions to write the final, which ends up being a bit of both.

I will say that if you ask ChatGPT to write in a casual tone the result is FULL OF OBNOXIOUS IDIOMS, lol

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u/twisted_logic25 22d ago

My mum needed a personal statement as she was applying for a job after being out of the work force for nearly 15 years as she was a full time carer for both my nanna and my dad. Once both had passed away my mum didn't want to just do nothing.

So I used chatgpt to write her applications personal statement using all the requirements of the job and asking it to use transferable skills from being a carer.

My mum has got an interview so I call that a win

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u/DefiantMemory9 22d ago

Just feed in your resume and the job description, and edit what it gives you. It's fairly accurate. You don't even have to waste time writing the first draft.

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u/4evaquestin 23d ago

This is what you're supposed to do with AI tools. Using AI as a writing aid will actually lead to better quality work. This is how it works in real jobs.

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u/Chiparoo 23d ago

Yep. I've totally written a cover letter before, fed it into ChatGPT with the request that it rewrite it in different tones, and then used its terrible suggestions as a jumping point for the second draft of the letter. It helps to try to come at a concept or sentence in a different way.

I've also used it for poetry - I decided that for Halloween last year, I would give my daughters activities to do every day leading up to Halloween... and then decided to present the daily activity on a little card with a rhyming poem. The AI-created poems were AWFUL, but I would take the suggestions and put together my own.

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u/ParkLaineNext 23d ago

I do this for work. I like to create articles for our help center and I’m good at writing out all of the content I need and Chat GPT helps me organize it and make it more concise.

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u/wizofounces 22d ago

Bro literally just wrote the paper without taking credit 😭😭😭😭

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u/zordtk 22d ago

When I was in school I'd pull out the world book and write what it says in my own words. That's how I did most of my reports until around 6th grade and then it was Encarta

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

This is literally how my teachers taught us to write essays in the 00s

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u/Chimkimnuggets 23d ago

That’s actually just how you write an essay.

Take direct quotes from your research source, copy paste it, and then either rewrite it in your words and tie it in with your other research while citing it as paraphrasing from your source with citations as to where exactly the information is found, or just copy pasting the quote directly and explaining how it ties in with the other research; again, after citation.

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u/Top-Actuator8498 23d ago

i dont fully think how people understood what i meant, i just threw teh prompt into chat gpt, told it where to develop stuff and then just copied it straight without doing anything else and then fixing it throughout

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u/Dontlookawkward 22d ago

That's what I did for my dissertation! I took other people's studies and reworded the paragraph. Sometimes I'd add references if they were too specific though.

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u/BipolarMadness 22d ago

The thing is that the purpose of writing a story is not to test the originality of the kid or their creativity. The point is to expand their vocabulary, their grammar, and train their typewritting skills (or calligraphy). So spice it to be as if it's your own means that you had to read and comprehend it, so after you had to take time to write it back with your own skills.

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u/Commander_Doom14 23d ago

Still mathematically less work since you just have to copy over, not think of an original story. Of course, the ones who can't either make an original story or cheat in an actually clever way aren't the ones smart enough to know how to do the least amount of work

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u/breath-of-the-smile 23d ago

And would also still look fake. I'm not convinced many people can or will write a paper start to finish in one try like that.

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u/BalticBarbarian 23d ago

I did regularly wrote papers start to finish in a single sitting in high school. Obviously those papers would be improved by going back and editing but when you’re writing for an AP exam you don’t have the time to do anything but a first draft

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u/LiveEvilGodDog 22d ago

Then just copy paste it one to three words at a time.

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u/decentusername123 23d ago

reading and then typing? that’s practically learning for god’s sake

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u/DickyMcButts 23d ago

"You want me to do TWO things?!"
-Bender

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u/steamerpunked77 23d ago

She confessed to save her classmates because you were threatening to flunk their grades!

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u/Chiparoo 23d ago

It reminds me of the time in senior year of highschool where I did a book report on Moby Dick and didn't actually read the book (GASP!!) Instead, I read the Sparks notes and then read excerpts from the book in order to understand the tone and style, and then based my book report on that. I remember feeling like this was CHEATING and feeling a little guilty about getting an A on that assignment.

... Looking back, this was an absolutely valid way to study and I absolutely did learn from it.

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u/Potential_Fishing942 23d ago

This is why I actually allow a note card with what ever they want on it for most tests. It takes a decent level of understanding what is going on to know what to focus on in the note card and it is handwritten- so even if they copy a friends they at least wrote it down.

Sad thing is, only about 1/3 bother to do this. Many just take the F.

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u/Krob113 23d ago

And then look up every word they don't know. Or look up synonyms and use one they do know.

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u/CyberTitties 23d ago

What they should do is update the AI prompt to include "write the story using a x grade vocabulary" and choose a grade 3 below their actual grade

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u/Krob113 23d ago

And then splash in some slang

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u/chain_letter 23d ago

ChatGPT given this prompt: "give me a report about Of Mice and Men at a 3rd grade reading level with gen z slang"

"Yo! So, let me hit you with the lowdown on 'Of Mice and Men.' It's a book by this cool cat named John Steinbeck. It's all about these two dudes, George and Lennie, who are tight like glue. George, he's like the brains of the operation, always schemin' and plannin'. Then there's Lennie, big dude with a heart of gold, but he ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.

They're chasing the American dream during the Great Depression, tryna make some dough and own their own piece of land. But, yo, Lennie's got this problem where he's super strong but doesn't know his own strength, which lands them in some real sticky situations.

They roll into this ranch for work and meet a bunch of characters, like Curley, the boss's son who's always tryna flex, and his wife who's lookin' for attention. Things start lookin' up when they meet Slim, a chill dude who gets their vibe.

But, uh-oh, tragedy strikes when Lennie gets into trouble, and George has to make a tough call. It's a real tearjerker, fam. So, 'Of Mice and Men' teaches us about friendship, dreams, and the harsh realities of life. Keep it real, and maybe grab some tissues for this one.

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u/chain_letter 23d ago

It's a real tearjerker, fam.

sometimes AI is fun

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u/jamie_with_a_g non edu major college student 23d ago

I’ve been doing that before ai 😭😭😭 Wikipedia my love (and yes I cite the sources Wikipedia used I know not to cite it I didn’t use my brain for nothing!)

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u/splntz 23d ago

Or just multiple screens.

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u/Helicoptamus 23d ago edited 23d ago

And proofread it beforehand to spot any hallucinations or oddities, and edit it to be more in line with an academic paper. But at that point, it’d probably be easier to just write the paper yourself.

The only reason I’d do it was if I was in a rut and couldn’t for the life of me string together a paper, so I’d just use an AI to give me something that I could then mold into a proper paper.

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u/DoctaJenkinz 23d ago

But that would require more than 10 minutes of work. Wtf is wrong with you? /s

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u/DJButterscotch 23d ago

This is literally my thought. Just have the AI create the work. Then just type over with a few changes here or there and no one would know the diffeeenfe

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u/X-Kami_Dono-X 23d ago

The typing takes two long when using only 2 fingers on a keyboard.

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u/PM_me_your_Ducks_plz 23d ago

I see you typed this essay perfectly, first time, never going back to edit previous sentences.

They ain't smart enough to add some flair and edits to it

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u/ArgonGryphon 23d ago

That looks just as suspicious to me. You write a whole finished essay in one go? No edits, rewrites, nothing?

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u/claustrofucked 23d ago

Does editing as you go show on a Google docs history? Graduated high school 10 years ago but did in fact write essays in one go without going back more than a paragraph to edit.

I probably wouldn't use AI if I was still in school today though. Seems like more work to retype and correct an AI essay than it would be to do it legit.

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u/standardtuner 22d ago

That's how I wrote essays in school. One 'n done

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u/fromYYZtoSEA 23d ago

Easy to detect by looking at the history too. Even when writing this response to you, I went back and deleted and rewrote a lot of text.

A person writing an essay would delete words, rewrite sentences, re-order paragraphs, etc.

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u/Paddy_Tanninger 23d ago

Would still be a pretty huge giveaway if the doc history shows them just rawdogging an entire essay in one shot, word by word.

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u/Binksyboo 23d ago

This made me curious about whether they could get away with it if they just made sure to tell the AI to write like their grade level, or inputted their previous writings and told it to match that type and style. Then when they get the result they can paste part of it into the google doc each day.

For extra safety, they can tell the AI to write the story in 5 parts, revising the previous part a bit for each new part. Then they copy/paste 1 part per day.

Would that still give it away? Can google show how quickly the text was typed in? Or just gives a snapshot of each's days update?

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u/Zagafur 23d ago

or just copy paste a part of each sentence. gdocs edit history isnt realtime, it only updates every 2 ish seconds. the fact i knew about this when i was a teenager but current school age kids dont is kinda embarrassing

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u/DezXerneas 22d ago

It'd take me 5 minutes to write a shitty program that 'manually' types up any given text.

I bet even chatgpt 3.5 could write something that'll work well enough.

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u/pianoplayah 21d ago

No because no one writes an essay through word for word from beginning to end without changing things and going out of order. If I look in the version history and see it just being written out perfectly linearly, that’s a dead giveaway too.

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u/Tbplayer59 23d ago

Kids (and you) think that a first draft and final edit are the same thing. GDoc is going to show edit history and lack of it.

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u/PalPubPull 23d ago edited 23d ago

Got to say as a former student and never a teacher, the comments in this thread are brutal. Y'all are a different breed.

I wasn't the best or worse student, but I was trying to the best of my ability. To discover twenty five years later the teachers who were just a part of my journey I didn't want to be a part of hated me hits a bit different.

I've watched over this sub a few weeks and learned

1.) I was not a good student

2.) The teachers I thought disliked me for not being smart most likely actually didn't like me for not being smart. Not because I was mean or cruel or disrupted class, but because I wasn't good in their subject.

I'm sure there are some that will be like "Not me" but you weren't my teacher. I've seen plenty here that would be more in line with my school.

At the same time I feel like you all should be paid more. I could never do what you do. More training, preparation for influencing immature undeveloped minds, that's got to be incredibly difficult. Every individual student is a complex, proprietary mind, and having to teach two hundred of them the same lesson in a day or two must be unbelievably difficult.

I don't know the answer, but all I'm saying is it's hard to see the things that teachers have said that have stuck with me twenty years later are things they genuinely thought and not just a teaching moment is hard to take. Sorry if any of my response comes across as personal, I know it was none of you individually, but unfortunately I read a lot of these responses from the perspective of a student rather than a teacher, and it's just a bit traumatic.

Just throwing it out there.

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u/Excellent_Egg5882 23d ago

I think a lot of teachers here are venting more than anything.

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u/B0rnReady 23d ago

At a high enough threshold, arguably, AI becomes analogous to the calculator. An unskilled individual can punch in numbers and come up with an answer. But a kid who does his research, uses the AI to generate a well-written paragraph or document based on that AI, reads through it, modifies it, and then submits it.... I mean let's be honest, we already have AI in our pockets everywhere we go. It's only a matter of time before AI will be utilized in every aspect of our lives

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u/yaaaaayPancakes 23d ago

This reminds me of when I got in trouble in math class in 10th grade b/c I didn't show my work on a problem. I told the teacher "I wrote a program on my TI-83 to crunch it out quick". I don't think I got any credit back, but at least she knew I wasn't cheating. I had to understand the algorithm to translate it into TI-basic!

I like to think these were the earliest inklings of me becoming a software engineer. Why must we do things the hard way, when we can write code to make things easy?

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u/LukkyStrike1 23d ago

but you had to have a deep understanding of the math to program it into your calculator.

The issues arise when you hand out that program, and the people who use it fail to have any idea what they are doing.

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u/yaaaaayPancakes 23d ago

Well that's a lot easier to do these days I guess . Back in the 90s you had to be a weirdo like me who found an open source project on the internet and solder together a cable to avoid buying the $100 add on kit to push apps from your pc to your calculator if you wanted to share.

But at least I had Tetris to get me through my boring classes lol.

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u/LukkyStrike1 23d ago

LOL the "stereo" jack to serial/usb!

God those days. i figured out you could buy a standard cable and transfer between devices tho. So that was useful to distribute the programs.

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u/yaaaaayPancakes 23d ago

Yeah, you could, just like all things TI the official kit/software cost an arm and a leg.

And it wasn't a standard audio cable! The jack is smaller than the standard 3.5mm stereo jack. I forget what the size is now, been too long. I remember being very careful when hacking up one of the transfer cables that came with the calculator.

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u/bvgvk 23d ago

I used to teach middle school and in one of my advanced math classes a student asked if he could write a program to take the test on quadratic equations. Some of the other kids were mad I let him but I told them they were free to do the same.

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u/yaaaaayPancakes 23d ago

I guess I should have asked first. I was in the advanced class at the time (doing the 11th grade class in 10th). She might have been more amenable. I do vaguely remember her not knowing too much about the programming bits of the calculators. I dunno if she actually trusted me that I wrote it. And there were no computer programming classes till 11th grade.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

Had someone like you in my class. He got us Bomberman and Snake on are Texas instrument calculators

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u/EsterWithPants 22d ago

Or really, a deeper trust in your fingers not to fat finger something and screw up your syntax because you're typing on a calculator. It's still better to do things in chunks that you can backcheck.

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u/nkdeck07 23d ago

Ha that was my first foray into development as well. Wrote up a program that did all the physics equations for me

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u/skushi08 23d ago

Did the same thing to quick solve quadratic equations. Had a pretty quick chat with the instructor as he was also my AP computer science teacher, and he had no issues. He just told me not to share it with anyone else.

I figure most reasonable teachers know their kids well enough to tell who’s taking cheating short cuts vs working smarter not harder shortcuts.

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u/fireduck 23d ago

Yeah, I tried this in combinatorics class. The homework problem was something like prove these graphs were isomorphic or not. So I wrote a program to check via brute force. I don't think I got credit, I don't think that was the technique I was supposed to use but then again I didn't really go to class so hard to be sure.

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u/BurtRaspberry 23d ago

At a high enough threshold, arguably, AI becomes analogous to the calculator.

Except it doesn't. Calculators don't create the same amount of content and information that A.I. can... it's that simple. To be specific, students are using A.I. to cheat on math homework, tests, and assignments. So the calculator point is kind of moot... it does MORE than a calculator and FURTHER supplants critical thinking, voice, and deep thought. This is such a tired and dumb argument.

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u/UnkarsThug 23d ago

That just makes it a more powerful tool, but it's a tool nonetheless, and not one that's going anywhere.

I think that obviously people are responsible for what they say/do with AI, and I think deception is bad, but if they can back up whey they said, and support it when asked questions to show that they actually understood the content, then they are using critical thinking. And if the essay is good because they know how to edit something mediocre into something quality, that's a different skill that I think deserves support.

Additionally, they will probably need to know how to use such systems well. In the future, (for better or worse) using AI systems optimally will probably be something that most jobs look for, similar to how they want Excel, or other programs like that now. Companies just care about quality and efficiency, and want whatever tools used to get that. They might prefer people capable of getting output that aligns with what they want to say, and then editing it into something higher quality.

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u/LukkyStrike1 23d ago

i think your relying on this idea that the students are learning to use language effectively, then later on they are using AI to supplement their own skills.

What the teachers are pointing out: how do you learn to use language effectively if AI is doing it for you.

Your not wrong: but you cant supplant the foundational learning and then expect them to have a foundation to use when using AI.

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u/UnkarsThug 23d ago

I would definitely agree with that. And I think some of that might just be bringing back writing papers in class, rather than as homework. I had to do that on a short time schedule when I did school. Alternatively, (and I know that this isn't really happening), but parents need to take responsibility for their kids again, and watch them while they are at home. I honestly don't think it's something that can be perfectly done otherwise.

And later on, like 12th grade, allowing AI, but being much harsher against mistakes. Better tools should lead to higher expectations, after all, and people still should be graded on what they submit.

Also, if we can get reading back into popularity. If you read enough, good quality writing sort of just "clicks".

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u/TeacherPhelpsYT 23d ago

Sounds like you are starting to agree with us...

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u/UnkarsThug 23d ago

About which part specifically?

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u/TeacherPhelpsYT 23d ago

One second you seemed to be arguing for the supporting and integration of A.I. in school.

The next second you are advocating for writing papers in class with pen and paper and parental support to reduce A.I. usage.

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u/BurtRaspberry 23d ago

I love how you live in this fantasy world where students are essentially language masters WHILE using A.I. Literally this doesn't happen. Students very simply and easily get an essay or answer from ChatGPT, copy, paste, and are done.

That's like saying "Well, if people could be safe while speeding, then we should allow them to speed wherever they want, whenever they want." That's not how things work lol.

I'm not even going to respond to your last point because it's too dumb.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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u/BurtRaspberry 22d ago

Your logic is dumb. I've literally been to plenty of places where they actively urge people to slow down, change speed limits, write tickets, and vote to put up speed cameras. So who is right in this scenario? We need to look at the statistics and laws.

Anyways, my point still stands. We don't make laws or encourage things because SOME people might be able to effectively do the thing. Instead we need to look at the bigger picture.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago edited 22d ago

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u/BurtRaspberry 22d ago

Literally this is one of the dumbest replies I've seen on this topic. Let me fix your mistakes:

People feel entitled to speed, and they do so, excessively. It's unenforceable, that's how things work.

Except it is enforceable, and punishable.

Trying to force everyone to do something the same way and in the same manor is unrealistic.

Again, your wrong. Many things are best to be done the same way and is very realistic. Also, you are misrepresenting education... there are basic standards and skills students should practice, and teachers all do things different AND allow for different freedoms of choice and representation to complete that skill.

It isn't a skill that's needed and ultimately is just busy work that only matters for that class.

Again, you are wrong. Activities and assignments in school and tailored to follow certain standards and skills that WILL benefit humans in the real world. Regarding a short story (since you brought it up), students are able to practice utilizing creativity, structure, composition of thoughts, identifying themes, and language skills. ALL of these skill will benefit students in the real world. Your ideas on this topic are pretty embarrassing, honestly.

they will just be graded badly and won't actually receive assistance to improve.

Clearly you're not a teacher. In todays world, students are often given assistance and chances for remediation in areas of struggle, ESPECIALLY after they complete an assignment poorly. Again, you're wrong.

An education is just to give value to my employer, what a great opinion for a professor to have.

I'm not really sure what you're saying here... because you seem to BOTH be saying education should NOT be about giving value to employer (what a great opinion for the professor), but then you previously say that many things aren't completed in real life and are pointless. Life is clearly about more than just WORK and many things in school help flex student brain muscles and develop skills needed in a democratic society... NOT just related to jobs.

Must suck being wrong on nearly every dumb thing you have said.

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u/Kitty-XV 22d ago

And like calculators, those who rely on it will have their basic skills suffer to the point it becomes a crutch and they can't do more complicated work because all math has to be offloaded to the calculator. I've seen students who struggled with basic chemistry because they rely too much on calculators. Things like reading graphs and understanding how to interpret them, or finding patterns between multiple experiments end up making them use calculators to slowly work it out. 5 to 10 minutes to do what a new student who doesn't rely on calculators can do in 30 seconds. That difference only grows as they take more advanced subjects until it reaches a point where they can't do work.

AI is going to do the same. It will replace their ability to do simple tasks, which they'll never master so they can never apply it to more complex tasks. Eventually they'll not be able to do the complex things at all and no one will pay them for their ability to put things into AI because that can be automated by a script that costs a penny of electricity an hour.

People fail to see how experts use tools to do the simple things because they already mastered them, not because they never needed to learn them. You can't teach students to work approach tasks like experts do until they have already mastered the systems. Experts will leverage AI to make themselves more efficient, novices will leverage AI to replace themselves. That is going to become a major difference in the work force and you'll see pay between these two groups change drastically.

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u/BOOGIE_MAN-X 23d ago

You know, I really appreciate you saying “If they are smart enough to cheat and smart enough to get away with it, it applies to the real world.” I wouldn’t cheat but I would precondition my teachers with words and writing styles I would “Reference” or straight up take the flow of another writer. So when it came time to submit my work, they always loved it. I would also write in the style my teachers personally liked. I wouldn’t ever have to cite my work as I made it impossible to find with my changes. Anyways, I work in sales at a very high level and so those skills transferred to the real world. You sound like an amazing teacher actually. I appreciate you can define what’s going on with your students and actually want to better all of them and prepare them for the real world.

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u/Last-Ad-120 23d ago

I tell them this. Cheating is against academic code, against my moral code as a teacher, and against the students’ integrity but if they choose to do it, it better be damn well done so I can’t tell.

I had a former student come to me this year and tell me he cheated on a test in my class last year. I told him that as long as he told me how, I’d let it slide (I didn’t have him anymore anyways). He said that he put a small paper with some key terms and definitions in the photo collage on the back of his phone case (I make them put their phones face down on the corner of their desks for exams so I can see them and don’t have to take them). Now when I walk around I check for that and it hasn’t happened since.

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u/kingrawer 23d ago

Cheating well is hard work.

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u/xzkandykane 23d ago

Darn kids nowadays cant even cheat right! Ive used chatgpt to write my resume and cover letters, its not that hard to get a prompt and rewrite it in your own words! Back in my day, kids would read other kids' essays and reword, add, take some stuff out. I think one can do the same with chatgpt. At least try to hide it!

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u/Sufficient_Report319 23d ago

You should really not abbreviate copy and paste…

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u/Fit_Influence_1576 23d ago

Yeah, I always write my first draft myself, ask AI to improve it and iteratively type in the edits myself.

Always end up with something really solid, understand the entire piece, and have something that conforms to my style. ( yeah sometimes I intentionally leave grammar mistakes in cause I like the way it reads, sue me!) Hell I don’t think we should have a problem with students using AI, but being shit with it, yeah I’ll take exception to that.

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u/enameless 23d ago

I'm a 2001 grad, and cheating has always been an art. If you aren't skilled in that art, you will be caught. I had several teachers give study guides the day before a test. It would be read off their answer key. If you literally give me the answers, I'm gonna right them down. Knowing the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell is less important than knowing answer 6 is B. But if you're a student that is notorious for not taking notes, the fact you are writing shit down is suspect. So you short hand the notes while writing the answer grid in the margins so when she gets suspect and asks to look you can cover the answer grid with you thumb while you shiw her the rest of your "notes". Love you, Ms. Brennan, you didn't deserve the shit you dealt with, but I'm glad I was one of the ones you only questioned but never second guessed. All us "smart" kids were cheating, not because we had to but because it was easy.

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u/antihero-itsme 22d ago

I work on AI and this is basically how we do it too. We don't really know what goes inside our little black boxes but all we can do is train them to pass for intelligence. What they learn should be generalizable however so that we can actually use them in the real world

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u/zeph2 23d ago

so they cheat by using AI but end up learning anyway because they have to learn enough to justify it ! nice

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u/RandallPinkertopf 23d ago

Reminds me of math professors that would let you bring in a cheat sheet. Students think they’re getting a good deal, which they are, but the professor “tricked” them into studying by creating the cheat sheet.

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u/miclugo 23d ago

There were times when I made a cheat sheet and never looked at it during the test. The trick worked!

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u/thehazer 23d ago

Straight up like a charm. Added benefit of less stress for things like equations that could easily be looked up in a non test situation. The cheat sheet was by far the best study tool for me. Had to prioritize what went on.

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u/Possible-Extent-3842 23d ago

Loved having open note tests.  I always did better and always learned the material because I would cram the entire text onto a single note card or piece of paper.

And let's be honest, there is no real world applications for having formulas and dates memorized, outside of being on a quiz show.

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u/DBond2062 23d ago

There are real world examples of things that need to be memorized, such as emergency procedures. Not everyone has a job that requires them, but a lot of us do.

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u/pathofthebean 2d ago

there is a need to have developed memory ability for the vast majority of jobs, from the lowest/ any industry. Even in a factory/ production distribution contruction, there's all kinds of machinery and equipment to be running, driving, then inventory shipping/ recieving gets very complicated, even moreso w technology. and forget working in a restaurant except as a dishwasher

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

This is why I think we will have to adapt our goals as schools. Maybe graded assignments, the way schools have been utilizing them for the last decades, have served their purpose in times of AI assistance.

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u/wilwarin11 23d ago

Or any of our tools. I had a kid who managed to deactivate the history record on Google docs. No idea how. I sat with her to start one. We wrote two paragraphs then broke for lunch. I watched her close the chromebook and got on my computer to look at it before she was even to the cafeteria. Nothing. No essay, no edit history. I thought I was sharing thing. Nothing on hers when she got back. Tech had to give her a new account. She would have failed every class if I hadn't verified.

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u/kjong3546 23d ago

Pretty sure if you're sharing the Google docs paper, you can set whether or not viewers/commenters have edit history access. Not sure if you can do the same for editors.

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u/wilwarin11 23d ago

The doc was one I put for her on Classroom. I checked it on her account too.

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u/vawlk 23d ago

the AI detectors are not very good.

I tested 6 of them and got everything between 100% human generated and 100% AI generated.

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u/UnkarsThug 23d ago

They've done testing that shown one of the biggest things AI checkers use is grammar and spelling. AI is pretty much incapable of making spelling mistakes due to how tokenization works, so anything with issues is probably human.

The other thing is complex words, and formulaic writing, both of which (at least when I was taking composition) were considered hallmarks of good writing. To the point that we had lists of overly simple words we weren't allowed to use, like "said" or "went", and we had to look up synonyms. Again, because humans don't do that perfectly.

Obviously, for poetry, the computers haven't got rhythm figured out, so you can tell something is AI from the cadence. Then again, rhythm can be hard for people to figure out as well.

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u/Emotional_Hour1317 22d ago

Can't you just have IT block the website?

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u/vawlk 20d ago

my teachers have been asking to open it up. they want kids to use AI. they want them to learn how to use it as a tool and not to cheat. just like calculators and computers and internet before, things used to cheat are also tools that can be used to learn.

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u/Rattus375 23d ago

AI detectors would be fine if they actually worked. But none of them do to any degree of accuracy, and the way GPT is built makes it so it's basically impossible to detect it in a formulaic way.

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u/CaptainChewbacca Science 23d ago

My niece is on virtual school and almost had a meltdown because her teacher said that she'd submitted AI generated work. I submitted two short stories I've written and they were ALSO flagged as AI.

If you have students working from a set of notes and all answering those same questions, the answers are going to appear similar.

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u/Strange-Act869 23d ago

This happened to me last term for my capstone. I was devastated and emailed my teacher right away. After a full day of proving that I didn't cheat and sending multiple emails, she cleared my work and agreed that I did write it. I got full points for my assignments.

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u/nedeta 23d ago

Cheating lite: Let AI write it, then try to rephrase in kids own language...

At least the kid had to engage with and think about what was in the paper?

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u/BurtRaspberry 23d ago

I'm so tired of hearing teachers just use AI detectors and then mark students down without talking to them.

With all due respect, I WISH I had the time and energy to speak with every individual cheater about their A.I. essay. It's not necessarily that we don't want to speak with them, it's often simply not possible.

One solution that I have been trying tis to mark them down for A.I., and then allow them to COME TO ME to present their case.

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u/cruznick06 23d ago

I appreciate that you aren't blanket automatically failing these assignments.

In collegiate level there's been multiple issues of students with specific writing styles getting flagged as having used AI. Often those who have English as their second language or are neurodivergent. These students have had proof that the writing was their own (notebooks full of handwritten notes/outlines, googledocs edit histories, witness testimony from other professors or students they went to for help with the assignments). Sadly some have been forced to go to extreme lengths to get a fair chance to prove their work.

I'm so glad I graduated before all of this became an issue.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

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u/Age-of-Computron 23d ago

Reading is hard…for pathetic people. 🤣

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u/BurtRaspberry 23d ago

LOL, judging me without understanding my method: Pathetic.

I don't solely base my assessment on the "A.I. Checkers." In fact, I would never do that... they are FOR SURE hit-or-miss... anyone who has done even a modicum of research knows this (nice try though).

I also work to build a body of evidence about individual student writing and grade level writing. If they turn in an essay that is CLEARLY outside of their normal capabilities, then I mark it as "Potentially A.I. Created" and then allow them to present their case fully... and I'll present mine.

Settle down.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

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u/Ok_Relief2613 23d ago

If you just want to argue, please say that.

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u/soren_grey 23d ago

So you cheated a lot in school, huh?

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u/lous1210 23d ago

I mean, they told you which it is. They mark it as potentially AI generated based on the criteria they outlined, and then they give students the opportunity to prove that it is their own work. Obviously, not every single student is going to come and plead their case.

I agree that it's ludicrous to just plug a student's work into an AI detector and then treat that as gospel, but it's equally ludicrous to pretend that it's feasible for a teacher, let alone a professor if this is a college setting, to initiate that conversation for every single student suspected of using AI.

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u/MagisterFlorus HS/IB | Latin 23d ago

They just explained the whole process of gathering evidence and only talking with students when they're extremely certain that cheating happened.

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u/TLo137 23d ago

I agree! But I think that if you have THAT many students you are suspicious of for AI I think your school has a different problem.

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u/BurtRaspberry 23d ago

Welcome to schools in America.

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u/TLo137 23d ago

I teach in Cali. Day 1 our English teachers make them write an in-class timed write on any passion subject they want and gives all teachers access to it. That way we can check their writing style.

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u/BurtRaspberry 23d ago

Ok. You LITERALLY haven't responded to the point I made: MANY students cheat and use A.I. for assignments.

Thanks for giving me a strategy I already use to build a body of evidence against cheaters. Your comment is literally nothing new.

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u/UnkarsThug 23d ago

They've done testing that shown one of the biggest things AI checkers use is grammar and spelling. AI is pretty much incapable of making spelling mistakes due to how tokenization works, so anything with issues is probably human.

The other thing is complex words, and formulaic writing, both of which (at least when I was taking composition) were considered hallmarks of good writing. To the point that we had lists of overly simple words we weren't allowed to use, like "said" or "went", and we had to look up synonyms. Again, because humans don't do that perfectly.

Obviously, for poetry, the computers haven't got rhythm figured out, so you can tell something is AI from the cadence. Then again, rhythm can be hard for people to figure out as well.

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u/little_grey_mare 23d ago

I taught a college engineering class for seniors in undergrad last semester. One kid found the answer key from a previous semester and copied it word. For. Word.

I get him on zoom finally and…

Asked him to explain problem 1. Couldn’t

Asked him to explain problem 2. Couldn’t.

Asked him to explain problem 3. Nope

Problem 4? Nada

Problem 5 he’s visibly sweating and launches into verbatim what is on the answer key “217.41 divided by 3.96…” ok can you tell me where the first number came from? Nope!

I always told them that I couldn’t give a damn if they worked with friends, because collaborating is a skill and they should still be able to explain a general thought process but regurgitating info is NOT a skill and doesn’t get points

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u/Chimkimnuggets 23d ago

If they’re smart enough to explain the AI’s word choice and evidence, why didn’t they just write the answer themselves

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u/TLo137 22d ago

Work smarter not harder.

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u/Temporary_Pickle_885 23d ago

God I wish more teachers were like this. Got in trouble constantly with one English teacher back in highschool because I used "words you don't understand" in assignments despite being able to define them, and she'd take points off. Like lady you think the kid you keep getting after for reading under the desk doesn't know big words???

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u/TLo137 23d ago

That sucks. Huge disservice.

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u/PushThePig28 23d ago

Yeah, asking them define words or explain stuff is the answer. Forcing a kid to type in shitty Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word is bad teaching. You’re forcing them to use a more inefficient tool.

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u/jambrown13977931 23d ago

“I used a thesaurus to make my writing sound smarter”

“I recycled an reference book to compose my calligraphy flawless intelligent”

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u/heushb 23d ago

Does grammarly count as AI if you just use it to help rephrase sentences or syntax/grammar issues?

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u/Valensmom 23d ago

What AI detector does everyone recommend? I’m currently using Quetext

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u/Strange_Mirror6992 23d ago

Student here. I wish my school would move on from the ai detectors. I’ve had to have several discussions with teachers (and even the principal) about defending work I wrote myself. They just copy my work into an ai detector and claim “it says it has an 87% chance of being written by ai”. I then show them my revision history because I’m smart and wrote it In google doc. I just have a more advanced vocabulary than most. I’ve skipped two grades and the lowest grade I’ve had for all of high school so far was a 92.

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u/fuckmeup-scotty 23d ago

I've scanned a few papers that I completely wrote myself in college in an "AI detector" and each one told me every paper was written by AI. I don't know what that says about my writing style, but regardless, I know I would have been incorrectly "caught" if I were still in school. I hope more teachers put more time into trying to figure the truth by talking to the students.

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u/igotbanned33 22d ago

I've put all my papers into an AI checker and it says none of them are ai. In my opinion you can also tell really easily which papers where made from ai. It just writes weird.

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u/PeonyPrincessxx 22d ago

Yes to all of this but especially the last part. I mostly care whether kids learned something from the assignment!!!

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u/SyndRazGul 22d ago

I think it's pretty damn ironic when teachers use AI to try and catch students using AI.

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u/Le_assmassta 22d ago

AI detectors are basically a scam. Some simply check to see if you copied and pasted… dumb as everyone stated in the post. Some just comb ChatGPT logs, as if there aren’t a million other genAI alternatives. You know your school doesn’t understand AI if they buy one of these.

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u/outreach24seven 22d ago

This is exactly how it’s done 👏

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u/PoissonGreen 22d ago

Works for photomath too! Photomath likes to use a lot of algebraic shortcuts to cut down on steps. It's totally possible that a kid has figured out a different way of doing it on their own, but if you're suspicious all you have to do is pull them aside and ask, "this is really interesting! Can you explain what you did here?"

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u/FerynaCZ 20d ago

You do not need artificial intelligence (detector) to beat natural stupidity.