^{Themes: Assessment, Engagement, Teaching Strategies
Audience & Subject: Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12; Indigenous Studies, Languages, Social Studies, History & Geography}

Introduction

This overview explains how to incorporate AI in the contemporary classroom to not only deter students from using AI to complete culminating written assignments but also to be able to use AI correctly as an educational assistive tool. Allowing students to use AI in the classroom may seem counterintuitive; however, incorporating AI into your lessons is an effective way to have students learn the pitfalls of using AI for generative writing.

General Guidelines

1. AI Shaping Mindsets. Amongst educators, it is understood that writing assignments are meant to practice and polish writing skills, encourage critical thinking and show the application and interpretation of knowledge. However, a mindset shift in students has occurred with access to AI and writing tasks are now perceived by students as labour and time-demanding tasks, there is a lack of instant gratification, and the practice of writing is not linked to learning and display of critical thinking when AI can do it faster.
2. Universal Ways to Detect AI. Incorrect or biased information, including information:
   • That seems out of the scope of what the assignment is actually requiring;
   • That may seem shallow—lacking personality;
   • Stated as fact with little or no support;
   • Structured or supported illogically (as AI does not always understand what it is writing);
   • That is repetitive (Crothers et al., 2023; Heikkiläa, 2022).
3. The Benefit of Sharing Ways to Detect AI with Students. Invite students into your teaching practice to gain insight into what you, as an educator, are looking for by explaining the ways that AI is detectable in writing assignments. By sharing, you may equip students with some tools for detecting AI in their daily lives and provide the opportunity to understand the difference between critical thinking and completing a task.
4. Ethics & Scope of Practice. Certain ways to catch a student using AI can be considered unethical under the Ontario College of Teachers Professional Standards of Care, Trust, Respect and Integrity (Ontario College of Teachers, n.d.). It can be considered unethical to use AI detector software because feeding AI detecting software without student consent can be considered a breach of student autonomy, ownership of information, privacy and surveillance. Detector software is not perfect and cannot always accurately detect if AI has been used to generate writing, so using the resulting “evidence” could be considered unsupported evidence.

Activity: Scaffolding Mastery of AI

Overview

This activity incorporates student agency and gives students the teacher’s perspective of marking and receiving AI assignments through the ethical incorporation of AI into an assignment and teaches students the skill set of recognizing and critically thinking about how to detect AI. Furthermore, there is an emphasis on self-assessment and peer-assessment to reflect the concepts of a More Knowledgeable Other and the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978). The following insight provides insight into how to scaffold independent learning into curriculum development to demonstrate the curriculum standard of critical thinking in literacy as referenced in Growing Success and the ENL1W Curriculum (Government of Ontario, 2010; Government of Ontario, 2023).

Description

Part 1

• Open class with Minds On and ask a prompt such as: Why might knowing how to detect AI in writing be an important skill to have in the current world we live in?
• Move into a lesson: Teacher-led discussion about what the identifying features of AI are, with a handout/google doc for student note taking.
• Directions: A fully AI-generated writing prompt is to be viewed as a class on the board.
• Deconstruct, as a class, the writing piece together. Provide examples.
• An optional extension for learning: With engagement at the forefront after teaching students about how to detect AI, you can give students an opportunity to play an online game that allows them to practice identifying real or fake responses (https://roft.io/). The process gives students the opportunity to train their eyes to detect AI better and can be used to prime them for their upcoming writing tasks.

Part 2

For this portion, construct a fully AI-generated piece of writing, provide it to the students, and direct them to annotate the entire document for signals of AI. Please note you may have to go over how to annotate with your class as well. Before moving on, check with students to see if more time is needed before moving on to the next step. After individual work time, organize students into Think Pair Shares to see what elements were located or missed. Share the writing prompt on the board and run a whole class discussion on the annotation process by asking students questions regarding how they made their decisions.

Part 3

Students now receive an ordinary writing prompt about a topic related to the course, which is accompanied by information about what insight you would like each paragraph to have. Essentially, give students a regular writing assignment as you normally would. Students are first to generate an AI-written paragraph using that prompt and specifics. Then, students are to write their own paragraph; the content can overlap, and the ideas can be similar or the same but should be developed/expanded on completely in their own writing. Students are to put their name on both and indicate on the back of the page which one is the original.

Part 4

This part of this activity will have to take place on another day to give students enough time to write their paragraphs. This is where the lesson can develop into either two streams being a whole class activity or an Around the World Activity. Please use your professional judgment to determine which activity would better suit your students.

• Whole Class: This activity can be done through volunteers or a randomized draw (https://wheelofnames.com/). The two written works are projected next to each other on the board, and the class reads the paragraphs together. Elements of the paragraphs get dissected collectively by the whole class, and then the class votes on which one is the fake AI-generated piece. A class tally is kept on the board to keep a score of how many points were correctly identified as AI-generated.
• Around the World Activity: Half of the class sits with their two writing pieces and the other half of the class rotates to view and declare which is the fake. Students are to keep an individual tally then if they made the correct informed guess to detect the AI piece. After the first half of the students have all rotated through, the sections will flip so the other half of the class can go around. Optional: Students can then share their scores for friendly competition at the end

Key Benefits

After the lesson, students will have context for understanding the current state of AI-generated writing and why the process limits personal development beyond grade achievement. Additionally, moving forward, students may be able to have some foundational knowledge of how to identify AI. Students will also have had the opportunity to use AI as a tool to help generate ideas that they can then adapt and take further.

References

Crothers, E., Japkowicz, N., & Viktor, H. L. (2023). Machine generated text: A comprehensive survey of threat models and detection methods. IEEE Access, 11, 70977-71002, https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3294090

Government of Ontario. (2023). Grade 9 English curriculum. Retrieved April 2024, from https://www.dcp.edu.gov.on.ca/en/curriculum/secondary-english/courses/enl1w

Government of Ontario. (2010). Growing success. Retrieved April 2024, from https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growsuccess.pdf

Heikkiläa, M. (2022, December 19). How to spot AI-generated text. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved April 28, 2024, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065596/how-to-spot-ai-generated-text/

Ontario College of Teachers. (n.d.). Professional standards.  Retrieved April 2024, from https://www.oct.ca/public/professional-standards/ethical-standards

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.

About the author

name: Stephanie Vranchidis

Stephanie Vranchidis, HBA, B.Ed, is a History and English teacher at the DDSB. Stephanie’s classroom philosophy encourages students to see the importance of being leaders in their own learning, building a positive classroom community, and celebrating each student’s individuality and particular skill sets.